Yesterday the project management software company Basecamp made it official that employees couldn’t have discussions about politics on their internal comms tools. Last fall Coinbase, the crypto currency platform, declared “political neutrality” in the workplace.
What’s interesting here isn’t that these groups announced what they did. It’s that I’ve never worked in a place where they told us it was just fine to talk about politics around the office. And that firms feel compelled to publicly declare what is mostly the stated policies of any corp USA.
One thought is that it’s a bit like announcing one is leaving Twitter. It’s theater. An internal memo that reminds people to respect each other’s views by limiting political advocacy in the “office” would be reenforcing a broadly accepted norm. That didn’t scratch the itch. Because the announcement is the point. It’s a statement. This is a serious company. We don’t have time for the nonsense.
Maybe it’s that simple. That they said it out loud and anyone cared at all is something to think about.
Discussions on whether or not corporations should or shouldn’t remain politically agnostic aren’t that useful. There’s really no such thing as an apolitical corporation. Nearly every large corp participates in or even creates its own lobby. And every one has branding and employment considerations that impact them. So the idea that there’s true politically disinterested entity isn’t honest. And whether or not groups like Basecamp and Coinbase want to go through the branding exercise of political atheism is entirely up to them. But politics persist though. And the spaces between the policy and the reality are interesting.
I’m 20 years into the work environment by now. I’ve been that time in two professional universes; SOCOM and Silicon Valley based tech. Both places had institutions with policies against letting people speak for their organizations politically. Both formally discourage political advocacy in the work places. Both still had no immunity from the nonsense of politics. On the contrary. They had/have clear and near homogenous political cultures. Despite formal declarations to prohibit them, political cultures within those organizations metastasized. It wasn’t the media or special interest groups that caused it. It was organic. And it was, and remains, quite resilient.
So when we start talking about abolishing political expression at work circa 2021 America, I’ve got questions that I don’t have great answers to. Because the rules haven’t changed. But the debate has.
When organizations claim there are no politics in the work place, ardently and as a brand identity, what do they do with all the politics in the work place?
or…
What’s actually political today?
Family leave policies? Work visas? A commitment to diversity and inclusion?
Can your CEO shake hands with the President without enraging some part of your organization?
Is hiring veterans a political statement?
There’s more. Much much more.
The questions come fast and eventually become less possible to answer.
The DOD, because it’s the DOD and is the sort of institution that has lists on things you can and can’t do, has a list of political things you can and can’t do. The list is mostly focused on ensuring the institution of the military not be seen as politically partisan. The regulation is not really designed to help people navigate an inherently politically charged 2021 America. Because the problem isn’t the policies on political expression. The problem is the flavor of salient political expression right now. Declarations of political neutrality don’t solve the problem. Because the problem isn’t the rules. The problem is the politics. Declaring you’re free and clear is a bit like declaring you’re cured of cancer because you decided you were.
I’m not sure how to fix it without fixing the debate. If I knew how to do that, this Substack would have a higher subscription fee. Boring federal executives feels like one way. Maybe more of that gets us there. Maybe we just get bored of it. Political salience ebbs and flows historically. So there’s a trough coming at some point.
Until then though, it’s sufficient to make a declaration of my own…in the spirit of radical equilibrium. Consider it declared:
I promise not to be political at work. And to try to treat every human I meet with dignity. And I value the expansion of opportunity (life liberty and the pursuit of happiness) for individuals and groups who need it.
When that becomes a slippery political expression, then we’re ready for the asteroid.