The crisis you're missing
Elizabeth (Liz) Gulliver
Our business is your people. We elevate employee experience and drive retention & performance.
The Conversation Crisis
The people showing up to work every day aren’t just thinking about deadlines and KPIs. And when it comes to the election next week, they aren’t walking into work neutral. They’re carrying the weight of every news notification, every soundbite, and their fear about what happens if their side doesn’t win. They're anxious and distracted. Your office is a microcosm of a divided country.
Making it all worse? We’re not talking. Or listening. Just scrolling.?
I’ve been on the road non-stop the last few weeks and I’ve never been more concerned for our country - and our companies. I’ve talked to C-Suite leaders of large companies (on both sides of the aisle) who are very open about not only their personal views, but their complete and total inability (lack of desire?) to understand even one reason why someone might vote another way. Imagine if that’s the situation with your manager. How isolated would you feel?
Once upon a time, editing the news was a big deal. It was one of the most important jobs someone could have. Lenin, before he was a dictator, was a newspaper editor. Likewise, Mussolini. It gave people power, good and bad. It also came with responsibility, accountability, and liability.?
The most important news editors today - algorithms - bear none of that weight. They’re not even subject to regulation. Instead, algorithms have been given a very specific and narrow goal: increase engagement. They alone decide what you will see on your newsfeed. And they know that the fastest way to grab attention is to play into fear, greed, and hate.?
We’ve outsourced the most important job in society - editing information - to machines that are optimizing for rage and division. It’s made conversation impossible.?
That’s the environment your people are living in. That’s what they’re walking in the door with each day. We have the most sophisticated information technology in history, and people are losing the ability to hold a conversation, to talk with each other, to listen to each other.
No wonder then, people are on edge. From what happens if taxes change, to healthcare, to the moral debates over social justice, people have dug deep into their ideological trenches. They’re flooded with content that thrives on emotional reactivity, and they’re bringing that energy into the workplace - anxiety, defensiveness, and an inability to have productive conversations. When that happens, you’re not just managing people anymore, you’re managing a whole complex mess of fears, half-truths, and emotional exhaustion. And so are your managers, but they're likely not trained how to deal with that. All of it makes it harder to collaborate, empathize, or even just get things done.?
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If you think you can stay neutral, business-as-usual, you’re missing the point. Forget retention and well-being for a second, this is about the very fabric of your company. People need a leader who recognizes what they’re going through. It’s not about mental health days or perks. It’s about reclaiming space for real, human conversation and meaningful collaboration. Even if you don’t have all the answers (and you don’t), they need to know you see them.
You can’t change the election, but you can shape the environment where people spend 40+ hours of their week. Now’s the time to double down on empathy, provide facilitated dialogues, and help people feel grounded when the world outside feels anything but.
If you’re not thinking about how to address this, you're missing the biggest challenge to leadership today - keeping people connected to each other in a world that profits from tearing them apart.
This election is gonna hit everyone differently, and the best thing you can do is be human about it. It’s time to start thinking about how to lead in this new reality.
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Busy Professional Tried everything to lose weight | Athletic performance | Wellbeing and Breath Coach | 2x Ironman Canada Triathlete
3 周I resonated with the sentence "they’re flooded with content that thrives on emotional reactivity, and they’re bringing that energy into the workplace - anxiety, defensiveness, and an inability to have productive conversations". We don't seem to be able to talk about ourselves as openly only what's wrong in the world Elizabeth (Liz) Gulliver
CEO & HR Consultant @ Jacquelyn Lloyd | Fractional HR, Change Management, Unions, M&A for CPG
4 周I love this so much, Elizabeth (Liz) Gulliver. I get worried when their is too much agreement and get fired up watching a good idea become great.
Co-Founder of Kunik. Our business is your people. Kunik elevates employee experience and drives retention & performance.
4 周People just dont walk to each other anymore! How can we expect to close gaps when we dont interact. Time for my airport beer theory!
CEO, Giving Children Hope | Speaker-Consultant-Coach on Life, Leadership, and Culture | Kunik Expert
4 周Great stuff Elizabeth (Liz) Gulliver! We become what we think and do. Think and do the same things over and over, and they become habits--who we are. That's how you build individual character and organizational culture. If we want to achieve both Happiness and success in life, we need to be intentional about what influences and forms us--like social media algorithms. A great way to cross-check negative, mental habit-forming influences is to ask the question: "Does encourage me to love others or not?" Remember, love is wanting and doing what is best for another.