Dealing with Office Gossip

We all have the person or people in the office who spread gossip and thrive on talking about others.  This has the effect of making people feel unsafe; will I be the target of gossip next?  We also know it wastes time as people become disengaged from the work and focused on the topic of the day.  There are usually a handful of people who are the initiators of gossip and the only way to stop it from happening is to address the issue directly with the individual.  Here are a few talking points to use when addressing the gossiping employee:

"While it's only natural to be interested in what's going on in other people's lives I'd like you to resist the temptation to share personal information that you may be privy to or have learned from others".

OR

"I need for you to hold onto personal information that you may have come across.  I'd like for you to bypass the temptation to share that kind of information with others".

Now you could just as easily say, "I need for you to stop gossiping" but that will most likely be met with a myriad of excuses.  So, try translating what you don't want, "gossiping" into a statement that describes what you do want. 

 

 

Addressing Employee Behavior Issues

Many managers are adept at the objective parts of performance reviews, but nearly all of them dread initiating conversations about personal issues such as behaviors and attitudes. The traditional method by which they are taught to provide performance feedback to employees, sometimes referred to as "constructive criticism," is often the very reason they avoid, water down or delay giving feedback in the first place.

That kind of feedback typically sounds like "here's the problem, here are the examples of your shortcomings and this is the negative impact." Inherent limitations with this kind of communication frequently manifest as follow:

• From the employee's perspective performance discussions often come across as finger pointing, fault finding and disciplinary.
• Nearly all managers dread initiating performance conversations, particularly if the issue relates to an unproductive or disruptive behavior.
• Performance issues are ignored or handled poorly, so the resulting issues usually land on the doorstep of HR.

So what can managers do about it? How can they create talking points that are honest, not watered down yet hearable and sayable? 

Understanding Uncensored Perceptions is they key. These are the real feelings about a person or circumstance, which would be inappropriate to share in their raw form. "He's so high-maintenance", "She's a slacker" and "I can't stand it when they do that" are examples of feelings managers might have but are appropriately unwilling to share.

That's probably a good thing, yet most often the manager simply won't say anything at all so the person who should be receiving feedback misses out on the opportunity to gain some awareness around a key issue. 

If you are a manager experiencing this sort of problem, try taking your negative thought and translating it into language that describes the exact opposite.  The result should be that you are thinking and talking in terms of what you want to have happen as opposed to talking about the problem behavior or performance (a surefire way to get the person on the receiving end to react defensively). 

Here are some examples of negative thoughts translated into "develop the ability to" statements:

Excuse Expert Put your energy into identifying solutions Or Be accountable for overcoming roadblocks

Doesn't take responsibility Take Full Responsibility for......(fill in the blank) Or Take Ownership of... ...(fill in the blank)

Lack of confidence Develop the confidence to...(fill in the blank)

Ends justifies the means Means is just as important as the end

Rude and nasty to co-workers Interact respectfully with co-workers

Lacks willingness to adapt Readily adapt when it comes to (fill in the blank)... Or Focus your energies on adapting to......(fill in the blank)

Tattle tale Overlook issues that are outside of your control

Interruptive (cuts other people off mid-sentence) Allow others to finish expressing their thoughts

No desire to learn on their own Take the initiative to add to your job knowledge

Over promises Promise what you know you can deliver

My way or the highway Be open to considering other approaches

When the going gets tough they get going Stick with and deal with difficult problems

Makes assumptions Make conclusions based on facts

Sweats the small stuff Put things into perspective by sorting through the big things and setting the smaller things aside

Liar / Dishonest Communicate information that is based on fact

Condescending to those who are less experienced Use your experience and knowledge to mentor those with less experience

The lesson here is that anything we don't like or have a problem with can be translated into a future-focused thought that describes what the performance could and should be.  Realize that the statements above are just the beginning of the conversation because we'll then need to explain in detail what we mean by "Use your experience and knowledge to mentor those with less experience."  We will need to reach agreement with the employee on what the associated actions will be in order to meet the performance objective. 

So for example you would then want to follow with something like, "can we talk about what that would look like?" or I'm thinking of a few ways that this could be done, can we put our heads together and talk about some of those ideas together?"

Providing Performance Feedback; the Right Thing to Do

Do You Work for One of Those Nice Organizations That Avoids Conflict?

One of the excuses we commonly hear as a reason for not actively engaging in dialogue with employees regarding their performance is "we're really nice at XYZ organization" or "We avoid conflict and causing people to feel badly about themselves". Translation, "We have people who are underperforming but we'd rather not have those conversations". Or, "It's just easier to let the underperformance continue as is; I'll just focus on my A and B level players." And finally, "What would we say and how would the person on the receiving end react? We'd rather not go there."

There are many reasons for not having performance conversations. Here are just a few:

• He's only got another two years before retirement.
• She can't change.
• That's the way he's always been.
• What if I make things worse?
• It's a personality issue and it's not my job to deal with that type of thing.
• We can't afford to lose her.

The most contradictory of all the reasons to not provide feedback:

• "We're a gentle, nice type of place to work and we avoid conflict".

Why is it contradictory?
In our research managers admit to waiting for a performance problem to get so bad that they allow it to reach a level where the first step is disciplinary action or getting the ball rolling on moving the person out of the organization. So, if the organization was really the nice place it claimed to be wouldn't it make more sense to provide early-on and actionable feedback that would help the employee get back on track?

One of the questions we ask at every event or workshop is:
When do people first get information on an area of underperformance?

1. Early on when the issue has just emerged?
2. When a persistent pattern has developed.
3. When the manager is so frustrated they are just ready to fire the employee.

Not surprisingly managers and Human Resources professionals report that it's when a persistent pattern has developed (meaning it's time for disciplinary action such as a warning of performance improvement plan) or when the manager is ready to fire the employee. In other words, we'd rather just let the person continue on down the wrong path and then discipline them or get the wheels in motion to fire them.

A Human Resources Director of a Boston based technology company had a manager ask for assistance to move an underperforming employee out of the company. When the HR Director asked the manager when he had a conversation with the employee about the issue he admitted he hadn't brought it up with the employee. She then point blank asked, "So you'd rather fire this person than try to have a conversation about changing the behavior? Sadly the manager answered, "Yes, I'd rather just get rid of the person". Unfortunately this is a common story in many organizations.

Good and kind organizations promote these conversations early on before the issue has reached the point of no return. From the employee's perspective it's particularly unfair when the issue is in their blind spot, they have no idea their performance is problematic. Not because the leader who could and should be having a conversation is unaware of the issue. They are aware of the problem but because most people are unsure of how to go about such discussions they avoid having them in the first place. On the surface this appears to be the "we're a nice organization who doesn't engage in conflict".

From the employee's vantage point withholding key performance information is anything but nice. How many times have people been written off or worked around due to a performance inhibitor? "You know how Jennifer can be, let's not have her on the team this time around". Only for Jennifer to realize she has been left our of various activities and opportunities which can lead to her asking why she wasn't asked to participate. When employees are left out of important meetings, bypassed for promotional opportunities or interesting work, left behind while team members go to lunch together, or whispered about they pick up on the undertones. This leads to further disengagement and only exacerbates the problem.

First Step: Warning or Performance Improvements Plans?
Worse still is when the employee hears about the issue for the first time and is put on a warning or performance plan. Even worse than that is when the person is "laid off" or suddenly fired. What could be more unfair, particularly when there is evidence that most people can get back on track when they receive early on actionable feedback. When managers say the employee is unable to perform we always ask, has the person been given the opportunity to demonstrate his or her true capabilities? If the answer is yes, they have been given feedback and the support to realign their performance then the obvious answer is to get started down the disciplinary path or moving the person out of the organization.  When the answer is no, I haven't really had that kind of conversation, then the conversation about how to be more effective should take place.

Being a kind organization means giving people the opportunity to improve, even when it might mean initiating an uncomfortable conversation. The goal should always be to "help the employee out" before "helping them out of the organization".

For more information about how to provide feedback, particularly on behavior based issues, please see our paper on How to Address Disruptive Employee Behaviors.