I WAS INITIALLY PLANNING TO continue the writing of my newest series on design thinking, of which the first part had been written as the Day 76 post. I, however, have been engaging in many meaningful discussions with friends, colleagues, and guests of this blog who were highly entertained by my last post on the 12 rules for life, especially on the tenth rule: Be distrustful of gossip.
In fact, I think the name of this tenth rule should be changed to the very title of this post: Gossip is a crime against humanity. Coincidentally, the feeling that this title radiates coincides with Pope Francis' who has recently warned us against both conscious and unconscious engagement in the "terrorism" of gossip. In other words, gossip is murder. I, too, wholeheartedly disdain gossip. It all began when I was young.
My father was a kind man; so it's no surprise that I barely remember a situation in which I was being yelled at by him. Yet, I remember the one and probably the only instance very well. It was because I told him what I thought I knew about my classmate -- gossip about his cheating at an exam. My father immediately asked me, " How did you know for sure that he cheated?
Did you see it yourself?
Did you report it?" My response was clumsy: I told my father that I "didn't actually know." And, in fact, I heard about this cheating from another classmate who was probably told about this cheating by another classmate. That was it for my kindest father: He didn't snap (I would have if I were him, knowing what kind of man he always was) but he said to me: "There's no room for gossip in this house." He went on to talk to me about the destructive power of gossip.
In fact, I remember well how he said: It's your responsibility to report this cheating if you have the evidence that it happens. We do not accuse people without any evidence. On the other hand, if we have the evidence of a crime and don't act, we are no different from being a criminal ourselves. That's why I asked you How did y ou know for sure that he cheated? Did you see it yourself? Did you report it?
So, like my father, I believe that gossip is a sign of cowardice, immaturity, insecurity, weakness and lack of moral capacity to act on one's own. It's also a sign of envy and unconstructive self-doubt. I'll write more about these unwanted qualities in a person in the later part of this post. If I were to continue with the pontiff's metaphor of terrorism, gossiping is nothing less than throwing a bomb at someone at than walk away with no responsibility (the point which I will get back to later).
Writing this blog post also as a trained anthropologist, however, I also recognize how gossip shed light on the micro politics of the particular community -- which, I would then argue, should not in any way justify the existence of gossip. The anthropologist Michael Herzfeld often says how he sees anthropology as a study of gossips.
He derives this very understanding both from the Greek etymology of the term ( anthrpos and logia ) and the social theory of his predecessor the British anthropologist Max Gluckman who partly argues for the legitimacy of the study of gossip and scandal in modern anthropology.
Herzfeld argues that what makes rich ethnography is "when anthropologists are trying to get their informants to get off the stage and whisper all those intimate and slightly disreputable bits of gossip that make good, juicy ethnographic data." That said, there is something quite unsettling about such statement. This is because of my having learned over the years that my informants tend to walk out of a gossipy conversation as much more stressful, angry and aggressive individuals after having gossiping.
Like Gluckman and Herzfeld, I used to believe in gossip as social duty and one should not be stressful, angry and aggressive when engaging in such duty. That said, over the years I have learned that which is not always the case. When two parties were in conflict with one another, despite the power dynamics, things often get solved more effectively when those two parties engage in a direct and transparent and form of nonviolent communication (which I occasionally had the pleasure of moderating).
To me, hearing their gossip feels like my throwing an emotional bomb at them. I would go so far as to say that it's unethical to motivate the informants to engage in gossiping. Why do I insist on a gossip-free ethnography despite the misopportunity to get "juicy ethnographic data? Should we, in the name of knowledge, do everything to get data?
Just because gossip tells anthropologists about the tension between members of a particular community -- and therefore makes "juicy ethnographic data" - - it doesn't mean that these anthropologists have the solid moral ground on which they could build their case in pursuit of knowledge to encourage their informants to engage in the act of terrorism against one another, especially just to "get more juicy ethnographic data." An anthropology colleague summarizes it vividly: Gossip often harbors malicious intent.
Frustration at others can often boil over into anger and malice leading to gossip. Anthropologist should understand frustration, anger and malice, but not encourage it. That is, it would be like getting someone to throw a bomb at each other so that you can, in the name of the benign anatomical science, study how their bodies disintegrate. There're many other ways that anthropologists can learn about a certain society. In my own anthropological research, I have never sat through a session of gossip.
Well, there might be a few instances or two that my language skill wasn't good enough for me to know whether I was about to be listening to gossip. But when I am fully conscious and in control of the command of the language used in the conversation, I always make sure to my informants that I am only interested in hearing from them their perceived experiences, and not their personal attacks on other people.
Sometimes I let my informants share with me their feeling of discontent (that's why friends are for, isn't it), but it's known among my circle of informants that I would interject with a question "How do you know that?" should the sharing begin to incorporate any forms of gossip. This strategy occasionally urges my informants to re-evaluate their assumption and prejudice.
It's also good for my research to make sure that my informants know that I am not the kind who is fond of gossip -- as those who is fond of gossip tend to judge, take side, and engage in malicious action of coward betrayal. What would your position be in a community that you study if all of your informants think of you as a gossip's collector? In other words, in the language of nonviolent communication, I am only interested in "evaluation-free" prose.
Many might argue that this is not the right way to do ethnography, but I somehow insist on it. I sincerely do not want my view on anyone in the community where I study to be clouded by the personal evaluation of the informants who might like or hate one another. Of course, once the close friendliness with the informants is established, my informants and I are prone to share with each other something deeper information- wise.
They would ask me about my personal life, e.g., my love life and whether or not I am married. My answer would also be evaluation-free, such as, "No, I don't have a girlfriend." And if they insist on knowing whether there's anyone, I would tell them right away. There's nothing to hide among friends, I believe. That said, I always tell my informants that it's more important for me to learn about what actually has happened or is happening, rather than what they think who did what.
In my research, I have other methodological means, such as participant observation, to understand those without having to resort to gossip. So, it may be true that my ethnographic data is not as "juicy" as it could be. I can live with it. By writing this blog post, I hope to convince you, with all my knowledge, why gossip should have no place in the society in which we are living in today, and why all of our effort would help to make that happen.
I will prove to you that gossip are like bullets from an automatic gun; once you let it be heard by your ears, you will be wounded the same way you let a bullet hit your body. Your judgement will be clouded with biases, which will lead to many decisions that you otherwise would be in a better position to make. P.S.
I was blessed by these amazing readers with a series of thoughtful discussions, especially with the philosopher Dr Mark Calano and a recent graduate and my former student and now a good friend Robert Zajc who, probably, is one of the most curious and remarkable students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. My mother too contributed quite a few great thoughts during our ride to a shopping mall this morning. So, thank you, Mark, Robert and my dearest mother for inspiring this blog post.
How did it all begin? Humans don't always gossip -- what we always do is telling stories. In a griping prose, the writer Jonathan Gottschall tells us in his bestseller The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human about how we have always been prone to create, make up, and piece together stories. "We are wired for stories," said he. Archeological evidence of ancient paintings and scriptures on the wall are evidence of that.
As Gottschall's research shows, we humans make sense of the world by creating stories that are based on something that we are not certain about. Religious myths and stories about the origins of the world, ultimately, are forms of gossip, speculating how the world was put together -- because none of us were there when that happened. Gossips, in many ways, are "unproven speculations" put together based on some grains of possibility observable in real life. That might explain why we love to justify hearing them.
Anthropologists and historians argued that some sort of structure of power emerged and the sense of repression rose at some point in the short history of our existence (compared to that of the universe). Long story short: Those who saw themselves as being in the weaker position began to communicate, among themselves, their anxiety, fear, and discontent toward those whom they saw as being in a superior position. In his best work Weapons of the Weak Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, the political scientists James C.
Scott coins the term "weapons of the weak" to describe gossip as one of many weapons used in the manner of "hidden transcripts" by the weaker population against the superior power to whom the the weaker population have no "official" source of gauging and voicing their discontent with each other. Scott argues that "gossip as hidden transcripts" are important because otherwise the individual who sees himself/herself as weak would no clue whether he/she is the only one feeling that way.
So, by gossiping, these individuals get to gauge the landscape of discontent. Most of us must have had this feeling: How many times that we talk to voice our sense of worry to our friends and colleagues when we feel as though we should have been treated better by our boss, teacher, superior -- even though we know that the best way to actually get to know whether that which is the case is to go and speak directly to the boss, teacher, superior?
The argument that Herzfeld's predecessor the anthropologist Max Gluckman has made in his monumental paper "Gossip and Scandal" published in 1963 is similar to mine: Because unlike an open discussion, the closed-circuit nature of gossip create the kind of "exclusiveness" that plays a role both in indoctrinating a new member to the social group, unite the existing social group, as well as preventing any strangers from the group.
In this sense, it's the weak who needs the function of gossip to stabilize the existence of social group to give them some sense of security. Gossip, on the other hand, also have the function of maintaining the morals, unity, and values of social groups for which those who consider themselves to be more powerful also have an important role to play.
The argument here, however, lies in the idea that those in the powerful position know that the weaker population (which can be those with the younger, new, or those with pre-designated lower tier membership) are aware of their inferior status and is actually more susceptible to "informal activities" that define the unity and membership of the group. These information activities are obviously not written in their job descriptions but are essentially to their not being a victim of vicious gossip.
In any companies, for example, we all know that it is not enough just to be a good employee. In many countries, many employees attend social activities (such as drinking) with their bosses even though they don't have the financial means or time to conveniently do so. Why do they still have to do it?
Because they know that even though their bosses cannot use their absence from these social activities to fire them, they can easily be prejudiced against because of their lack of participation in informal activities that is understood by the norm as uniting and defining the membership of the group. This situation also works sideway among those who are in the same social status but fear of losing such status.
In other words, why do many of us spend money we don't really have to buy things we don't even want jus to please those whom we don't even like? Gossip, in this sense, is intentionally created either to: Undermine the authority to which the weak do not have the "formal" power to fight against; and/or, Undermine the power of the weak by the authority who know that the weak tend to believe that they can undermine the authority by using gossip.
In other words, those who see themselves in an inferior position are also made to believe that they "actually" have the power to undermine the authority while what they are actually doing is to play by the authority's game. The social psychologist Robert B. Cialdini shows in his recent research about the power of publicity that those in the position of power and/or authority actually like those who see themselves in the lower position to gossip about them.
Summarizing in a short quote "There's no such thing as a bad publicity," this principle of, what Cialdini calls, "pre-suation" plays a role in constantly injecting the image of the authority in the mind of those who think that they could confront them through a back door. In Pre- Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Cialdini summarizes: It's often said that the fate celebrities fear most is to be ignored, forgotten, or otherwise dropped from the cultural consciousness.
Powerful publicity of any sort spares them that worst of all fates because it brings them attention; and raw attention anoints them with presumed importance. " The last two words "presumed importance" is key, and now that we know this we must not forget that we can be complicit in promoting the power structure simply by gossiping about them. The line between gossiping to gauge the collective discontent and gossiping to make those powerful even more presence in terms of presumed importance is blurry.
In fact, even the anthropologist Max Gluckman himself doesn't think just because gossips are "useful" to the study of social anthropology we should simply endorse it. He actually says quite the opposite alluding to the danger of doing so: My argument about gossip and scandal is similar: If I suggest that gossip and scandal are socially virtuous and valuable, this does not mean that I always approve of them.
Indeed, in practice I find that when I am gossiping about my friends as well as my enemies I am deeply conscious of performing a social duty; but that when I hear they gossip viciously about me, I am rightfully filled with righteous indignation. For those who justify gossiping as an heroic act, it may be dismaying for them to hear that gossip don't lead to a successful revolution. Gossip may help those who see themselves in an inferior position to know that they are not alone in the battle.
But, ultimately, it's the selfless act of those who are willing to risk everything confronting the injustice who gathers the momentum of public support to win the fight. Gossip is often seen a sign of immaturity, insecurity and parasitic aspect of those who are prone to emotional violence. Those who gossip, therefore, do not have the social credit let alone the charm or charisma to lead the revolution. Staging a revolution against the oppress requires much more than constructed narratives. The difference between useful information and gossip is to follow.
Why are gossip so entertaining? As I wrote in my last post (and quite rightly and accidentally coinciding with Gluckman's argument) gossip are entertaining because they are -- and here I am also alluding to my concern of this kind of vicious entertainment: Not about you -- so, listening to gossip is like watching a bomb being thrown at and killed civilians at the comfort of your armchair; and telling gossip is like throwing a bomb at an innocent people and walk away without any responsibilities.
As Dr Dennis Hunnell MD writes, "Gossip has little regard for the human dignity of its victim"; Gives you the sense of importance through exclusiveness -- when telling or listening to gossip, you are creating an exclusive club consisting of invited-only guests to join an orgy of terrorists; and, Fulfill the desire for vengeance -- gossip makes you feel as though someone else is responsible for the situation in which you are. Why are gossip so bad?
Gossip create an image of a thing, person, and event before you yourself experience it. This image is what social psychologists believe to lead to a kind of systematic prejudice commonly known as "confirmation bias," which is a kind of mental shortcut that we use to make most of the decisions in our life.
Say, you have heard a gossip about your newest office's colleague "being lazy." And say you don't have any other information about this person. On Monday's morning, you're then asked to mentor this new colleague.
It's very likely that you would take the gossip that you have heard about his laziness as a heuristics of "mental shortcut" in dealing with him during his first assignment with you. You will be likely to watch him carefully and try to find any sign that confirms your bias about his laziness, and it's very likely that you will find that sign -- not just one and many. Why? Because you are deliberately and carefully looking for it. Now imagine if the situation is a reverse.
You're this newest colleague. You did not do anything wrong and you were not lazy -- but everything you did was considered laziness just because that person who was supposed to be mentoring you saw you through his "confirmation bias lens" induced by gossip. Would you be okay with that? This goes almost with everything you experience in your life.
The comedian John Oliver once showed how confirmation bias work in a episode of his award-winning Last Week Tonight show, during which he presented a few yet-to-be-fully-investigated scandals about Hilary Clinton. And then he went on to mention a few other scandals of hers, such as the Swiss File Transfer case to which most people simply knotted their heads. And then Oliver surprisingly revealed that "I just made up the Swiss File Transfer case...but for a second, you kind of remembered it." Let's put that to a test.
Read the following passage. You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worried and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself on being an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. Done? Now, go back and read it again.
This time do keep in mind that this is a statement describing YOU based on hundreds of thousands of data points that I've collected from the comments, e-mails, and other browsing information generated by WordPress.com all cross-referenced with demographics information over the half-life of this very blog. The process of doing so has been long and tedious, but I did so any way to come up with this statement about you. So, trust me on this, I have a good idea of who you are.
Now, please go back and read it again. Now what do you think? Does it sound like you, my dearest reader? It should, but not because of how this paragraphs is written based on any data that I just described, but because it's written in such a broad and vague term that it should describe everyone.
The tendency that you are likely to think that this is about you the second time you read it is because of your unconscious using of the "mental shortcut" to make sense of this paragraph vis-a-vis you. Everything seems to fall into its place, isn't it? You may be disappointed to learn that the paragraph above comes from David McRaney's book You Are Not So Smart, which describes, tests, and provide scientific findings of this kind of mental shortcuts.
The paragraph above, in fact, come from a 1948 experiment by the Stanford University psychologist Bertram R. Forer in his study of, what he later terms, "subjective validation" showing that we are all prone to believing vague statements and predictions, especially if they are positive and address you personally -- in this case, through the use of, also, our proneness to be prejudiced, anchored, and mislead by a tactic of confirmation bias (i.e., the entire paragraph in red above).
In the example above about your newest colleague at your old workplace, you might just want to protect yourself from being taken advantage of by this "known to be (through gossip as being) lazy" newest colleague; therefore, you justify using gossip as a base of the information on how to avoid being taken advantage of. That said, why would you be afraid of your being taken advantage of if you're certain of your ability in your role to mentor a new person joining the office.
Even if he's lazy, isn't that one of the behavioral and cognitive change that you can help this person change through your role as his mentor? Because gossip can also easily grow up of jealously and senseless egotism, people who constantly engage in gossiping entertained themselves at the expense of their own ability to grow out of their own self-imposed immaturity and cultivate their sense of self efficacy.
At a personal level, to emphasize, gossip only represents your immaturity, insecurity, and your desire to be parasitic to the community of which you have become a member. In other words, those who gossip tend to have sociopathic personality -- in the sense that they lack conscience and do not care about the negative consequences of their action on other people. At a societal level, gossip create an image of a society that is worse than before.
The psychologist Steven Pinker has written in many occasions about how many of us think of the world as being more violent when, in reality, we are actually living in the most peaceful time in the history. As Pinker writes, a news about a plane safely landed at an airport doesn't make a headline whereas a news about a slight disputation of an engine of a plane causing an emergency landing; so, we tend to hear more about bad news than good.
Owing to that nature of media, we tend to think of the world as becoming more dangerous when all statistics available are pointing to the opposite. The great psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1974 calls this kind of cognitive fallacy "availability bias," which clouds us from seeing the situation, circumstance, and the world the way it is.
The same goes with how we tend to hear news about someone's winning a jackpot and not millions of people who wasted their precious bucks on a piece of useless paper they once call lottery. This might explain why those who watch news tend to buy both lottery tickets and travel insurance when flying? Gossip are like that too.
We like to hear stories that fill the void of emptiness in our soul and that usually means we like to hear a drama involving how others are not as superior as we are. Gossip, in this sense, only makes us see the world through the same lens as those ubiquitous bad news we see in the media. Sooner or later we will soon think that most planes crash, flying is not safe, and most people in the world want to kill you (and therefore you must act first).
Rules Against Gossip and for the Humanity There's only one rule: Don't engage. What it means is that you: Should not listen to any of it -- again, I must emphasize that gossip are (not just like, they are) bombs and bullets to the soul and to your character. So, literally walk away from it when someone is about to say it as if you are walking away from someone who is about to throw a bomb and shoot you in the chest; and, Don't gossip.
It's obvious that the second one is much harder than the first. For the first rule, I usually just walk away. In a situation in which walking away is not possible, I change the topic or politely make it clear to the counterpart that I do not wish to engage. There is no possible justification for letting yourself hit by the bullets of a terrorist who is selfish and is only see you as an object of malignant desire.
Again, you could use my father's words "Give me a hard evidence -- There's no room for gossip in this room/table/meeting." It is hard to avoid engaging in gossip if we do not first distinguish it from, simply, "informational prose." A few friends asked me whether it's okay for them to tell what they have heard -- what they call "a piece of truthful information." First, you need to know difference between an information and a gossip? Try to point out the difference between these two sentences.
A hint here is that one is considered to be a piece of information that you happen to know, and the other is a gossip. The situation/context here is that you're being asked whether you know that Mr. Adams is married. "Mr. Adams told me that he is married." "Mr. Adams said he's married, although I personally do not believe him." I hope that you can tell right away that the first sentence is an informational while the second is not. If Mr.
Adams has given you just one piece of information that he's married -- in this case, he must have "told" you in person, which is different from your looking at his personal profile and saw the box "married" checked without his consent. You do not need to add any of your personal thought to the truth that Mr. Adams told you that he's married. The added information about your not believing his words is considered unnecessary and gossipy.
This is the kind of information that will consciously or unconsciously cloud the judgment of the listener. For whatever moral justification you have regarding your assertion of your personal belief, the consequence of this unnecessary prejudice you have created is on you. Just to be clear, let's have another exercise. Which of these is gossip? I did not see Mr. Boyles in my class today. Mr. Boyles deliberately didn't come to class because he doesn't like the teacher. In other words, Dr.
Marshall Rosenberg says, "do not confuse observation with evaluation" (i.e., the #1 principle). He writes in his monumental theory of non-violent communication: Differentiating observation from evaluation, being able to carefully observe what is happening free of evaluation, and to specify behaviors and conditions that are affecting us is the first skill of non-violent communication. When you are telling what you are observing, you are in a much better place to not be prone to gossip. Another way to think about it is to abide by Dr.
Peterson's Rule#8, which is "Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie." You might argue that you are not lying when you add "although I personally do not believe him." Well, don't try to be too clever here. Yes, you won't be lying when you share your honest opinion if you really feel so, but based on what? Your personal opinion?
How do you know that your personal opinion is not based on any other forms of prejudice that you probably have heard from other sources -- such as gossips -- that someone has shared with you. Just because you don't know whether what make you think you know is not a lie does not give you a moral justification to convey it as a truth, even with your most honest opinion.
In other words, just because you "think" you are telling your honest opinion doesn't mean that you are not lying. In fact, in his 1 2 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos book, he outlines very thoughtfully what lies, and forms of lies based on your own belief that what you think you know is not a lie, can hurt you pathologically and emotionally.
So, in this case, saying what you know for certain and, to your most honest mind, that which is not a lie -- the very fact that Mr. Adams told you that he is married -- is not just enough but appropriate. Any information added to this is considered gossipy. Don't tell gossips -- Bite your tongue if you need to! We love stories; the more is the better, and the more of them is the more convincing the argument is.
I actually understand how hard it is to stop at "Mr. Adams told me that he is married" or simply "I did not see Mr. Boyles in my class today." In the study of, what later on called "conjunction fallacy," by the great psychologists Amos Tversky and Dani Kahneman (again) in 1983, it's clear that we humans are prone to make rather innocuous errors when information presented at them with stories. In their famous example, "Linda," they show vividly how this conjunction fallacy finds form.
Basically, Tversky and Kahneman presented a story of a fictional character Linda as followed: Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright.
She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. The question that followed was: Which is more probable? A) Linda is a bank teller. B) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. What's your answer?
Anyone in their right mind would answer A) Linda is a bank teller because " more probable" simply and straightforwardly means "more statistically probable." For Linda to be a bank teller who is also active in the feminist movement, she would have to be a bank teller first. So, Linda's being a bank teller is more statistically more probable. Well, I am not sure what was your answer but most people actually chose B) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.
When asked why, those who chose B in a series of experiments that the two psychologists had conducted promptly referred to the fact that Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement sounded more like a realistic answer based on the information about who she was and what she did as a student and before she became a bank teller. In this case, the additional information "i s active in the feminist movement" is the element of emotional "representativeness" that undermines rational statistical probability.
Imagine if Linda is your former classmate and you do not know what Linda is doing, and how easy it is for you to add those last few words: "I haven't see Linda in a while but last time we met she was a bank teller -- and was probably still active in the feminist movement." Bite your tongue, resist the temptation to be complicit in an act of terrorism. All you actually know is that she WAS a bank teller.
Because we like stories that are more than just facts -- like in this Linda's story -- therefore it goes the same as how our mind (and mouth) would like to interject more than what we actually know, and are capable of knowing. Be careful of that.
There was time that I mistakenly sent two messages to my friends upon the death of my dog Paolo -- one wrote "Paolo just passed away," and the other was "Paolo was a dog that loved to eat everything," Lo and behold, I received many messages from those friends who mourned the loss of my dearest dog to obesity, obesity-induced diseases (such as diabetics) and obesity-induced immobility. There're even gossips going around that I was a "pug's killer" because I "constantly overfed" my lovely Paolo.
The truth was that Paolo was only allowed to eat only one meal a day of dog's food only. I didn't even know whether, as a dog, he was considered overweight.
All I wanted to say was that Paolo was dead and that I remember him well as a lovely dog that loved to eat -- these two information had nothing to do with one another but all my friends, though "conjunction fallacy," connected the invisible dots brought to them by their proneness to see a story in the two separated ideas. In fact, all of us should know the principles of non-violent communication and converse freely, with good intentions, with one another.
In fact, there is a plethora of evidence showing that a transparent workplaces that disdain and reject gossiping tend to strive and retain their productivity while those who are not tend to collapse. In organizational psychology, for instance, there is a plenty of research findings that show how a company would be much better off when the employees feel as though they can voice their concerns about their superiors freely and directly with their superiors.
But we all know that which hardly happens, most of us (if not all) go to someone we like -- such as our friends or colleagues -- to voice our discontent with our superiors, which, needless to say, became gossips with the tendency to spread and therefore get distorted among the friends/colleagues of those friends/colleagues with whom you share your initial discontent. The evidence is clear that this circulation of information doesn't benefit any individuals in the situation let alone the organization.
The entrepreneur (and to me, a thinker) Ray Dalio, in fact, writes and speaks at length and especially in his book Principles ) about how he owes the culture of transparency the success of his company Brigdewater Associates. Combating gossip with nonviolent communication So, what exactly is nonviolent communication? I would suggest that you read Rosenberg's book, which I believe, to date, to be the best psychological guide on how to "communicate to live" in the world today.
Indeed, if we are all to follow his principles, we won't be engaging at all in gossiping. That is to say, gossip is, in Rosenberg's book, one of the violent methods of communication that his principles aim at preventing us from engaging. In short, here're the four principles which have many overlaps with what I have discussed earlier in this post (and please read the book!). When communicating you thoughts: Only speak of your observation -- and refrain from your evaluation.
Saying that your boss "talks too much" is the latter and won't solve any problem, whereas saying that your boss "occasionally speaks of his personal irrelevant personal experience during the meeting, extending the meeting's time by 20-30 minutes, may be an issues to be discussed" could lead to an action that helps your boss to change himself for better; Connect your moralistic judgement (if you happen to have one) to how you feel.
For instance, instead of saying that "You are so stupid for saying that -- how could you?" you might want to connect your immediate judgement (i.e., stupid) to the feeling that makes you feel that way, which could allow you to put together something that also weaves in essential facts, for example, "When you're talking specifically about this issue in a way that seems to imply that you are not aware of the very news that most of us should know by ways of our office's mass weekly e-newsletters, it makes me feel sad that we haven't been able to make sure that all the important news have reached all of us.
I'd like you to tell me how you feel when I tell you this"; Avoid adverbs such as always, never, ever, frequently, and state the facts -- how often is a statement such as "You never listen to me" is true?; and, Be explicit about your request, and not your demand -- try to motivate others to want to do things that are basic to human needs rather than demand that they do it. Most people do not want to be demanded but welcome polite and, most importantly, non-violent, requests.
Finally: Blame it on me! Again, I cannot emphasize enough that I disdain gossiping. I do not trust any news and media that base their reports on unfound rumors and especially gossips aiming at discrediting other people -- and so shouldn't you. Those who gossip always either uses pseudonym and do not want their name to be revealed to any third parties.
How many times that we have heard someone about to engage in gossip saying "Don't tell anyone that I am telling you this." It should be a commonsense that one should always be super cautious when told anything by anyone who does not want to be responsible for their own words. When one do not have to be responsible for your own words, one can say whatever one wants -- and that's a deeply, insanely, and outrageously dangerous thing.
According to this logic, not only should those words not be heard by a sensible person (and I mean YOU) but they should also be condemned by everyone who wants to live in a better society. I do not trust -- and therefore I do not read anything -- written by anyone who does not want to be responsible for their own words. I hope that you feel the same way.
I would not want to live in a society in which anyone could simply be a victim of false accusation and gossips. I believe in justice. Hence, I believe that the best way to bring anyone to justice is to stop speculating, and especially circulating false accusations, and simply bring all the parties involved in the accusation to a transparent investigation. It's always hurtful for me to hear that it's so easy for people to make false accusations about others.
But since I am a fan of Steven Pinker, I will continue to believe that even that which is the case, we are still living in the most peaceful time in the history of mankind (although that doesn't and shouldn't mean that we should just sit back and relax now). But hey, if those people still do not stop trying to get you to listen to their tasteless gossip, I have another suggestion.
Say that although you'd like to be a good listener, you once read a blog post that urged you to consider engaging with gossip unsafe even for innocent individuals. Go ahead: blame me. You can even use my name.
On Design Thinking Part 2: It All Began in Kraków