On Gossip
Gossip is one of those things historically having a bad reputation in the workplace. It’s perceived as unprofessional. There’s that phrase that goes: if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all. We are told as kids not to talk about others in their absence. Still, some reports indicate that 96% of people admit to engaging in gossip at work, and I feel that the other 4% must be either people who didn’t show up for the poll, or the error margin. A bit more scientific definition of gossip is provided by Forster1:
In a context of congeniality, gossip is the exchange of personal information (positive or negative) in an evaluative way (positive or negative) about absent third parties.
Let’s analyze gossip from the point of view of the karma of hierarchies, again. If you happen to be high enough in the ladder, your visibility is consequently high, therefore, people will observe and comment about you and your decisions often because, well, you are most likely—for the good or the worse—influential. Those having such visibility and power are destined to be under the constant scrutiny from the crowds they lead and to be frequent targets of gossip and exegesis more than those lost in the lower boxes of the org chart—celebrity status seldom comes without the paparazzi. Being gossiped about is one tax of sorts higher-ups must pay for being there. For sure, gossip happens in every direction and at every layer, but statistically it tends to aim upwards.
There is also high amounts of fake rumours and poorly checked facts being spread around which can create harmful isolation and finger pointing. In highly gossipy environments, skepticism is an asset2. In the short story “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether”, Edgar Allan Poe wrote:
“You are young yet, my friend, but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
Now, to all dear managers out there: you cannot ban gossip. Try it and you will get 100x more of it. Fighting gossip means fighting the very nature of the organization: the pervasive network which connects across its fabric. I talked about this before: there is the org chart showing the “official” network, and then there is the informal network which is nothing less than the nervous system of the organization. In this informal network, many private subnetworks exist which are made simply of people liking and trusting other people and talking frankly and safely about whatever they want. You cannot tap on those channels, nor should you. Those subnetworks are formed on affinity, convenience, or a combination of all that, and are ubiquitous, empowering and practically real time. A stare in a hallway, an instant message, a conversation while queuing for lunch, information spreads fast: about how a heated meeting turned out, about how a recently appointed superstar VP quickly fell in disgrace, or about how the new HR head seems not to be the sharpest knife in the box—this last thing being hardly a surprise. Gossip can help venting. Forster elaborates:
Gossip often allows a cathartic release from anger, guilt, anxiety, or some other unpleasant internal state and a return to a balanced state of repose.
Too much gossip is a symptom of a larger organizational issue, just like a fever is. Gossip more or less equates to the temperature of the organization: if it gets too high, you don’t focus on that, you focus on what is causing the temperature to rise. Gifts, bonuses, perks, they’re all organizational ibuprofen: they might lower the temperature for a while, but it’ll come back if the underlying condition remains. Such conditions lurk furtively for a while but sooner than later they see the light of the day: gossip networks are the nurseries where the resistance to organizational vices breeds—abuse of power, lack of diversity, harassment, discrimination, cronyism. If anything of that is happening, people are surely talking about it.
Skepticism is always an asset