Stopping Office Gossip

You may have recently begun that new job. The people are very nice, but there is an undercurrent spirit of competitiveness and rumor. Some of the talk is relevant, while others are pure gossip. How do you maintain a friendly, open-door policy without contributing to encouraging the rumor mill?

You demonstrate a clear grasp of the dilemma you face in this new setting with new responsibilities and new work associates. One way to maintain a good environment without getting drawn into things unnecessarily or unwisely is to find ways to show people that you are a good listener and that you are skillful at discerning which aspects of a given conversation are useful to you in your job.

After all, you are not fostering a friendship with colleagues, not encouraging the exchange of confidential information, not inviting everyone’s frustrations with one another to be voiced. One of the tasks in life is for each to learn to live with difference, particularly with different personality styles.

Not all conflicts can be solved; some must be lived with as creatively and generously as possible. And some folks learn this later than others. Your voice might be needed to foster the process.

You can do this by summarizing your conversation, identifying the relevant details, and separating them from those that are not germane to the business at hand. In other words, share your process of discernment with the other person. In this way, he or she will recognize that not everything voiced is necessary for you to hear, not particularly welcome.

Some of the details that reach you (like the person’s behavior during the meeting) can be observed immediately. The conversation you’ve had may indeed be useful insofar as it alerts you to office matters that need attention, encouragement, or redirection.
Some of the other details reported to you most likely are hearsay, matters that cannot be observed or otherwise verified by you. Notice the difference between these two types of details, and let your colleagues listen to you as you separate observable data that you will pay attention to in the future from the claims that aren’t observable and therefore about which you can take no action.

These discriminating observations will make it clear that not everything they think important and worthy of immediate action or comment will be received as such. At the same time, your summary statement will gratify them that they have been heard, even as it identifies limits to the value of some of their comments.

In sum, you will be appreciated as a good listener and will at the same time show yourself to be a fair and even-handed leader. That is, after all, what your goal should be. And in case people start coming to you for complaints about another person, you will let everyone know that you are an unbiased individual whose opinions are based on what the person can actually do rather than what others think they don’t do.

Talk is sometimes just that: talk. You should be above that and go on working like the professional that you are.

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