Are you Agreeing by Accident?

Are you Gossiping Silently?

If you hear someone else gossiping, intervene. Support the gossiper in getting grounded in facts and initiating a clean-up conversation.

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. 

Key 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.