Tip #1 on Being Professional – Courtesy of the Gossip Trio
Three people – two women and one man – were talking at a lunch table, and one of them waved me over. Even though I was an “outside consultant”, they updated me on their discussion: Althea, a senior manager, had done yet another “really stupid thing”. All three were giddy with delight over the fact that she had to deal with the fallout.
Althea had sent in a report compiled by the 5 managers who reported to her, and had not done a good job of editing it. There were typos, part of one contributor’s submission was left out, and her own recommendation directly contradicted what two of her managers had advised. The VP she sent it to called her in and asked her to revise it and submit a more professional version by Wednesday at 5:00 PM. Hee hee – confirmation that Althea doesn’t deserve to be a senior manager.
This trio said more than I needed to know, and when they began recalling other “idiot mistakes” she had made in the past, I excused myself. I learned the hard way that gossip conversations almost always – sooner or later – have some negative repercussions for the participants. I have known people who lost their jobs because their role in passing along a rumor was discovered. I have also known people who missed out on promotions because they shared negative information about a co-worker with someone they thought would keep it a secret.
The rule is this: If you share gossip about Andrew with your best friend Emily, you have also announced – to Emily – that you are willing to bad-mouth others. Think about it: when someone tells you something negative about another person, they going behind that person’s back to criticize them. Don’t you know full well that they are likely to do this to you as well? Gossip breeds mistrust.
I talked later with the “ringleader” of the Gossip Trio. She was a fairly high-level person herself, and we talked about what the consequences would be if the VP learned about their gossip-fest, and that they were taking pleasure in hoping that Althea’s mistake would cost her the VP’s respect. This “ringleader” realized it would not look good, nor help her own advancement, to be seen in that light. She resolved to pull herself out of gossip and backbiting conversations in the future. She went further, and told her two companions that it was time to give up saying negative things about Althea altogether – to each other or to anyone else.
Gossip is one of three types of “unproductive conversations”, but it’s worse than just being unproductive. It’s also destructive. It makes another person look bad, or foolish, or incompetent. At the same time, it makes the person who shares the gossip look unprofessional and immature.
As a mentor of mine once said, “Gossip is nasty – and it is SO seventh grade!” So nobody who does it in a workplace situation should expect to be seen as a respectable adult, right?
