Alison's team has been without a manager for several months. Alison has just gone past reception and overheard the Chief Executive saying farewell to a visitor whom she recognised from a prior company where she had worked. She has her suspicions that this person may be their new manager, and checks with the receptionist who also suspects that that was the purpose of the meeting. Hurriedly, Alison returns to her work area and asks her two best buddies to go for coffee so she can break the news.
Alison's behaviour is common, in the sense of us being closer to some people than others and our interest in useful information. Whenever we spot a common behaviour, there is a good chance that it's common because it's hardwired.
Explanation of gossip
What is gossip?
By "gossip" we mean conversations of a social nature: the "guess-what-I-just-heard" variety, or "you'll-never-guess-what-the-boss-is-up-to-now" type.
There are two reasons for sharing social information. One is that the exchange of useful information helps us survive and prosper. In early years, it would have increased your chance of survival if you had an ability to learn useful information such as where the rains are falling, where the food is abundant and where the predators are. The second is to establish alliances within our group; to determine the people we trust and those that we need be careful with.
Living in social groups
Robin Dunbar at the University of Oxford is an authority on language (refer Robin Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Harvard University Press, 1996). He provides an explanation of gossip:
"Humans are social animals. While living in groups has its advantages, particularly as a defense against predators, it also has its tensions. If we upset others we are forced to be with, it can be awkward. The mechanism that helps us balance this closeness-and-distance tension is by forming coalitions between small numbers of individuals. This mechanism of managing coalitions in our group seems to be unique to higher primates (humans, apes and monkeys)."
Grooming
Humans, apes and monkeys form and maintain coalitions by grooming. Monkeys and apes spend around 20% of their day grooming, or being groomed by other group members. It appears to be the primary method of forming bonds of trust so that one animal is willing to act as an ally to another individual.
Early humans lived in larger groups than other primates, and to physically groom other members of the community would have occupied too much of the day. So humans needed to find an alternative to physical grooming to relate to others and form coalitions of people they could trust and rely upon.
Gossip to service relationships
The solution appears to be that we use language to establish and service relationships, otherwise known as "gossip".
Dunbar has measured the proportion of conversations that are of a social nature and comes to the conclusion that two-thirds of our conversations are to do with social matters. To test this finding, evesdrop on mobile phone conversations as you walk along a street or travel on public transport. A high proportion of the conversations (66% in fact) are people staying in social contact and gossiping to friends about what they and others are up to. At work it includes the sharing of opinions to test who supports your view.
Dunbar proposes that language allows us to talk to several people at the same time and also to exchange information over a wider network of individuals. Through the efficiency of language as a grooming method, it meant that early humans in larger groups could spend around 20% of their day in cultivating social relationships, the same proportion as apes and monkeys in their smaller groups.
The cocktail party test
You will have noticed at a party or during a break from a conference that people gather in small groups. The groups are almost always of up to four people. If a fifth person joins a group, the dynamic shifts and the group invariably breaks off into two groups. This is explained by our gossip capacity which is one speaker, to up to three others.
How to use gossip at work
Seed good news into the grapevine
Gossip is not by definition negative. Given that people are going to talk about "what's happening around here", as a leader you can seed positive information into the grapevine.
James Strong tells a story about when he became the CEO of Qantas. He visited the baggage handlers at Sydney airport and got talking to them and their supervisor. The supervisor told him about a problem they had with loading luggage on planes - it was a problem they had had for years but no one had listened. So James got the manager of engineering involved and a couple of young engineers worked with the baggage handlers and ultimately the problem was fixed. James tells that this story of fixing a long-standing problem spread like wildfire through the organisation. The story spread on the grapevine unbelievably fast to people across the huge organisation who he wouldn't have expected to know the story.
So, Senior Executives can inject positive news into the grapevine, and humans being humans will look after the rest.
Use the "gossip test"
People are going to go home at night and talk about their day. Managers have a significant influence on what people talk about after work. Say you interviewed a candidate for a job. The candidate goes home after the interview and walks in the front door to the question, "How was your interview, Darling?". As the manager interviewing the person, your behaviour most influences that person's response. What did you do for the answer to be, "It was great - I really hope I get that job"?
Analyse gossip connections to address coalitions
Think about the team you work with. Think about the strengths of connections from one person to another. How comfortable is each person to go to a coffee shop with each other person to talk about what's going on in the organisation? As you think about each connection you will see the coalitions that exist, or what we term the "gossip map". Are there any cliques that are not productive to the operation of the team?
The same applies to the top team of your organisation. The gossip map of the top team reflects the coalitions. Knowing that this phenomenon will naturally occur, the leader of the team can take action that reduces unhelpful cliques, such as:
- Treat each person (and function) that reports to you of equal value
- Send clear messages of equality (such as in how you spend your time, who you visit, what subjects you demonstrate interest in)
- Ensure that important subjects are discussed and decided at team meetings, rather than in caucus with a few closest allies behind closed doors
- Address any signs of clique behaviour and require commitment from each team member to the wider team
As the boss, build connections
As the boss, use grooming as a tool to build constructive connections across your organisation. Only through friendly interactions with people can you build networks of support with people who trust you. Invest in building connections across and down your organisation.
Grooming the big boss
If you are the leader of the group, you are the person who others will most want to groom, and the one who people will not want to be disconnected from. Stay grounded so you are not blinded by the attention. When you are no longer the boss, many of these connections will shift immediately.
An explanation of favouritism
Good management practice counsels managers to avoid playing favourites with team members. Here's the reason. The playing of favourites is observed by others through gossip: is the manager closer to some team members than others, shares sensitive information with some people in preference to others, and spends more time with a selected few? As a manager, your behaviour may be causing cliques and coalitions.
Judged by the friends we keep
The fable is true - we are judged by the company we keep. This hardwired skill we have of reading people's connections means that we are highly sensitive to connections of one person to another. We are constantly, often unconsciously, scanning to see who's close to whom. Yes, life in social groups is political. To contemplate otherwise is to deny human nature.