Beware of the office rumour mill
Nov 06, 2007
CAREER<br><br>WRITING in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher recalled how she spent her office hours as British Prime Minister.
CAREER
By Fred Ouma
WRITING in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher recalled how she spent her office hours as British Prime Minister.
“We were so few that there was no possibility of putting work on someone’s desk. We were under great pressure and there was no time for trivia. All the effort had to get into the work done,†she wrote.
So is it only idle people who dabble in rumours? Certainly not! Rumours are part of human nature and, at a certain point, we are all interested in hearing the juicy story about someone, perhaps in trouble.
In the book Rumor Psychology, Nicholas DiFonzo and management professor Prashant Borida present their findings on rumour propagation, why people believe them, and how to manage the rumour mill in a company.
According to their research, most workplace rumours are 95 percent accurate. “A rumour is what you do when you try to figure out the truth with other people,†DiFonzo says. “It’s collective sense making. The classic example is ‘I heard that...’.â€
“Gossip, on the other hand, is sharing information with an agenda,†he says. Experts warn that rumours in an organisation, are dangerous.
“An atmosphere that is always circulating with rumours can increasingly become poisoned with suspicion, ultimately leading to breakdown of teamwork and communication,†says Fagil Mandy of FAMECON, an Education and leadership consultancy. “I know high performers who have left certain organisations because they were sick and tired of the rumour mill in those organisations.â€In organisations, he says, there are usually three types of rumour mongers namely the harmless, the monitoring and the opportunists.
Harmless
These spend the day sending mail on the Local Area Network about who looks sick and might be having you know what, who wears the same dress all the time like she has no man in her life, who comes to work hungry and angry like he is not married, etcetera. They have the whole day to observe the minutest details in every employee’s life.
Monitors
These love to sit in the tea-room and evaluate the whereabouts of every employee. They can tell what time every employee reports to work, what packages they receive, who has just had a warning placed in his personal file, and everything about office affairs.
Opportunists
These are the most dangerous because on top of knowing everything about other staff, they reveal it to the bosses. They use rumours as a weapon to put down staff they do not like. Once, when a highly effective manager was approached by an opportunistic rumour monger, he asked: “Where do you find time to get to know all this information?†That marked the end of the rumours.
Wilford Balala, a human resource consultant with Verb Communications, says managers like that are rare. “There are many managers who actually delight in gossip and have turned their offices into revolving doors for gossip traders,†he notes.
The best way to manage a work atmosphere circulated with rumours, he suggests, is to always begin by asking if there is enough work to go around.
“Where there is never enough work, people will use the time to gossip,†advises Balala.
Julius Kateega, a human resource consultant with Competitive Choice, says rumours can also be a result of a lack of a transparent culture. here, the manager passes information to a few associates and leaves out others. The solution is to create an effective communication mechanism, Kateega says.
Some managers encourage rumour mongering because they love playing one side against another as a weapon of control. This style of management, warn experts, has severe repercussions.
“In the end, it creates a poisonous culture of second guessing everyone, which adversely affects team development,†concludes Mandy.
By Fred Ouma
WRITING in her memoirs, The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher recalled how she spent her office hours as British Prime Minister.
“We were so few that there was no possibility of putting work on someone’s desk. We were under great pressure and there was no time for trivia. All the effort had to get into the work done,†she wrote.
So is it only idle people who dabble in rumours? Certainly not! Rumours are part of human nature and, at a certain point, we are all interested in hearing the juicy story about someone, perhaps in trouble.
In the book Rumor Psychology, Nicholas DiFonzo and management professor Prashant Borida present their findings on rumour propagation, why people believe them, and how to manage the rumour mill in a company.
According to their research, most workplace rumours are 95 percent accurate. “A rumour is what you do when you try to figure out the truth with other people,†DiFonzo says. “It’s collective sense making. The classic example is ‘I heard that...’.â€
“Gossip, on the other hand, is sharing information with an agenda,†he says. Experts warn that rumours in an organisation, are dangerous.
“An atmosphere that is always circulating with rumours can increasingly become poisoned with suspicion, ultimately leading to breakdown of teamwork and communication,†says Fagil Mandy of FAMECON, an Education and leadership consultancy. “I know high performers who have left certain organisations because they were sick and tired of the rumour mill in those organisations.â€In organisations, he says, there are usually three types of rumour mongers namely the harmless, the monitoring and the opportunists.
Harmless
These spend the day sending mail on the Local Area Network about who looks sick and might be having you know what, who wears the same dress all the time like she has no man in her life, who comes to work hungry and angry like he is not married, etcetera. They have the whole day to observe the minutest details in every employee’s life.
Monitors
These love to sit in the tea-room and evaluate the whereabouts of every employee. They can tell what time every employee reports to work, what packages they receive, who has just had a warning placed in his personal file, and everything about office affairs.
Opportunists
These are the most dangerous because on top of knowing everything about other staff, they reveal it to the bosses. They use rumours as a weapon to put down staff they do not like. Once, when a highly effective manager was approached by an opportunistic rumour monger, he asked: “Where do you find time to get to know all this information?†That marked the end of the rumours.
Wilford Balala, a human resource consultant with Verb Communications, says managers like that are rare. “There are many managers who actually delight in gossip and have turned their offices into revolving doors for gossip traders,†he notes.
The best way to manage a work atmosphere circulated with rumours, he suggests, is to always begin by asking if there is enough work to go around.
“Where there is never enough work, people will use the time to gossip,†advises Balala.
Julius Kateega, a human resource consultant with Competitive Choice, says rumours can also be a result of a lack of a transparent culture. here, the manager passes information to a few associates and leaves out others. The solution is to create an effective communication mechanism, Kateega says.
Some managers encourage rumour mongering because they love playing one side against another as a weapon of control. This style of management, warn experts, has severe repercussions.
“In the end, it creates a poisonous culture of second guessing everyone, which adversely affects team development,†concludes Mandy.