I make no secret I love entertainment news. It is my weakness. My Grandmother use to buy The Inquirer back in the days. It’s in the genes.
The guilty pleasure of reading about Miley Cyrus, constant Lindsey Lohan updates and of course, Kimeye gives me brainless pleasure. Sometimes I can even relate some messaging about employee engagement, disengagement, leadership and fairness. It’s fun and harmless.
What isn’t fun or harmless is when you have a gossiper in the office. By now you already have a picture in your head of a guilty work suspect! As soon as anything is deemed juicy, they have to spread it. They can’t resist and cannot practice discipline, respect or confidentiality. It can potentially be very harmful to your culture. If you do not address it, and get in front of it-it will spread quickly. People can have their reputations damaged (sometimes these are purely rumors-not even the truth), feelings get hurt and trust is out the door. Sounds fun huh?! Bet you can’t wait to wake up and go work there. That is NOT employee engagement.
What to do? Well I will tell you what I did about 6 years ago. Here is the skinny:
I earned a substantial promotion and hefty, but fair raise. I worked my butt off for this company for 6 years. I earned it. So when friends of mine told me that Peter had been bad mouthing me and my promotion, I was a bit surprised. Peter and I got along and I thought I could trust him. He couldn’t keep much to himself (which sometimes was an advantage), but it really wasn’t in his character to be gossipy or mean. My friends had told me what he said, to whom, etc. I was furious-for one night.
I went to work the next day, walked into Peter’s cube and said, “I need a few minutes in the conference room”. He reluctantly agreed-he knew what was up. If you characterized Peter as non-confrontational it’s like saying, Willie Nelson has smoked a couple joints in his life. I sat across the table from him and was honest, direct, genuine and asked questions such as: Why would you say this? What did I do to make you talk about me this way? Why didn’t’ you apply for the job? He sank lower and lower in his chair. He owned it though-and sincerely apologized. We remained friends and happy coworkers (our cubes were right next to each other).
So the next time you catch wind of a juicy story, possible personal issues, relationships, raises, promotions-whatever it is ask yourself: If I blab about this at work-what does that do to others? What would I do if rumors were being spread about me? Hold your tongue, don’t chat on Yammer, gossip over email, or the water cooler. If need be, switch it to 10,000 other topics-even if it is the Kardashians. They want the attention-most hardworking people don’t.
Steph. Mello, VPE
