Within every company there is gossip and some have more than others. At lunches, coffee machines, toilets and in the corridors, a world of tiny hushed comments munches away like ants at the company.
There are 3 levels of gossip
-Accurate gossip from an unexpected source
When the previous CEO of DTAC, Sigve Brekke, was going to move on to head Telenor Asia, the news was kept a secret. The senior management team was only told the day before and on the evening of the day of the announcement all the managers were invited to an offsite meeting the next day.
Phone calls erupted from all over the company about what it could possibly be. In the car going home I had one such call and said I did not know what it was about. When I put the phone down my driver turned to me and said, "Is that the news that Khun Sigve is leaving?"
I was surprised but, of course, it made sense; drivers have access to the senior management, and have plenty of time to share information, dissect it and ruminate over what they hear.
-Nearly-but-not-quite gossip
In that same conversation with my driver, after having expressed surprised that he knew such top-secret information, he paused for about 20 seconds and suddenly said "and I hear you are leaving too". Given the accuracy of his first bomb-shell I was not wholly convinced myself when I told him it was not true.
I had visions of the driver's pool being a bit like Paul the Octopus or an Oracle.
You could post a question with your driver in the morning on the way to the office, about any topic, and you would get a surprisingly accurate reply on the way home at night. I did not test my theory any further.
-Way-off-the-mark gossip
This gossip normally contains a tiny grain of truth to make it vaguely plausible but then veers wildly off-course to the great delight of all participants. This gossip is more political in nature and much more insidious.
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." It can be employed for any number of reasons from just pure entertainment, to company power-plays or even personal vendettas.
So what can we do about minimizing gossip? The fuel of gossip is people listening and then re-telling it, adding on more and more fanciful layers in the process. So every manager needs to make it very clear they do listen or take part in gossip through their actions and be measured accordingly.
A "natural dispersant" on this fuel are "facts" as gossip thrives best in the gaps created by speculation. So open, honest, accurate and constant information constant flowing from the top to the bottom of the company are critical.
Decision-making is important too. If decisions are drawn out, vague, or clearly wrong, speculation is rife and the gossip ants are munching.
Finally, do not overstaff. We know what is said about people with idle hands!
Andrew McBean is senior vice president of Total Access Communication (DTAC). Follow his article every third Monday of the month.