Business Beat: Protect Your Business from the Office Gossip

You may be managing a mega company, raking in money, but it takes one good office gossip, aka Water Cooler Wanda/Walter, to bring the entire organization crashing down. Nowadays, gossip grows faster than some cancers.

A negative work environment is a less productive work environment. Gossip in the workplace can create an uncomfortable atmosphere for not only the person the gossip is about, but for everyone in the workplace.

Gossip can often become likened to the old childhood game of "Rumor", where one person starts the spread of information, and by the time it reaches the last person, it has evolved and changed into something entirely different. Some bits of gossip may have truth to it, while other bits of information carried on the gossip relay line are completely imaginary. Either way, gossip is a hurtful means of communication and should be avoided at all cost.

As a manager or small business owner, you need to get a handle on it or before it affects your bottom line. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Who? As a manager, your first task is figuring out the source of the gossip. This may be the easiest part. Find the person who hangs around common areas, the break or lunch room, hallways, etc. Find the person who is always whispering. Odds are you'll find someone who is spreading gossip.

What are the person's motives? If you find the same person in the same places time and time again, you'll know it's someone you have to take in hand. In the office place, as in the outside world, people feel the need to tear people down in order to build themselves up. If you let that stand, particularly misinformation, your business will be in peril. Does the person feel slighted by the company, and he's spreading company-related gossip, or is s/he the garden variety gossip who finds other human beings fair game?

Talk to the gossip. Odds are it will do no good whatsoever, but it will put the person on notice that you are onto him or her. Don't lecture the person. Bring up one or two things you know they've been gossiping about that involves the company (if you can). Give them the right information very matter of fact. Then sit back and watch. You'll know the motivations of the person based on what comes back to you, and it will get back to you.

If the person is spreading malicious rumors about other employees, you have to be more hard line in your approach. You have an obligation to protect your employees which is only wise from the business sense as your employees are your best resource.The gossiper will rewrite the meeting when s/he retells it to other employees, but don't underestimate your employees. If you've pinpointed someone who gossips about other employees' personal lives, bet the employees already know about it.

Beware the Ever-Helpful Employee. Watch out for the employee who wants to tell you about other employees. While you want to encourage employees to come to you with problems, if the office gossip is always flitting about you, know that s/he is picking up "bits" of information that will be woven into whatever tale they choose to tell. Most gossip has a germ of reality which is why it is believable and dangerous.

Distance Yourself from that Person. Even if you give the office gossip real information, don't expect it to go around the office to other employees that way. You're missing the motivation of the office gossip.

Do not use the office gossips to intimidate other employees. At one Baltimore company, a supervisor regularly "leaked" to an employee that the company was spying on employees, their computers were being monitored, and all sorts of things that could only lead to paranoia. The supervisor knew the employee would pass that information around. She surmised wrongly that it would make employees "toe the line." Instead it led employees to have no faith in the company, and, in fact, to believe that they were only "warm bodies" to be used by the company. You want to gain the respect and loyalty of your employees, not distance them.

Be Available. To that end, develop a relationship with your employees in a way that lets them feel that you are approachable. If they are met with gossip that seems extraordinary, they can come to you and ask about it. If you choose that route, you cannot retaliate against the employee coming to you the next day. No one will trust you. It will have the direct opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.

Is the gossip legitimate? Not all gossip is wrong. When you hear rumors, it may be about things that are factual. You have to decide if it's better to open the truth up to the workers or let them continue to get information from gossip mongers. Most often it's better to get out ahead of the game as it gives you control of the information and let's the employees know you are keeping them in the loop and that you value them.

Look at your own movements. If you are friends with people in the workplace, you present a breeding ground for office gossip. In a grown up world, you should be able to be friends, but that doesn't translate into the workplace if you are in a position of authority. It's sad, but a fact. And don't think that because you are friends with an employee, you can dissipate gossip through that person. It's an improper and ineffective thing for a manager to do.

Watch the Closed Doors. Gossip is generally done with whispers and in secret. Set the tone for an intolerance for gossiping by never giving the impression that you are talking about employees behind their backs. Limit closed-door meetings with employees. If you must have a confidential conversation with an employee or several employees, try to physically separate yourself from other employees. If you invite someone into your office during the middle of a day, then close your door, people will assume something is going on. People listen more when you whisper, thinking (rightly so) that you wouldn't be whispering unless it were something interesting.

Keep Communications Lines Open. Obviously, you can't share all business operations with employees, but don't let big changes be a surprise. I worked several years for an auction house in the foreclosure department. They had a regular real estate division. At one point, the owners decided to build new offices for the real estate division to give it an upscale image. For more than year, employees in the office watched strangers wandering the hall (architects and building contractors). It could have been presented as an expansion of the company that would benefit the company at large. Instead, it was treated as a corporate secret. The employees felt left out, ostracized, so they filled in the mission information with speculation. That sort of behavior not only breeds gossip but resentment.

As a manager, while there is always corporate business that will be kept close to the vest, you have to weigh changes employees will find out about anyway and decide if it's better to get ahead of the game and include them.

Obviously, there will be things you can't share, but in the case of the Baltimore auction firm, employees were never told about the new offices being designed until the last weeks. Everyone knew about it by then, and the resentment of the cloak and dagger aspect of it all never went away.