Last Month's Sightlines

In the absence of inspirational stories that help shape the ethos of organisations others get told to fill the silence.

 

Not long after I began work in Westpac I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the bank’s IT senior leadership team. We were talking about organisational culture. One of the team’s concerns was that IT seemed to have developed and be thriving on a culture of gossip. The main concern was that many of the stories that circulated were ill-informed or inaccurate. Even the actions of senior leaders was the subject of round-the-office gossip. I was told that Half-an-hour after this meeting ends there will be rumours circulating about what we discussed, who we talked about, and what decisions were made.

 

The team agreed that it was its own worst enemy. To date, team members had made little effort to communicate the nature of the issues being addressed by the senior leadership team. Their silence allowed others to second-guess them by seizing on an aside or brief remark and making something more of it. So the gossip began. What’s more, members of the team were doing very little to quash the rumours or correct the stories doing the rounds. But that afternoon, they decided to generate their own stories at the close of each meeting. In fact it didn’t take long for ‘on the grapevine’ messages and conversations initiated by senior leaders in IT to shift not just the nature of the stories being circulated but also the culture of the entire team.

 

Robin Dunbar is an anthropologist who specialises in evolutionary biology. From his observation of chimpanzees, Dunbar observed that the optimum size of a community was about 30. He also noted that relationships were established and maintained through the act of physical grooming; an approach to socialisation that seems to operate on the premise of You keep me clean and tidy and I’ll make sure that you are looking good too!

 

Dunbar points out that with the increase in the size of human communities – the number of contacts jumps to something like 100 to 150 – grooming became an impractical means of sustaining productive relationships. He suggests that language replaced grooming, enabling us to tell stories that connect us with the social circles in which we move. Dunbar goes even further with his hypothesis that language evolved as gossip, keeping us in touch with who is doing what to whom. Gossip, says Dunbar, gives us an opportunity to keep track of what is or what might be happening when we are a step removed from the action itself. It also enables us to shape perceptions of others and ourselves, and to influence the nature of relationships.

 

I have no idea whether there is any credence in Dunbar’s theories, but I have begun listening to conversations (yes, mine too!) with a little more interest since reading about his ideas. And he does have a point. We do seem to like sharing stories about others. We do connect with the person with whom we are interacting by making connections with others. We talk about a recent encounter, or pass on an account of a situation someone else has shared with us.

 

Now that’s fine if the stories are affirming of those within our circles of influence and concern. They give meaning and significance to our connectedness. They invest it with value that has its roots in the intrinsic worth of others. Good gossip (if there is such a thing) fosters truth and trustworthiness.

 

But if the stories are negative or critical they are inclined to foster a sense of unease. Fascinating they might be, intriguing perhaps, or even tantalising; but they have more to say about distance and difference than they do about closeness and commonality. Indulging in such unconstrained talk (the Oxford Dictionary definition of gossip), we can stand apart and removed from the other. To talk idly fosters speculation – the sharing of assumptions and opinions. If this is not the enemy of truth, it is close to it.

And the unease? If I am participating in this conversation about a colleague or friend, how often am I the subject of similar conversations. Hardly, the environment in which that highly desired personal and interpersonal character of trustworthiness can be sustained and nurtured.

 

I’d like to counted among the story-tellers whose tales inform, enrich and enhance the interactions I have with others. I’d also like to think that the stories others share about me have the same quality. It’s still is it not all about good grooming?

 

Some TO DO's to consider   The idea for this month’s Sightline message had its seeds in a reference to Dunning’s theories in Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis . A recent book that fits in the category of popular psychology, it still has some valuable insights for those leaders keen to foster a happier workplace. I’ve found it insightful and helpful. Affirm your colleagues and friends in the stories you share about your interactions with them and about the events in their lives. Challenge the gossip which is demeaning or critical of others, especially when the stories are rich with assumption and opinion. We provide critiques of things - events and situations – and improvement is predicated on our ability to do this well. But let’s keep such talk to things . This is a tough one. Often it’s easier to remain silent. We prefer not to voice our discomfort or to challenge the assumptions. The danger of silence is that it often implies collusion. I’m trying to break that habit. If you are part of a leadership team and don’t have some well-defined, behaviourally anchored values that support the quality of interactions you want to foster with each other and with other colleagues take time-out to agree these. The Lines of Sight team can assist you by facilitating a workshop for you. If you are meeting as a leadership team, decide what messages you’ll share with the others in the organisation and agree how you’ll do this. It means the stories that get told in your workplace are likely to reflect reality rather than the perception of the most effective office gossip. Do some personal work to enhance the way you talk to colleagues about the impact their way of working or interacting has on you – as opposed to telling others. My hunch is that you might not be surprised how common stories about others (i.e. gossip ) is a reflection of our inability to engage in more challenging conversations with the people who matter. This is becoming core work for Lines of Sight. If you’d like to know more about Difficult Conversations and How to Have Them or about Giving Effective Feedback please talk with us.

The March quote

James Kouzes and Barry Possner put a different emphasis on the much quoted reminder to walk the talk :

 

To earn and strengthen leadership credibility, leaders must do what we say we will do....

 

That We is crucial to leadership credibility. Certainly leaders are expected to do what they say. They are expected to keep their promises and follow through on their commitments. But what they say must also be what we, their constituents, believe. To take people to places they have never been before, leaders and constituents must be on the same path. And to get people to join the voyage of discovery voluntarily requires that the aims and aspirations of leaders and constituents are harmonious....

 

The credible leader knows how to discover and communicate the shared values and visions that can form a common ground on which we can all stand.

 

James Kouzes and Barry Possner, Credibility, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993