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Ted Bauer
Ted Bauer
FTWtoday City Editor | Writer | Content Marketing | EMail Marketing | Former ESPN, PBS, Microsoft, more | HubSpot and Google certified | Pretty transparent about adulthood, for good/bad
Published Jan 14, 2015
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Even if you're a super-busy person with a ton of meetings and deliverables, there's a good chance you've engaged in some workplace gossip at least once in the previous five days. It's actually very natural; I think once you've worked at a place even a few weeks, you know the people who do it the best or the funniest -- and when you see them in the hallways, you're almost expecting that's where the conversation is likely to head.
When I worked at ESPN in New York City, once there was a core group of us working on similar projects, we used to go to Chipotle every Thursday. That thing became an uber-gossip session; awkwardly, about 17 months into the process, one of my co-workers (probably the most aspirational, career-wise, of all of us) would periodically invite our boss. That obviously halted the gossip side of things and made it much more formal. It's always interesting to think how much social norms can change from the interjection of one person into a situation.
I think everyone who has gossiped probably has an idea why they gossip -- it feels good, it relieves stress about a particular topic/person/situation, etc. -- and probably has ideas on the origins of gossip (although there's a good chance people aren't thinking so deeply about that). I've thought about gossip a fair bit, in part because I used to get accused of "being a gossip" (not wholly untrue), and in part because I'm a naturally curious human being.
I came across this article on Harvard Business Review today which purports to explain how to reduce gossip on your team (in essence, stop enabling it). This is maybe the greatest single explainer of gossip at work I've ever read, though:
People engage in gossip when they lack trust or efficacy. We become consumers of gossip when we don’t trust formal channels — so we turn to trusted friends rather than doubtful leaders. We become purveyors of it when we feel we can’t raise sensitive issues more directly — so we natter with neighbors rather than confronting offenders.
"... when they lack trust or efficacy."
Think about this for a second:
- Gossip is a fairly pervasive aspect of many organizational cultures.
- Trust isn't necessarily at a premium in many orgs.
- Leaders can be doubtful.
- We don't tend to discuss failure and hard concepts that openly at work.
When you think about Items 2, 3 and 4 above, is it any wonder gossip is as pervasive an organizational fixture as it often tends to be?
Sometimes I wonder whether there really are simpler solutions to this idea of "trusting formal channels" -- like leaders simply walking around more, or a more effective internal communications structure, or a re-formulation of meetings. I'm probably naive, though.
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4 Comments
Keith J.
Operations Leader Collaborator Team Player
9y
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It is interesting how quickly a gossip session can turn into a brainstorming activity or a toxic mess. Your point about the one person being injected can turn the situation is interesting. However, the right question in the right context and at the right time can turn the gossip into something productive. For instance, in one session the question was asked about why a person was acting in a way that was frustrating. Exploration found it was not the person but the system and this resulted in our group of gossipers deciding to do something about it. Maybe we should challenge ourselves in a gossip session to ask why and is it the person who is the issue or the system.
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Betty Jo K.
Retired
9y
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I really like the quote here "... when they lack trust or efficacy." I work for a great company whom often is looking to employees to express how we can become a "great place to work", one of the things that we keep hearing is that employees don't fee they can talk to leadership or they don't trust going through the channels offered. I myself have been guilty of gossip though I am not fond of it and do not practice as a rule especially in the work place. But I do find this article interesting.
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