Citizenship At Work: Dealing With Politics Inside and Outside The Company

The Josh Bersin Company

Given this week’s political news, I wanted to share my thoughts on “Citizenship,” the way we as employees and individuals work together to help our company and our society make decisions the benefit everyone. We live in a world of shatteringly fast change, with two global wars, a rising sense of mistrust of political systems, and enormous changes to our working and family lives.

Despite all this change, and the difficult decisions we must make, there is a process for continuous improvement. And this process, which I label Citizenship, applies to our companies, our teams, as well as our cities, states, and societies. This podcast discusses this issue and is here to convince you that you, as an individual manager, employee, or leader, have an enormously important role in creating a positive, high-performing community in your company.

Citizenship: the character of an individual viewed as a member of society; behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen: e.g. an award for good citizenship. (Dictionary.com, based on Oxford English Dictionary.)

Sound Bites

• “The reason we have political systems in the world is to find a way for individuals and businesses to legislate, debate, argue, and negotiate the resource allocation of a country, of a state, or a city.”
• “A company is essentially a small society. We have to make decisions on how we allocate resources as well.”
• “Citizenship to me is a really wonderful word because what it tends to mean is you as an individual, we as individuals have two fundamental roles in society.”

Keywords politics, citizenship, resource allocation, organizations, internal citizenship, diversity, financial performance, Workday, DEI, Starbucks, society, government

Additional Information

World-Class Diversity and Inclusion: Elevating Equity (Josh Bersin Academy Certificate Course)

The Voice of the Employee (Certificate Course)

Giving Voice to Values (Certificate Course)

Citizenship On The Rise: What This Means To Business and HR