The “Water Cooler”   (or the samovar ...)

 

Communication Skill

How communication works

Guidelines:  Rumour Control ; Surviving Office Politics

 

Learning Objectives 

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            Every organization has its “rumor mill,” or “grapevine.” It could be centered in the cafeteria, the employee lounge, or the mailroom. Or even the water cooler. Today, however, you no longer need a physical space to spread gossip and rumors, or even a telephone system. We have cyberspace—e-mail and the Internet, chat rooms and bulletin boards.


The Grapevine

People gossip and rumors are spread. It is human nature, part of the normal process of communication. It satisfies our social needs, our needs to belong, or to feel important, and our need to be “in the know.”  Every organization has its “rumor mill,” or “grapevine.” In some organizations the action is centered in the cafeteria, the employee lounge, or the mailroom. Sometimes it actually is around the water cooler. Today, however, you no longer need a physical space to spread gossip and rumors, or even a telephone system. Today we also have cyberspace—e-mail and the Internet, chat rooms and bulletin boards.

 

Gossip

 Some people say that all gossip is bad. Others disagree. It’s all a matter of how you define it. There is “good gossip”—general conversation about the people you work with and what is going on—and then there is “bad gossip”—character assassination, revenge, intentional or unintentional lies, and so on.   As with almost everything else, the real question is:

What are your motives?


3.      Rumours

            While false rumours are sometimes created on purpose, and maliciously, most grow out of speculation. When people are uncertain about what is coming, they talk about possibilities. Those possibilities get passed on; often misheard, misremembered, and mistaken for truth. The people passing them on often add their own little “touches.”
            People create and spread rumours because they are trying to replace uncertainty with certainty. Sometimes they even know that what they are saying is wrong, even ridiculous, but they say it in the hope that someone will have another story—one that sounds better and just might be correct. Speculation tends to increase when people in the same organization who are facing the same uncertainty get together. Some people spread  rumours because they don’t want to admit that they don’t know what is “really” going on.

            You don’t end rumours and speculation with memos or executive orders.     Rumours are based on uncertainty. The only way to end, or at least limit, them is to keep people informed of what is actually happening—or not happening. This sometimes requires admitting that you don’t know what will happen. The best way to combat rumours is to tell the truth, even when that truth is seemingly embarrassing or uncomfortable.

 

Guideline:  Rumour Control

 

Office Politics

            When done maliciously, gossip and rumours can destroy people and organizations .

            On a personal level, they can destroy careers, friendships, relationships, marriages, and even families.

            At the organizational level, they can drive stock prices down, destroy reputations, careers, and project/programme purpose relationships, and force organizations to close.

            Gossip and rumours are often tied to office politics; the manoeuvring, horse-trading, arm-wrestling, psychological manipulation, controlling, and one-upmanship that is a factor in every office as people try to get ahead of one another in terms of power, promotions, salary, or just plain status.

            In office politics, cliques and alliances regularly form and fall apart, depending upon individual goals, personality conflicts, and who is “winning” at any one time.

            The reason for office politics is as simple as the reason for project/programme purpose itself—competition. Someone wants be considered better, smarter, richer, or in charge of everyone else. The more effective the project/programme purpose and the people in it, the more effective the office politics can be.

            It’s hard to turn off the effective spirit just because you are, supposedly, among friends. As a rule, people who want to be Number One in one area also want to be Number One in everything they do. Their personal code of ethics and morality that governs how they go after new project/programme purpose, sales, and contracts, is a good indication of the way they will compete internally for raises, promotions and other tangible proofs that they are… Number One.

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Guideline:  Surviving Office Politics

6.      Office Politics Case Studies: CC Wars

            Joe is having a computer problem. It won’t run a new program, and he needs it to finish a project. He talks to Bob in computer services, but Bob can’t solve the problem immediately. Joe has a deadline to meet. He’s already behind schedule, but figures that the problem is really a blessing. He now has an excuse. He’ll blame it all on Bob and not have to admit that he was late. Joe decides to let EVERYONE know that it isn’t his fault.

            He sends a nasty, accusing and insulting e-mail about Bob to his immediate supervisor, and CCs—sends Courtesy Copies—of his e-mail to everyone else in his department, as well as to Bob, his entire department, and Bob’s immediate supervisor.

            Bob replies, pointing out that if Sam had come to him with the problem a week earlier, it would have been solved already and Joe would have made his deadline. He also makes some comments about Joe’s lack of professionalism, competence, manners, and intelligence. He sends his reply to everyone on the original CC list, and adds the department heads to the list.

            The “war” escalates. Soon everyone gets CCd, including the CEO.     Eventually senior management gets involved and a face-to-face meeting is called to settle the matter. Everyone loses, especially Joe, who winds up looking like a whiner.

            To make sure the problem doesn’t develop again, a new e-mail policy has to be developed which spells out who gets CCs of whose e-mails. Of course, that requires a special task force being established to work on it, using up time that could have been spent more productively if only Joe had not decided to start an e-mail war.

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7.      Office Politics Case Studies: Office Romance

            Sarah in accounting started dating Carl in shipping shortly after last year’s organization picnic. Everything went well for nearly a year, until Julia was hired in shipping. Carl was told to train her, and his interest soon became more than professional. It was obvious at this year’s organization picnic, which featured two ugly confrontations—between Sarah and Julia, and between Sarah and Carl—over Julia’s behaviour with Carl.

            After the picnic, the entire accounting department and shipping department started having problems. The fact that Carl left the organization a month later to take a new job on the other side of the country did not end the trouble. Sarah and Julia had declared war on one another and each had enlisted her entire department on her side.

            Forms were constantly being returned to be filled out “properly.” When they were finally filled out “properly,” they tended to get misplaced. When they were replaced, they had to be returned yet again. Someone always managed to find at least one tiny mistake that could have been corrected in a moment with a brief phone call. Instead, memos were written, sides were chosen, and the entire organization started to suffer.

            To add to the heat, there were constant rumours about Sarah and any man she spoke to, and about Julia and any man she spoke to.

            Management finally had to step in and threaten to fire both women and a number of others in both departments unless peace was restored and office efficiency improved.

Management then added a section to the employee manual discouraging office romances, and backing it up by finding a reason to fire or transfer anyone who got involved in one.

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Surviving Office Politics

Office politics exist in all organizations . Some are relatively obvious and benign. Others are subtle and dangerous. One of the biggest problems people face is that they can get trapped in them without knowing it. They inadvertently say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and suddenly they are involved in a feud. Quite often they don’t even realize that they are in one; just that things are going wrong, reputations are suffering, and nothing is going the way it is supposed to. This is especially true for new employees, but even people who have been there for a while can get caught up in them.  While nothing can ever completely protect you, these tips might help, especially when you start at a new organization, or in a new division or branch.

 

Get A Mentor

            Some organizations have formal mentor programs where new employees, or people transferring in, are assigned to experienced people whose job it is to introduce them to and guide them through the intricacies of the local organizational culture. If you are a working someplace that does not have such a program, talk to someone who has been there for a while, someone who is well respected and knowledgeable, and ask for help in adjusting to the local “rules.”

Be Nice

            Be as pleasant, professional, and cooperative as possible. Treat everyone fairly.

Be Honest

            Tell the truth, even when it’s painful. Do not be a sycophant. Insincerity is easy to spot, and nobody likes it, or trusts the person who acts that way.

Think Big

            You are just one person, however, your actions will affect more than just you. Be aware of the “big picture.” Think about what the consequences will be for the rest of the team, department, or organization before you take action.

Solve Your Own Problems
             If you have a complaint, come up with a workable solution. Then offer both your complain and your solution to your boss.

Make Your Boss Look Good
            Serve your boss well. The better you make your boss look, the better you look.

Pick Your Battles

            You will not win every battle you fight. You will, however, make an enemy, whether you win or you lose. So pick the ones that you have a realistic chance of winning, and that are really worth fighting. Many managers phrase this as: “Is this a hill you are willing to die on?”

Face Your Backstabbers

            If someone is spreading rumours about you, do some checking. When you are sure you know who it is, pull them aside for a private talk. Keep it just between the two of you. Tell them that you know what is going on and that you want it to stop. Be organization, but do not get emotional. Even if they deny it, and they will very likely do that, tell them that you want it to stop. Immediately. Don’t make threats. Just tell them to stop it. Let them worry about what you will do if they don’t comply. Make it their problem and their worry. Once it is taken care of, tell your supervisor in private exactly what you have done.

10.  Some Thoughts On Gossip and Rumour

            Gossip and rumor are more than an office problem. They are part of life, and have been since humans first learned how to talk. They are also part of literature. Let’s see what some writers, and others, have had to say about the subject over the last few centuries.

           

“Gossip, barbed with anger, is a socially acceptable form of murder by character assassination.”

            -- Anonymous

 

“Gossip isn’t scandal and it’s not merely malicious. It’s chatter about the human race by lovers of the same. Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.”

            -- Phyllis McGinley, U.S. poet, author

 

“Gossip, then, is content, a message about people; rumour is a process. It takes a bit of gossip and reshapes it, modifies it in some way, and passes it along from individual to individual in different ways.”

            -- Jack Levin, U.S. author

 

“Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures.”

            -- William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2          

 

“Good gossip is just what’s going on. Bad gossip is stuff that is salacious, mean and bitchy—the kind most people really enjoy.”

            -- Liz Smith, U.S. gossip columnist

 

 “While gossip among women is universally ridiculed as low and trivial, gossip among men, especially if it is about women, is called theory, or idea, or fact.”

            -- Andrea Working, U.S. feminist critic

 

“Ah, well, the truth is always one thing, but in a way it’s the other thing, the gossip, that counts. It shows where people’s hearts lie.”

            -- Paul Scott, British author

 

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 Assignments