Yup, the age-old question of… Is corridor, smoke room, and closed-door gossip good or bad for you.  Many articles have explored this notion, and honestly, many articles have also stated that it is good to gossip every now and again, as it relieves tension, creates clarity, provides closure, and whatever else, to the individual(s) engaging in behind scenes gossip.  However…

Most of us in business are also, at the same time, proclaiming the absolute importance of the “collective vision”, the “collective mission”, the “total organisation-employee buy-in”, and whatever other great buzz-words may pop up in your mind to explain the notion of one vision, one organisation and one team.

So now the question about the value of gossiping in the workplace becomes a bit of a sore point, and some organisations may even consider making it a punishable offence.  Although that may be a tad farfetched, and will certainly not stand up considering all the human rights issues that goes with it, such as freedom of speech, a lot of our so-called “give people freedom”, “people are free to do or say whatever”, “people’s rights” and so on are very often good for one or two people, but completely destructive to the collective effort and bigger group.

These types of issues are sometimes seen as trivial and tiny issues compared to the bigger issues in your organisation, such as the competitions’ strategies and latest fad, the labour law and training and development, however, poisonous gossip in the corridors or around the corner of the smoker’s balcony or behind the curtains at the conference may do far more damage to your organisation than you think.

True, controlling this gossiping is a formidable task, but, be aware of what is said, as there may be truth in such “stories”, but it may also provide you with valuable information about the culture, climate, leadership style and pressing issues in your organisation.  Once again, as much as you may read that gossiping benefits the individuals engaging in gossip to relieve them from the stresses and strains they experience, the collective survival of the organisation and morale of all individuals plays a greater role in your future than the survival of someone’s specific tension and compulsion to relieve him or herself from a specific stressor.

Imagine your plane has to make a crash landing in the middle of the desert.  You, for obvious reasons, have very limited food, water, and even shade resources available until help arrives.  Clearly it will benefit A and B if they have an urge to satisfy their hunger, thirst or to be in the shade when the blistering sun comes down from above, but by taking all of this for themselves, they are only relieving their specific and own urges, and at the same time screwing the rest – so much for camaraderie and why some organisations are now engaging in what is called: recruiting and employing for the organisation and not for the job, simply because there has to be a fit between the organisation, the individual and of course also the job… but which of those fits has to be the more sustainable and lasting relationship is the question.

Forget about depriving others from the obvious physical entities.  The far greater risk includes the likes of infighting, taking sides, ulterior motives, anger, demoralising attitudes, emotional taxation, you have it – and pretty soon you have one seriously toxic and poisoned organisation on your hands, which is not only difficult to sort out, but hell to go to every day and do productive work.

Yup, this is another one of the million and ten things you have to look out for, manage and take care of as a leader in a business.  Managers make the business work – let them take care of the day-to-day running of “stuff”, however, the leader set the cultural trend.  No matter how you look at it and how amazing you think your policies, procedures and systems are – people still make it work or not.  Keeping them trained, “happy”, and well paid may not be your only issue to deal with – keeping them out of each other’s hair and leading/facilitating the conflict to a resolution is sometimes the most difficult exercise – not to mention the emotional effort and just plain muckiness of dealing with the sometimes most absurd crap you could never imagine may create issues and hall-way gossip.  Those of you who have brothers and sisters will know how quickly you jumped to the conclusion that your parents are taking your sibling’s side as soon as they don’t agree with your way of thinking in fight.

A leadership strategic plan and “way forward” is and means nothing if you don’t have the motivated and skilled human capital to perform and make it work.  People have a tendency to believe whatever they hear – not many people have the ability, or know all the facts well enough, to make informed judgements and decisions based on the relevancy, or factual or non-factual and sometimes maliciously intended gossip that can do its rounds and literally screw up an organisation within days, weeks and months.  I sometimes get the feeling ants are just too busy getting the job done to make sure their colony survives to have or even make time to gossip – never mind having the time to look out and think about stuff and people to gossip about.  I don’t know, maybe every single one of us should find something better and more valuable to do…

Lehan Stemmet is one of those rare people who studies one thing and ends up doing something else. His brother reckons: Shrinks are mad, Scientists are eccentric, Marketing people are dilly and Authors just completely lost touch with reality... so much can be said about this bloke who studied biochemistry, microbiology, psychology and industrial psychology, who ended up in marketing and well, who got his first book (Deal With It - emotional empowerment) published in the USA. For more details:  Lehans@mweb.co.za / Dealwithit@mweb.co.za