Business.com aims to help business owners make informed decisions to support and grow their companies. We research and recommend products and services suitable for various business types, investing thousands of hours each year in this process.
As a business, we need to generate revenue to sustain our content. We have financial relationships with some companies we cover, earning commissions when readers purchase from our partners or share information about their needs. These relationships do not dictate our advice and recommendations. Our editorial team independently evaluates and recommends products and services based on their research and expertise. Learn more about our process and partners here.
Severance: Keep Your Departments From Going to War
The acclaimed Apple TV+ series is surreal, but one of its themes — how a company can pit employees against one another — is very real.
Source: Cnet
The following contains spoilers.
Apple TV+’s Severance, which was nominated for 14 Emmy nominations in 2022, including Outstanding Drama Series, is a surreal, hilarious, and disturbing commentary on the workplace. Season 1 leaves a lot to the imagination, but one thing is very clear: Lumon Industries does not want its departments collaborating.
One department (Optics & Design) believes that another department (Macrodata Refinement) is infested with malicious parasites and could turn on them in an instant. The folks in Macrodata Refinement believe Optics & Design was responsible for initiating a coup years ago. And no one seems to know why there’s a department raising baby goats.
Whatever Lumon’s reasons are for keeping its departments separated, its tactics do the trick: The departments see each other as enemies. They’re fearful of one another. And rather than collaborate, they maintain a cold, competitive edge.
That’s an extreme example, but interdepartmental competition is very real and very unproductive. Workplace conflict accounts for $359 billion in wasted hours per year. It’s downright dangerous in the healthcare sector, with a Mayo Clinic study finding, “4 of 10 conflict stories had potential consequences for the quality of patient care.”
Unless you have grand dystopian plans like Lumon does, you’ll probably accomplish your goals quicker — and grow your business more — if your employees don’t think they’re at war with each other.