Every organization has like minded individuals that go to lunch together, join volunteer groups and actively participate within the organization. This is definitely healthy workplace relationship building which is strongly encouraged. However, when it becomes unhealthy is when coworkers, groups or departments attempt to form alliances against other people, other groups or other departments. These types of environments create distrust and hurt the overall organization. So how should employees handle these situations when they feel they are being “recruited” into an alliance? Stay neutral! Here are a few ways to respond when an employee feels they are being recruited while remaining neutral.

Actively Listen

Listening is always best way to understand a situation and a point of view. It does not necessarily mean we agree, it means we are seeking to understand. As we know, there are two sides to every story and the more we listen and learn, the more we understand the root issue. When we understand the root issue, then it becomes easier to formulate potential solutions.

Ways to Respond

There are various ways to respond to stay neutral and defuse a situation. Acknowledgement of how someone feels by saying,

• “I’m sorry you feel this way.”

is not agreeing with the person, it’s just acknowledging how they feel. If done with true sincerity, it will help calm potential emotions. A person’s perception is their reality whether we agree with the perception or not.

When a person is sharing their experience about another and you sense the person wants you to agree, a response of

• “I haven’t experienced or seen that behavior with the person”

lets the person know you are going to stay neutral and not necessarily agree with their perception. It doesn’t mean they won’t try again, but it gives them an idea that you want to stay neutral. Another response that keeps us neutral, especially when we truly like both people or groups is to just say,

• “I really respect both of you and really want to stay out of it.”

That is a strong queue to the other that we don’t want to take sides and usually the “recruitment” stops. (I’m not a huge fan of this response, especially as a manager, but I have seen it work.)

Offering Solutions

When we stay neutral, we are in a better position to offer solutions for perhaps both alliances. The employees who have reputations for staying neutral are usually those who can provide feedback and solutions to others without becoming defensive. The bottom line is that forming alliances is extremely unhealthy and unproductive so the faster we can open the lines of communication to resolve the issue, the better. Perhaps we don’t have a solution to offer but still want to help, we can say,

• “Is there anything I can do?”

allows us to stay neutral but still making us available to help solve the problem. Sometimes the person will not take us up on the offer but other times they might!

The larger the organization, the higher the chances of employees, groups and/or departments forming alliances against another. These are very destructive so the key to defusing and dissolving these situations is to first actively listen! The more we listen, the more we understand and the faster we can solve the root problem. The second step is to always remain neutral in our responses while still acknowledging how people may feel. Acknowledgment of feelings is not agreeing with a person, it’s just acknowledging how they feel. When we stay neutral and listen, we can then offer to help while minimizing defensiveness. It’s up to every employee to create and support a healthy, productive and inclusive work environment. Dissolving destructive alliances leads us towards this goal.