Oct. 27, 2024

I arrived at a Walgreens pharmacy to pick up a prescription last week during the one 30-minute window their employees have for a lunch break.

I didn’t realize that happens to be 1:30 to 2 p.m., so it left me with time to wait — and a sign that caught my attention.

“The person caring for you is also someone’s loved one,” it read.

“Please be kind and refrain from disrespectful behavior.”

I saw it outside of South Daklota, but a quick search revealed that these signs appear to be up at locations nationwide.

Imagine the series of irate customers that must have led up to the decision to post this message, which literally is just attempting to humanize the employees probably already working in challenging conditions.

It was a timely observation, given what I’d shared days earlier in our e-newsletter about this piece from Alternative HR, one of our content partners.

It talked about how, according to the Society for Human Resources Management, or SHRM, workplace incivility is on the rise.

A recent SHRM survey found that 66 percent of U.S. workers had experienced or witnessed incivility within the past month, and 57 percent had experienced incivility within the past week.

A Georgetown University survey found that 76 percent of respondents said they experienced or witnessed incivility at least once a month.

I shared in my message that I also have noticed an increase in backlash from our readers, including to seemingly innocuous stories. Topics that have little if anything to do with government are politicized, and readers easily take to bickering with each other. I realize that’s a common response to news coverage, but it’s not what we normally have to moderate with business news.

It didn’t take long before I had a message from a business leader who heads a professional services office in our community.

“In the past three weeks, I have personally experienced clients using profanity towards me, yelling at me and threatening my reputation,” this person said.

“I am in a good position because my firm is a huge advocate of me and of our employees and will give us the support that we need in these situations. And so grateful that it is not happening within our firm.”

This business leader went on to wonder why this was happening.

“I have only had situations like this three times in my career, with two in the last month,” this person said. “These are all professional settings and professionals, who in my mind should know better. It feels like something is in the air.”

Alternative HR leader Dan Oakland observes that “incivility certainly seems to be on the rise in the media, in politics and across social media, and there is a carryover into the workplace,” he said.

“When I started in the workforce several decades ago, there was a whole lot more blatant discrimination and harassment based on race and gender than I see today. But incivility can be very subtle. Incivility comes out as snide comments, false rumors and gossip, withholding information, giving someone the silent treatment and other disruptive behaviors.”

I’m sure many of you, like I am, are counting down the days until this next election is over. As I was putting together this message, I heard from someone else who was disheartened that political discourse had infiltrated a meeting that should have had nothing to do with it. I find myself mystified by the conspiracy theories repeated publicly by people I credited with more sensible judgement.

I do think fear drives anger, to bring the topic full circle, whether that’s fear of change, fear of the unknown or fear of something you’ve been convinced is a distinct possibility despite reality to the contrary.

“I’ve seen underlying insecurity and instability in people that I have been meeting with,” the business leader who contacted me agreed.

“No matter what we’re talking about. … Some of this is typical for an election year, but this year feels different especially with the combativeness that spills into professional work settings.”

Can we pause for a moment to consider how ridiculous and unproductive that is? Can we reflect on the true need for retention of talent in the workplace and what an environment like this does to many and their choice of where to work? If you’re a leader, the rise of incivility needs to be on your radar.

And if you’re passionate about civic involvement, including voting, I believe part of your civic duty is to watch your content diet. If you consistently consume content that is hostile, biased and combative, and surround yourself with others who reinforce that demeanor, it likely is going to permeate into your own interactions, including at work.

And for those more tempted to detach and disengage, that’s not the answer, either.

I recently had a chance to sit down with Sen. Mike Rounds, with little reporting agenda other than to begin by asking what’s on his plate in the U.S. Senate, where his committee roles include armed services, chairing the subcommittee on cybersecurity, and the select committee on intelligence.

Essentially, Rounds has a front-row seat to both the threats and opportunities that exist related to the highest levels of technology out there, including artificial intelligence. On the day I talked to him, he was preparing to address a conference of tech leaders at the forefront of AI on the topic of the integration of AI into defense.

We talked about the ongoing use of misinformation by Russia as a sort of weapon, and of China, which is “behind us” in AI, but “not by years, but by months,” he said.

We discussed the very real threat of AI combined with biological weapons but conversely about the incredible possibilities AI presents in curing cancer and other chronic illnesses draining Medicare dollars and crushing quality of life.

“I want to cure these maladies,” Rounds said. “I believe we can significantly delay the onset of Parkinson’s and significantly delay if not eliminate Alzheimer’s, let alone cancer, so I want to accelerate that and do it to improve quality of life and really start chipping away at a federal deficit we have to address.”

These, to me, are the things that matter in determining who and how this country should be led.

When you recognize the very real conditions we’re facing going forward, you suddenly find yourself worrying a lot more about educating the people we need for the jobs of the future and a lot less about berating your colleagues for some comparatively minor oversight.

When you consider the catastrophic implications of bad decision-making depending on who runs the government, the political theater out there starts to feel more like what it is — a distraction not worth feeding into.

Cure cancer and other debilitating diseases by harnessing technology that already exists or is rapidly evolving? That’s the stuff worth getting fired up about. I bet the pharmacists at Walgreens would agree.

Fighting workplace incivility with ‘Workplace CPR’