Office Gossip: Bloodless Violence

A New York Times headline asks a question that doesn’t beg itself: “Can you believe how mean office gossip can be?” The article underneath compares the gossip of adolescents (it’s much meaner) with that of office workers (more subtle). The point of the article is ambiguous, but the question in the headline resonates with most of us.

We know how mean office gossip can be. We’ve been its recipient. We’ve dished it out. The Times article offers clever, even refined, ways of dealing with it. Conceding that gossip is a three-pronged tongue (“It can hurt the speaker and the listener, as well as the target”), the advice for dealing with it seems to focus only on ways the listener and target can deal with it. It’s assumed that there’s nothing the speaker can do about it and nothing an employer can do with the speaker.

Almost every day, gossip at work ruins careers, tarnishes reputations, and hurts feelings. It’s arguably the most hurtful form of a bloodless workplace violence there is. And all we can say is that the listener and the target should learn how to deal with it?

Office gossip isn’t something that employees will grow out of. It’s a finely hewed weapon carried in the quiver or case of the employee who’ll do anything to get to the top of the corporate world — or, at least, as far as he can go. So, just watch your back, carry a shield, and suck it up?

How about this? Discipline the office gossip. Fire the office gossip. Create a culture that fosters teamwork and friendship, instead of one requiring employees to duck and dodge the bullets and arrows of deadly words. It won’t just keep people’s feelings from being damaged. It just might send productivity through the roof.