Insight: Peter walked into the office kitchen where Steve and
Betsy were talking about Alexander:
Steve: "He completely undermined me. We were
presenting to the management team and were asked
what department was responsible
for the recent delays. In front of everyone, Alexander
said
that my team was at fault. I couldn't believe it."
Betsy: "It doesn't surprise me. I've seen him blame
people for other issues as well."
Steve: "I definitely plan to be more careful around
him."
Betsy: "Yeah, I think you're right."
Peter felt uncomfortable. He didn't want to
participate in this gossip, so he just held his tongue.
He got his cup of coffee and meandered away
silently. On the way back to his office, he passed
Alexander in the hallway. Peter looked
down at the carpet and then said a quick hello in
passing. He noticed that he questioned Alexander's
integrity even though he had only heard a
rumor.
Rather than addressing issues directly with their
teammates, people often talk about the issues behind
their teammates' backs. As we
have discussed in a
previous article, we call this
gossip. Gossip is anytime someone is talking about
a
third person without their interests in mind and
without an intention to address that person directly.
Gossip does nothing to solve the issue
and it negatively affects people's working
relationships. Even if
it's just a small issue, the mistrust will build and it will
become harder for the team to produce results--in
part because people will
start doing workarounds to avoid the issue and each
other. Ultimately, gossip will erode trust among the
whole team.
By being silent when you overhear gossip, you
are giving tacit agreement to what is being said, and
contributing to a culture of gossip. The alternative is
to intervene.
Action: If
you hear someone else gossiping, intervene.
Support
the gossiper in getting grounded in facts and
initiating a clean-up conversation.
Let the person know that you feel uncomfortable
hearing about these issues third-hand and
ask something like: "When are you going to clean it
up
with him or
her?" You can listen to their complaints in order to
support them in clarifying their thoughts, but the
main focus is to support them in cleaning-up the
situation. Here are some tips to support people in
cleaning-up:
- Appreciate their upset and their perspective on
what happened.
- Help them get curious about other
perspectives and interpretations that might lead to a
different explanation of the situation.
- Help them explore whether they may have
contributed to the breakdown.
- Gain a commitment from them to clean it up by a
certain date.
- Ask them when and how you can follow up with
them to see how the conversation went and whether
they need additional support.
Building powerful teams takes time and has many
challenges. Participating in gossip is the one way
you will dramatically slow down or prevent your team
from ever getting there. To help create a solid team,
intervene when you hear gossip.
