People who come to you with rumours and gossip will often request confidentiality - and of course you’ll honour that. And you’ll quickly learn who’s a habitual gossip and who isn’t. If people who don’t have a reputation for gossip and rumour-mongering are talking to you, that’s great. It means you’re reliable, they trust you to care for their reputations, and your opinion matters to them.
2. FIND OUT WHAT’S WORRYING PEOPLE:
The rumours that surface in a company are key indicators of what’s bothering the employees. If you’re hooked into the rumour mill and gossip grapevine, you’ll learn what people are worrying about. Then you can respond, with your actions and words, to control rumours and help people feel more secure, appreciated, and valued.
3. DISCOVER PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS: What are the company’s chances for success, what project or department is hot and, yes, who got drunk at happy hour? The “wisdom of crowds” says that groups of people are more accurate than you might think at predicting outcomes. When the group is just five or even ten folks in your grapevine that may or may not be true. However, if even some of those five or ten people are on the same team and their casual comments indicate a real winner of a project, it could be time to buy stock in the company.
4. KNOW WHO THE “OPINION-SETTERS” ARE: You can count yourself fortunate indeed if these people like you, because you surely don’t want to be on the wrong end of their opinions. At the same time, you even more emphatically do not want to be associated with them; their reputation will rub off on you, probably sooner than later. These people are often surprisingly influential.
5. IT’S ALL ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN LEARN:
Just because it’s gossip doesn’t mean it’s not valuable information. When you know what people are muttering to each other around the department’s printer, whispering about in their cubicles, and discussing over a happy-hour beer, then you know where your attention should be focused. Whether you use the knowledge to know when and how to jump on an opportunity, to pick the right words in a meeting to help people feel valued and secure, it’s all good stuff.
