To the extent that leaders consider workplace unity at all, they tend to think in terms of fixing what’s broken. Discord is overlooked in countless forms and action is taken only when conditions get truly out of hand, when people are shouting in hallways or departments are refusing to work with one another.
But just as peace at its fullest and most meaningful is more than just an end to war, organizational unity is much more than a mere lack of disunity. Rather, it is a dynamic state of interpersonal coherence that can, with time and effort, be built within an organization. It is a condition that requires, but also nurtures, a wide array of shared goals, values, priorities, and hopes for the future.
To build such a culture, workplace coherence must be adopted not only as an explicit organizational goal but also a principle of operation. Leaders must strive to build ever greater unity, but only through means that are themselves unifying: by establishing commonality of purpose, opening opportunities for dialogue, actively involving employees, fostering true teamwork, building consensus, and the like.
Well-worn justifications of the status quo – ideas like “we don’t have to like each other to work together” – are so common in the world of business that concepts of unity and disunity can seem naïve or idealistic.
Nevertheless, any endeavor that lacks coherence of effort and commonality of vision will find itself beset by numerous difficulties stemming from chronic disagreement, friction, and discord. And though it may keep soldiering on, that lack of unity will be an inescapable drain on energy, talent, time, and resources.
Organizations can and do survive disunity. The swings of fortune may even endow some with success and a certain measure of acclaim. But conflict, hostility, discord, apathy and indifference take their inevitable toll. For only a profound alignment of aims, values, and aspirations allows organizations to leverage to their highest and fullest the human potential latent within them.
Any organization can be successful for a time. Only unified ones can be consistently great.