Would you rather be gossiped about and undermined or spoken to directly if someone has a complaint about you, or some feedback for you about something that they experience negatively in interacting with you?
Most of us would answer, spoken to directly, with the rider – "how else would I know if someone has a complaint about me, or if I have done something that upset someone?" Yet the culture in most organization is to gossip about people, make them wrong, and undermine them with others, rather than take our complaints or feedback to the person directly. At first the comments my seem innocent, even innocuous, yet they reduce the person being spoken about.
Do you recognize these corridor or water cooler conversations:
Interesting isn't it, if we damaged a desk, or a computer, or some other physical asset of the organization we would be in trouble in most organizations. If we did it repeatedly, and seemingly deliberately, we'd be fired, and may even be sued.
Yet damaging a fellow employee's standing with colleagues by gossiping about them and undermining them is accepted as part of organizational life. It's just something you have to learn to deal with. You just have to do a better job of managing brand me – be more proactive in promoting yourself. And, let no success, however small, go uncommented on. And don't forget to bury your failures, or blame someone else for them.
And, believe it or not, many organizations who tolerate gossip also say things like, our people are our most important asset. Oh yea, damaging company property (assets) will get you fired, even sued, but damaging another employee by gossiping about them and undermining them, well, that's just business.
One executive, when I pointed out the pervasiveness of gossip and how damaging it is, even retorted, that people shouldn't be so sensitive, so thin skinned, they should just grow up and learn to deal with it. That kind of response illustrates the degree on unconsciousness about the damage that gossip does to our perception of people – and therefore the ability of those people to make their full contribution.
So the golden rule: don't gossip and don't listen to gossip. It is cancerous, it damages everyone who participates and hugely sub-optimises the organizations ability to innovate and stay a vital force in their market – this is an equal opportunity destroyer, the organizational equivalent of a toxin – it indiscriminately kills off individual genius and organizational vitality, making realizing a vision and a strategy much more difficult, if not less likely.
In other posts I will talk about surfacing and dealing with conflict and how to have difficult conversations. And I have a recent story of feedback I got that made a difference I will share shortly.
Most of us would answer, spoken to directly, with the rider – "how else would I know if someone has a complaint about me, or if I have done something that upset someone?" Yet the culture in most organization is to gossip about people, make them wrong, and undermine them with others, rather than take our complaints or feedback to the person directly. At first the comments my seem innocent, even innocuous, yet they reduce the person being spoken about.
Do you recognize these corridor or water cooler conversations:
- It's hard to get a word in when X is in the meeting
- Do you notice how Y is never wrong, it's always someone else's fault
- I don't understand how Z gets away with it, people just buy all those excuses
- If A takes credit for one of my ideas again I'll scream
- B is just unreliable, what can I say, never meets deadlines or keeps promises...
- I just don't trust C...
Interesting isn't it, if we damaged a desk, or a computer, or some other physical asset of the organization we would be in trouble in most organizations. If we did it repeatedly, and seemingly deliberately, we'd be fired, and may even be sued.
Yet damaging a fellow employee's standing with colleagues by gossiping about them and undermining them is accepted as part of organizational life. It's just something you have to learn to deal with. You just have to do a better job of managing brand me – be more proactive in promoting yourself. And, let no success, however small, go uncommented on. And don't forget to bury your failures, or blame someone else for them.
And, believe it or not, many organizations who tolerate gossip also say things like, our people are our most important asset. Oh yea, damaging company property (assets) will get you fired, even sued, but damaging another employee by gossiping about them and undermining them, well, that's just business.
One executive, when I pointed out the pervasiveness of gossip and how damaging it is, even retorted, that people shouldn't be so sensitive, so thin skinned, they should just grow up and learn to deal with it. That kind of response illustrates the degree on unconsciousness about the damage that gossip does to our perception of people – and therefore the ability of those people to make their full contribution.
So the golden rule: don't gossip and don't listen to gossip. It is cancerous, it damages everyone who participates and hugely sub-optimises the organizations ability to innovate and stay a vital force in their market – this is an equal opportunity destroyer, the organizational equivalent of a toxin – it indiscriminately kills off individual genius and organizational vitality, making realizing a vision and a strategy much more difficult, if not less likely.
In other posts I will talk about surfacing and dealing with conflict and how to have difficult conversations. And I have a recent story of feedback I got that made a difference I will share shortly.
