"It is us against them"

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In the professional world...
"Us against them" situations rarely start out that way.
Most of the situations we find ourselves in have a goal of mutual success.
A win-win result is always better for the longevity of business than its arch enemy,the lopsided "lose-win" situation. 
And mutual success is something we achieve through equal effort and cooperation.
"Us" makes its division into "us against them" when two or more parties assume different or contradictory viewpoints about the same situation. 
At this point, communication becomes a challenge and sometimes stops all together.

"us against them" is a viewpoint issue.
often occurring when we make assumptions about the cause of another persons actions.
The division of teams, deals, corporations and any relationship rarely occur because of one isolated incident.
More often, "us against them" as a perspective develops from a slow unwinding where a single loose thread gets longer and longer because it wasn't "snipped" when we first noticed something was out of place.

The risk of not addressing divisions as they arise:
Before you know it...the "loose thread" is to long to just "snip" and now you have a pile of thread where a garment used to be.

Good news:
 
If the situation is so bad that all we have left from a garment is a pile of thread...
It just means it is time to make something new again.
Or in our case as humans...
This is a time to redefine and remind each other of what the greater goal is for us both.
Rebuild.
If we commit a true effort to this endeavor we will likely see that we are all on the same side.

So how do we get to that place where we are able to let go of "us against them" thinking and rebuild the dynamic?:

#1. We acknowledge the previous problems we were struggling with as situational and not personal.
We verbally tell the people we share a goal with that we will make an effort to gain insight into their perspective and we insit the same in return.
#2. We will put in place a system that EVERYONE recognizes as a method for communicating in both good times and challenging ones.

It will take some mediation.
It will take honesty.
It will take effort.

BUT! ...
It will make life easier.
It will get all parties the acknowledgement they deserve.
And It WILL be worth it.

If it is true that we must first sew what we one day can reap, then it is imperative to pay attention to the details of the situations we are creating through our "sewing" efforts.

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