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Proactive About Gossip
May 6, 2010
They gave him a seashell: 'So you'll learn to love the water.' They opened a cage and let a bird go free: 'So you'll learn to love the air.' They gave him a geranium: 'So you'll learn to love the Earth.' And they gave him a little bottle sealed up tight. 'Don't ever, ever open it. So you'll learn to love mystery.'
-Eduardo Galeano
-Eduardo Galeano
"Don't try to create a 'gossip-free workplace' — there will never be such a place. What you should do is talk as directly as you can with your employees about plans and changes under way.... During times of struggle or transition, when gossip is likely to be most virulent, managers have a tendency to adopt a bunker mentality. That's exactly the wrong instinct.... Instead, managers should be extremely proactive about communicating, even if it just means weekly e-mails stating: Here's where we are, here's what you've heard, here's what we're still trying to figure out. That behavior is the gossip medicine."
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Comments (4)
Displaying All 4 CommentsUniversity Lake School
Sullivan, WI, United States
Dear Exchange,
I read your daily emails, and have read Exchange since it started in the 1970's.
Your email stating how to be proactive about gossip only addresses corporate gossip and only targets administration, their plans and their concerns. While I agree with open communication from administration, this alone will not be "proactive" enough. Your article missed other important types of gossip, as well as ways to avert its destructive tendencies.
There are more types of gossip than corporate--staff-to staff, parent--to staff and staff to parent are just 3 others. Some of this is insidious, damaging and unprofessional--to teachers, directors, parents and even children. You might want to access some of the works of Julie Bartkus, who takes a more thorough and assertive approach on school-gossip. <www.MotivateTeachers.com>
Gossip is just another kind of bullying...and is more typical amongst our gender imbalanced profession than in other more balanced corporations.
See what Julie has to say...and how much of a problem this really is for the Early Childhood Profession.
Dominic Bava, M.Ed.
United States
The article on the 'gossip-free workplace' is exactly right.
It is hard not to take gossip comments personally.
However, there are good gossip comments we often let roll off our shoulders.
Open communication is the most important part of working with teachers. They respect honesty.
Dutchess Community Collge
Poughkeepsie, NY, United States
I love this advise. I have found it to be true that trying to create a "gossip free zone" creates a subversive atmosphere. It's much better to address it as you hear it - and also to be realistic about human nature. Some of the advise we've gotten in the past about having employees sign a contract of NO GOSSIPING seems to create an atmosphere of shame. I don't want to have a parenting administrative style. We need to be aware, as directors, of how much we can really control and how much we cannot control. Our best control is setting the standard ourselves by our own attitude and being very careful about our own language and responding proactively when we hear something that doesn't match our mission/goals.
the Discovery Center
Kalamazoo, MI, United States
Rather than send out memos as to what administration is thinking or doing a better way would be weekly staff meetings where everyone has her say.
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