"They" do not help "Us"
As a Transformation and Change manager I look for many things in the ways individuals and team's behave and interact in order to asses how to work with them to effect a successful change. One of the big things that I am on constant watch for is "Them" and "Us" language and to whom the "Them" (and the "Us") is being applied! This language is language that signals conflict, or potential for conflict and is a great bell-weather to look for.
"Us" could be a development team who are cross with a release management or operations team; "They" stop the dev team releasing code, but the two groups are part of the same company, a company that is trying to be successful in it's market - both groups will fail if they do not recognise this. They are both part of a larger "Us" - the company they all work for
"Us" could be a product management team who have contracted a third party firm to help a deliver a specific change, "They" will not adopt to our agile ways of working and move away from the fixed scope they were contracted for, but both groups are part of a change project - both will fail if they do not work together and recognise the larger "Us" - the change project that joins them.
"Us" could be the users of some office productivity tools who call an outsourced support desk for help. "They" do not understand how we work and close calls without resolving them - Life was better before "They" took on support, but both groups (again) are part of a joint eco-system of users and support, part of the wider company - again the users and support partner will fail if they do not recognise the "Us" - the company they both work for and that pays (directly or indirectly) their salaries
Make it personal
I'll pick up on that last point first. One of the best ways I've found to get those who have developed a "Them" and "Us" world view is to break it down to a personal level: To talk about who pays the salaries, who is going to have a great looking CV and a bonus (and who may not), that "They" are human co-workers who have work pressures and conflicting requirements the same as "Us". Get folk to pause and make the issue personal and human. Remove the corporate, political view.
Us = Them + Us
Invariably the "Them" and "Us" will be part of some larger collection. In other words there will be a group that includes the two groups; the group calling themselves "Us" and the group they refer to as "Them". Moving both groups to recognise their shared connection is the first step to resolving such a conflict. Create a new joined "Us"
I've come across all of the above scenarios in my career.
The dev team's scrum master had a rant on the corporate intranet about the Release management process and how "They" were hindering his team. After a quick chat he realised that the release management team knew nothing about him and his (obviously) stellar team. I advised him to go and learn about them, their process, how many other teams they supported and maybe why there was a 'delay' in releasing his team's great work. After a week he came back much wiser. He now has a named contact to join in the backlog planning of the dev team and has re jigged his kanban release schedule to take into account the test scenarios and release gates required by the release management team. There's a way to go on their (now joint) agile journey, but removing the Them and Us conflict got them past what could have been a huge blocker to their devops vision
Don't talk about "Them", "They" are human too!
An in-house product team were moving the corporation to a cloud based talent and learning solution and had contracted a large systems integration house for a fixed scope. [as an aside this is always a very bad idea, but that's a topic for another day!]. I pointed out that it was not "They" who were delaying the programme but the way "We" had contracted "Them". I worked with procurement to tear up the previous contract, re-contracted "Them" on a time and materials basis, got the whole team on one space and told them I didn't give two hoots about who paid their salaries, from now on "We" were going to deliver the best system ever seen; on time and on budget and all have the most amazing looking CV's. There is no Them and Us just the team standing together in the room. Everyone realised that they had a common purpose, if only to make sure they were each part of a successful program!
Don't talk about "Them", "They" are central to our success!
Outsourcing will always be hard, even if the staff move from in-house over to the new provider. IT Support desks that were once "Dave" who sat in our office but who is now replaced by a faceless name in some remote country is particularly hard. It is a lot easier for those who are 'left behind' in an outsource to consider themselves "Us" and the outsource team "Them". "They" are doing bad things to "Us" and tearing the previous, larger "Us" apart. This whole scenario is one of the more difficult to approach, and probably an entire subject for another day. In my experience it is the language used by the leadership team and those who display leadership across both the corporation and it's outsource partner that will make the most impact. One needs to start early, to make sure 'partnership' is talked about and that the folk who will manage the relationship develop a maturity of thought to consider the partner's workforce part of their own and vis-versa - the partner must work to imbue a sense of their new customer in their staff. I have worked with senior staff on both sides of an outsource to ensure the use of "Us" and "We" language and that through their behaviour they consistently demonstrate inclusivity of tone and style. This ripples out. There are many other aspects that must be considered as well, for example; spend the cash and bring remote workers into the local offices to meet and spend time with staff, remove the distance and faceless nature, even of only for a few days. Again make things real and personal for folk. Work hard to create a new sense of common purpose and a larger "Us".
Don't talk about "Them", "They" are still part of a new "Us".
In short, beware. Look out for "Them" and "Us" being spoken of. Yes, you have to allow it as a natural human rant - we all love to blame "Others", but work to calm it in your teams. We are natural team players by and large, we need to recognise that our individual success relies many, many times on many, many "Others" and "Them". Work with key individuals and teams to make "Them" human and linked to a wider sense of "Us". Make things personal and you will have teams that are much more successful.
Finally watch out for the use of military language. This is the escalation of "Them" and "Us" language. If you do come across a change of metaphors in your teams (or in your own language) to use military terms E.g. talk of "War rooms" and; "We may have won the battle, but the war is not over" and; "we need to draw a line in the sand", then "They" have become "The Enemy"! Good luck in clawing back a joint sense of "Us" in these scenarios!