“Hey did you know that A has quit, B is joining us back, and C is interviewing for a new role?” rattled off a then colleague.
“Woah woah. Wait a second. I have rarely spoken to A, I have never heard of B, and I have no clue about this new role that C is interviewing for”, I said, trying to catch up with the unending flow of info.
There are two kinds of people at the workplace. The one who knows and the one who doesn’t know.
A third kind too - The one who feigns to know in hopes of being in on juicy conversations. Let’s keep them aside for now.
Gossip isn’t a pleasant term. It connotes talking about people behind their backs, rumour mongering even.
That said, workplace gossip is quite fascinating by itself. It’s that single thread, tenacious and tenuous in the same vein, armed with the power to build and break relationships.
Should we simply avoid gossip then?
Well, the answer, as always, is “it depends”.
Let’s take a step back and look at it from an unbiased lens. As information. And not gossip.
Not always is a meeting or an org announcement the way information percolates to everyone. In fact, most unstructured information remains just that. Unstructured information.
What’s happening on that special project? What are some of the do’s and dont’s from there that can help me in my work?
Who is leading this proposal and why? Is there an opportunity for me to contribute?
How is that new initiative going? How will it impact what I do?
These are only some samples of what happens at the workplace that we don’t necessarily get to pick up on unless we go out looking for this information. And they get classified under gossip, unfortunately so.
Going back to the original question, not all gossip is actually bad gossip.
As long as the conversation doesn’t turn out to be malicious or harmful, or leads to hurting someone else’s prospects, I would as much as go out on a limb and say…
A dollop of gossip is actually healthy to the corporate gut.