Gossip in the office
By Joan Lloyd
Dear Joan:
We have a small office with fewer than fifty employees, mostly
women. Right now we are dealing with a problem within the
office of employees gossiping about other employees, as well as
information leaks within the company (i.e., details discussed in a
performance review). It is really affecting morale
here. We are having a company-wide meeting soon and
I’ve been asked to address the issue.
Can you offer some dialogue/language to introduce this
difficult but widespread problem?
Answer:
Most innocent gossip is a conversation filler. People chat
about what’s going on at work; they speculate about the
meaning behind a decision, or they grumble about a policy. But when
it turns ugly it is usually a symptom of a more serious
problem—either with a few people or within the culture
itself.
One manager I know decided she was going to stamp out gossip.
She called a meeting and scolded the group, “I won’t
tolerate this constant gossiping,” she said. “If I
catch anyone gossiping they are going to have to answer to
me.” All the team members sat around the table and no one
spoke. As soon as the meeting was adjourned, they all went back to
their desks and started sending emails to each other about the
meeting; some talked in the rest room and others in the break room.
In other words, the manager didn’t wipe out gossip—she
just drove it deeper underground. And she gave them something new
to gossip about!
I think you will have a more positive outcome if you take a
less preachy, scolding approach. It you simply lecture them, the
guilty will seethe and the innocent will feel unfairly chastised.
In either case, you may not get much personal commitment to
solving the problem. And if everyone denies a problem exists, you
may even make the situation worse.
Instead, I’d recommend a participative approach that
creates more ownership for solving the problem. Attacking someone
behind their back or spreading confidential information is a
respect issue, so you could come at the problem from a slightly
different angle.
Even though there are fifty people, the group is still small
enough to facilitate a process that gets people talking in a
positive way about treating each other with respect and dignity.
You might say, “I’d like to involve all of you in a
discussion about our company culture. Company culture could be
defined as how you feel about this environment as a place to work,
and how you are treated by one another at work. Just like each of
you has a family culture, each workplace has a culture too. Many
companies today are defining the culture they want, so they can
take steps to move in that direction.
I’d like you to get into groups of four or five and
brainstorm the answer to this question: “In the ideal
workplace, how would everyone treat each other?” I’d
like one person in each group to take notes because we will get
together in 10 minutes to discuss your answers. (Make sure you have
spare pens and paper available.)
When they are finished, ask for a spokesperson from each
group. Then go from group to group, each one gives one answer and
you continue until there is duplication. Have a colleague
write down answers from each group on a flip chart.
Then ask another question: “Now that you’ve listed
what the ideal workplace culture would be like, I’d like you
to rate on a scale from 1-10 (best), how you think we are doing
right now in our culture. A “1” rating means you think
we are doing very poorly against this ideal goal, and a 10 means we
are ideal.” Give them a few minutes to assign a number. Then
ask them to compare notes with their group and discuss why they
rated it the way they did.
Ask the spokesperson to share some of the reasons for the
scores in their group. This way, the group members are
“safe” and don’t have to share their ratings with
all fifty people. I can predict that some of the comments will
revolve around respect and trust issues. Gossip will surely be one
of the things they bring up.
Then ask the groups to discuss what behaviors would move the
numbers up. If they respond like most groups, they will comment on
face-to-face resolution of conflicts, keeping confidences, not
gossiping and all the basic things people know to be trust-building
activities.
If you don’t have at least 45 minutes to devote to this
activity you can still do a quick
brainstorm in groups to identify the ideal culture and go
quickly around the room. Then you can use their words to reinforce
the importance of creating a healthy culture. You can reference the
feedback you have been hearing about negative gossip and
confidential information and use that as examples of things that
will create a cancer in the culture. You can ask everyone to take
the high road and build a great culture together.
