Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
I work on a marketing team in a fairly large financial company where we all have too much on our plates. We need to work together and realize the pressure we are each under, but one of my colleagues thrives on gossip instead. She talks about each of us behind our backs, criticizing how we do everything. Another colleague says she is a gossip-monger and that’s how she gets her attention and we should just live with it. I want it to stop. I think it is degrading and fractures the team. Do you have advice for dealing with a gossip-monger?
Financial Professional
(Name withheld)
Dear Financial Professional:
Your colleague who called her attention seeking is right; people gossip and speak poorly of others because it benefits them in some way. Gossip might give her the attention she craves or it might serve as a distraction from working as hard as the rest of the team. Most people with enough time on their hands to gossip aren’t doing other things they should be doing!
You’re not her boss, however, so you can’t ask her to do a time management study or criticize her work effectively. Because you are all peers, there are a few things you can do especially if the rest of the team members agree that this is a problem and want to address it somehow.
Ask the gossiper to hold on for a minute while you invite the third party she was gossiping about into the conversation. If someone walks into your cubicle or office and has a beef with someone else, it makes sense to get that someone else in the room, too. Otherwise how can you solve the problem? If everyone agrees to do this, it can put a stop to gossip right away. The fun of talking behind people’s back disappears when you have to badmouth them to their face.
You can’t control others’ behavior but you can control your own. You can decide to extricate yourself from any and all conversations about others. It’s hard because most of us tend to get drawn in by gossip. When she starts, just say something like “I have to work with Todd/Jane/Julie, and I don’t want to be in a position of criticizing them. I don’t think it helps.” She may still try to get you engaged. Refuse to get pulled in.
Ask her what the obstacles really are. If she is complaining about another colleague, try to get objective about it. “I hear what you are saying about Todd/Jane/Julie’s behavior but what’s the real problem? Is there something getting in your way of doing your job?” Gossip is so personal and so emotional in many cases. Try and make it more objective and clinical. There might be something behind what she is saying. Maybe she would respond differently if she had a different way of looking at it.
Simply tell her you find it stressful when she talks about others. Refrain from being critical or judgmental toward her, but simply say, “We have so much to do and honestly I just get drained when we talk negatively. Can we change to something more positive right now?”
I write about gossip as a productivity tool. To learn more, read this article in Chief Learning Officer magazine for more ideas when you are the person in charge.
