Finding the Gold in Gossip: Channeling Employee Frustration Into Making a Better Workplace

Gossip between employees is rightfully derided as toxic, threatening to spread discontent and stand in the way of people working together to get the job done.  But employee discontent cannot just be ignored or wished away.  Instead, employee gossip presents a unique opportunity to look at the sources of dissatisfaction to engage in creative problem solving to make a workplace stronger.

I was once brought in with a group of other professionals to complete a project.  Everyone came in with great enthusiasm, but it soon became clear that our leader, the one who had assembled our group, was an ineffective communicator who had trouble managing the group in order to effectuate this leader’s original goals and vision.  

For several months, we all struggled to use our unique skills to complete our tasks without having a clear idea of what was actually expected.  As professionals, we all tried to keep our frustrations to ourselves, but eventually it became clear that we were striving to create the best work product possible in spite of our leader.  At that point, we began voicing our concerns to each other.

All the conventional wisdom about workplace gossip would warn us that this was the point at which everything fell apart.  But on the contrary, two wonderful things happened.  

First, an instant sense of community was created – the sense of community that our leader had failed to create and encourage.  For the first time in months, our team felt united behind a common goal.  By acknowledging that our leader could not articulate the goals of the project, we gave ourselves the opportunity to come together and work to define it ourselves.  That shared understanding allowed us to work in a more focused and effective manner to achieve these goals.

Second, by sharing our concerns with each other, we were able to engage in creative problem solving to develop solutions and work-arounds to ensure that everything worked more smoothly.  I was having a particular problem I felt was insurmountable, but another member of the team heard me and was able to fix it right away.  “Small victory,” he smiled, and we were both able to share a sense of success that fueled our ability to give even more of ourselves to this project.

At the end of our collaboration, the project turned out to be a huge success.  We exceeded our targets and goals, and were widely praised within our industry.

Had our team continued to struggle with our individual tasks and roles in silence, we never would have been able to produce work product that so exceeded our goals, work that we could be proud of.  Had we continued to shy away from communicating with each other for fear of being seen as “gossiping,” the project may have fallen apart.  

When employee discontent rears its ugly head, do not ignore it and do not try to squash it.  Instead, engage with it, perhaps with the assistance of a trained workplace professional, in order to understand where your workplace systems are falling short.  Once you understand and acknowledge what is not working, you can start to find ways that do work and turn your dysfunctional workplace around to produce something great.  There is gold in the gossip if you take the opportunity to mine for it.