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Updated Jul 10, 2023

Severance: Keep Your Departments From Going to War

Ali Saleh, Contributing Writer

Severance TV show

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.

Ali Saleh, Contributing Writer
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