When gossip affects morale - how to deal with gossip in the workplace
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.
Then close with, “Who creates the culture of our company? It’s all of us. Can I ask all of you to commit to treating each other by these values we’ve discussed today?” The employees who were doing this all along will feel pleased and proud. Those who have been violating these values will be put on notice about the new standards everyone has had a voice in establishing. Now, all employees and managers have a set of ground rules to use when recognizing those who live by the standards and to coach an employee when a violation occurs.
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86 Creative Ideas for Having More Fun & Less Stress at Work, is packed with ideas for building employee satisfaction and work/life balance while reducing stress in your workplace. Guaranteed to give you fresh ideas any company can implement in categories such as: Fun with a Purpose, Building a Family Atmosphere & a Sense of Community, Having Fun at Work for the Sake of Fun, Rewarding Great Performance & Stress Busters!
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