Russ Yarrow
Senior Advisor, The Dialogue Project; Retired Director of Corporate Affairs, Chevron
If one thing is certain in business today, to paraphrase Heraclitus, it is that things have never been more uncertain. Polarization and uncertainty are the double helix of today’s environment. From geopolitics to domestic politics, tariffs to taxes, AI to climate, everything is in flux and common ground is hard to find.
“I spend a lot of time in C-suites,” Tim Adams, head of the Institute of International Finance, a trade group for the financial services industry, said at Davos this year. “I think they’re all trying to figure out, how do you navigate through these times.”
To be sure, polarization is a pervasive and growing problem. There are some solutions for business, which we’ll discuss in a moment. But first, consider the scale of the challenge, which is sobering.
- SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, has been tracking the impact of polarization in the workplace through its Civility Index since 2024. At the end of 2025, according to SHRM, U.S. workers collectively experienced 212 million acts of incivility per day and businesses lost approximately $2.3 billion daily in reduced productivity and absenteeism due to incivility. At the same time, according to SHRM, up to three-quarters of respondents say that managers could do more to moderate polarizing behavior in the workplace.
- Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer, released at Davos in January, had similar findings. Among the study’s more than 30,000 respondents, 42 percent agreed with the statement that “I would rather switch departments than work for a manager with different values than me.” Thirty-four percent agreed with the statement, “If my project team leader had different political beliefs than me, I would put less effort into helping them succeed.”
“We are withdrawing from dialogue and compromise,” said Richard Edelman. “There’s been a huge spike in nationalism. We choose individual benefit over mutual advancement.”
At the Dialogue Project at Duke University, where we’ve been tracking these trends for the past several years, we view the data as a clear threat to business — but also an opportunity. The Dialogue Project was founded on the premise that business holds a unique position to help bridge the deepening divide of polarization; in fact, the data now indicate that it has an imperative to do so.
Research conducted by Edelman
According to the Edelman research, roughly three-quarters of all respondents say that our major institutions — business, NGOs, media and government — are obligated to help bridge divides and facilitate trust-building among polarized groups. But less than half think those institutions do so effectively, although business generally is seen as the most effective on a relative basis.
In terms of building trust, though, “My Employer” was ranked as the most effective by a significant margin, a phenomenon Edelman described as “proximal trust.”
This opportunity to bridge divides — and in the process drive employee engagement, trust and alignment — should be viewed as a strategic asset and a fundamental business skill. Given the Edelman data showing that almost three-quarters of those surveyed view it as an “obligation” it could legitimately be called a mandate.
So how should business respond? Here are three suggestions.
Understand the Environment. Societal division is continuing to deepen and trending toward the phenomenon of “affective polarization,” where we don’t just disagree with each other, but also make moral judgments about those with whom we disagree. As polarization and distrust combine, they create measurable friction in the workplace that impacts productivity, efficiency, and innovation, which was dramatically highlighted in the SHRM research. Understanding this dynamic is the first step in managing it.
Build a Culture of Dialogue and Trust. “Dialogue drives progress,” declared FSG Global, a stakeholder strategy firm, coming out of Davos this year. (Indeed, it was a dialogue between President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at Davos that seemed to pull the issue of Greenland’s sovereignty back from the brink of military intervention.) Dialogue is not just a concept, but the very foundation of effective strategy, productive teams, and an aligned workforce. Smart companies understand this and build cultures around it, the same way that companies build sustainable cultures around safety, innovation, or other core values. At the Dialogue Project, we’ve showcased examples of how some companies are doing this and creating business value. In the most successful companies, business performance is always downstream from culture.
Develop the Tools of Trust. Enabling dialogue, bridging divides, and building trust are core business skills that can be learned and executed with the help of some fundamental tools. Here are a few.
- Authentic dialogue, which can be defined as a genuine, open, and honest exchange of ideas, feelings, and perspectives between individuals or groups, characterized by mutual respect, active listening, empathy, and a commitment to mutual understanding without manipulation, hidden agendas, or power imbalances. This is a skill that can be taught and learned, like other basic business disciplines.
- Role-modeling is an effective way for business leaders to build a culture of dialogue. Be transparent. Make your thinking visible. Promote diversity of viewpoints in decision-making. What leaders say and do matter. Ask yourself if your words and actions always come from a place of visibly promoting dialogue and trust.
- Drive dialogue around data. A fundamental rule of good decision-making in business is “leave your bias at the door.” In other words, build strategies and plans based on quantifiable data with an open mind toward their application. As circumstances change and new data develops, “update your priors,” as a Bayesian scientist would say. Quantifiable data take ambiguity and bias out of decision-making, reducing polarization and building trust in the process.
At the Dialogue Project, we’re concerned about persistent polarization, but we’re also optimistic about the response from business and its potential to play an even more constructive role in rebuilding societal trust going forward. Business has many inherent advantages in playing this role. It has convening power over tens of millions of employees. It provides an environment where new skills, such as authentic dialogue, can be learned. And it has a foundation of organic alignment to achieve objectives that are bigger than any single individual.
Given today’s environment, we believe that building dialogue and trust is not only beneficial for business but also represents social responsibility of the highest order. It helps build a better future for all of us.