General, short answer to the headline question: no, not really. Because of the recent Inauguration in the U.S., “calls for unity” is all the rage as a topic. I just did a Google News sweep and found dozens, including “Calls for unity are already being tested in Congress” and “the end of the uncivil war” and a “clash of ideologies looms.”
I think that last headline/link is probably most relevant to where we’re broadly at these days (and maybe since amoeba crawled from the oceans). We all inhabit a belief-driven world. We claim it’s a data-driven one, and we point to companies like Amazon and Facebook. In reality, most companies — including those two, probably — are largely run on the gut feel of the executives and founders, and we ascribe “data” to them when in reality it’s all a belief construct. Most things are about belief.
And that makes perfect sense: beliefs are things you hold, are dear to you, came to you from people you loved or moments that shaped you, and you have some semblance of control over your beliefs. You don’t have control over much in life. Your choice of partner? Maybe, but there are billions of people on the planet and you’re likely going to pick a partner in a 35-mile radius of where you grew up or where a job wants you to sit. It’s not as much control as you think. Your income? Sure. Maybe you play the market and make a good salary. A lot of that is controlled by people in fancy offices and, increasingly, algorithms. We don’t control much. But we do control and hold our belief structures and values, so those are very dear to us.
As such, what does a “call to unity” mean? Why would I unify with someone I think is a socialist, or someone in a silo whose function I don’t understand or respect? Right, right.
Politically
I think it tends to mean “We won this election, so come over to our side, shut the hell up, and take your lashings until you’re back on top.” I don’t see a lot of efforts to understand why liberals feel a certain way vs. why conservatives do, and I’ve seen literally zero analysis in the last decade about the difference between a 26 year-old obsessed with AOC’s Instagram and that same woman at 44 with three kids. The belief structure changes when the inputs change, and kids are a big input, but we never seem to discuss that except for a few people casually saying at a cocktail party, “Well, you know, I did get more conservative as I aged…”
At work
“Calls for unity” at work are not partisan in nature, but rather they’re “cross-functional” or “Let’s get these silos cooperating” or whatever. The other thing you’ll see is a bunch of execs take an all-hands in Aruba, do a bunch of zip lines and sit in meetings, come back and say “This is the strategy now, go execute” and if you think it’s dumb or don’t want to execute on it or have other ideas, you either put your nose to your desk and work your ass off or you get piped (fired). There’s usually an all-hands “call to cross-functional unity,” but really it means biz as usual: work hard and be OK with the scraps we throw down once everyone else gets their nut (investors, execs, etc.)
So is unity possible?
Full-scale political or work unity? No. Are most human beings similar in many regards, and often wanting of the same things? Yes. So there’s a baseline to work from, unquestionably. But people’s beliefs, which are as pesky as a fly at a summer BBQ, get in the way. You’re never going to unify with a neighbor who builds an add-on, or a guy who says Black Lives Matter if you think that’s bad branding, or someone from HR if you think they’re the office cop who doesn’t face revenue.
Full-scale unity is not possible, because life is not a beautiful guitar circle on Instagram. It’s actually pretty hard. But do we have more common ground than we think, and could we do better there? Absolutely.
And now: let’s go sit around and sing sea shanties while discussing Q2 revenue plays.
