The Secret Killer of Companies

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. Today, I am talking about The Secret Killer of Companies. Let's hop into it. 

Gossip is the secret killer of companies

Gossip is a poison. It is the invisible weapon that kills companies from the inside. It's hard to see. There's no easy way to stop it. And once it begins, it spreads like wildfire. And the worst part about it: It is entirely preventable if you get ahead of it. You see gossip is a zero-sum game. It benefits you at the expense of someone else. It's time spent gossiping instead of time spent being creative and collaborative. It's time spent siloing information for a select few in the company versus creating transparency across the entire organization. And while it's so dangerous, we can't be surprised that it's part of work culture. For starters, it is a huge part of everyday culture, and it's a huge business. The entire tabloid journalism industry is built on gossip. You have TMZ that was acquired last year by Fox for $50 million. It's why Perez Hilton has millions of followers across social media. And gossip and sensationalism is the cornerstone of a big part of media that's driven by clickbait and page views to elicit the oh my God reaction from consumers. I personally am not a fan of this type of journalism, but more importantly, I know for a fact that gossip within the context of work simply doesn't work.

Let's start by defining what it is and what it isn't, because everyone has their own idea of what gossip is. 

What is gossip?

Gossip has two qualities. First gossip is saying something about someone with negative intent. Meaning what you're saying is not helping them to grow, to feel happy, or to self-actualize in any way. The second criteria: Gossip is saying something about someone that you wouldn't be willing to share in the same way if the person was in the room. And you need both of these criteria to exist for it to be gossip, so let me explain why. You can be talking about someone behind their back with positive intent. Let's say you're talking to your manager about an incoming employee, and you're trying to decide what information you should and shouldn't share with that employee in their first week, because you want to make sure that you don't overwhelm them. You're not going to want to have that conversation with the employee, which checks off the second criteria of gossip. But that conversation with your manager is completely serving the person and only has positive intent. 

The gossip test

That is the test if you're unsure if it's gossip or not: Am I serving or hurting the person that I'm talking about now, if you've gotten this far in the episode, you may be thinking yourself, Alex, this is obvious shit. Obviously gossiping is bad. And I agree that it's obvious, but I'd also be willing to bet that you have either gossiped to others in your career, or you've been gossiped to. So if it's so obvious, why do you do it?

Why do people gossip?

 There are a number of reasons why people gossip and I'll caveat all of these reasons by saying that in my humble opinion, they're not good reasons, but they are reasons. The first reason: We justified gossip as beneficial. For one reason or another, we can't speak about certain information and we think it's important to release pent-up negative energy before it explodes. Second reason we need to fend for ourselves in constant competition. You see people look at their careers as zero sum games and view their relationship to others at work as either being one up or one down, superior or inferior. Third reason, we like feeling validated. Humans are social creatures. And we like the feeling of being validated because it makes us feel connected and feeling connected is a survival mechanism. By getting our pent-up feelings in front of others, it gives us the opportunity to be made quote unquote right by our peers. Fourth reason we gossip. We like feeling in control. Gossip makes us feel like we are in control of other people's behaviors and thoughts, and we like the feeling of having people on our side. Fifth reason, we gossip, we get to earn attention or divert attention. Gossip allows us to be the center of the conversation when we don't have things to talk about. And it allows us to get out of the center of conversation by moving attention from us to someone else. And the sixth reason that people gossip is it avoids conflict. And in my opinion, this is the number one reason. If someone is afraid of confrontation and they don't want to share their thoughts and feelings with someone at a fear of upsetting them, they will end up venting to everyone but the person who they're talking about. 

A rebuttal to those reasons 

So those are the reasons. And while they are logical reasons, right? I'm not judging the soundness of the reasons. I also think they're kind of bullshit and there are way better options. Most of the time here are a few very honest thoughts as a response to the reasons why people gossip. First, listening to gossip is the same as speaking it. If you are a recipient of gossip, you are just as guilty as the person gossiping. Second gossip is driven by a few assumptions that I just want to squash straight up. It assumes that there aren't other ways to build connection and social status in your company. It assumes that your company has created a culture of gossip that you must participate in, that you don't have a choice in. It assumes that you are responsible for the emotions of others when you speak to them, and so if they end up reacting poorly to what you have to say, you own that responsibility. And it assumes that career is a zero-sum game. I believe all of those assumptions have faulty logic and to rid yourself of gossip, you need to rethink these assumptions I just said. And the last thought I'll share in response to the reasons people gossip is that I understand how hard it is to navigate a company where gossip culture is the default culture. I would actually say, this is the hardest challenge to face when you're experiencing gossip and you're trying to change it, because it forces any single employee to swim upstream. But I do believe it is entirely possible to avoid gossip while thriving in a company that is driven by gossip. It just takes more doing. But also a random thought around that is if you're that turned off by your company's culture being a gossip culture, and it feels really uncomfortable day in and day out to participate in it, it's worth asking yourself how long you want to be surrounded by that type of energy.

How to get rid of gossip

So now I hope where we are in the episode, you understand what gossip is, why we do it and why I personally think it's bullshit. And so the final piece here is how do you get rid of it when you end up identifying gossip? There's this great book that I'm reading right now. It's called The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And to be honest with you, I could probably do a Founder's Journal episode about every single commitment, but specifically within the context of gossip, the book shares an amazing framework for killing gossip, straight up. They call this framework the clearing method, and very simply this model just forces you to be honest, direct, and open, but in a way that feels approachable enough that you won't choose gossip over this.

The clearing model

The clearing model has seven steps so I just want to quickly share the steps, but then talk about what I think is the most powerful tool around this entire clearing model. Step one, affirm a meaningful relationship. Step two, establish a time to talk. Step three, state what the specific facts are. Step four, state what your story is because of the facts. Step five, state how that story makes you feel. Step six, state what your part is in this story. And step seven, state what you specifically want out of the conversation. Now, if you listen to these steps carefully, you could hear me say the words “story” and “fact” many times, and that's purposeful. These two words are what the entire clearing model hinges on. To have good relationships, to speak openly, and to avoid gossip is to be great at separating stories from facts and realizing that facts don't cause stress or drama in tough conversations with others, but rather stories do. And so if we can share our facts first and then hold our stories lightly, where we acknowledge that our stories are just that, they are stories that we have created, and we are open to shifting those stories through conversation, it makes our experience speaking openly, rather via gossip, significantly easier.

How to separate story from fact

So I want to leave you with an example of a story and a fact, and how separating them changes this entire game. A fact is that quarterly sales are down 4%. Indisputable. My story around that fact is that the sales team isn't doing their job. That is my perception. That is my understanding of why quarterly sales are down, but it is not a fact. The conversation with my head of sales, if I wanted to have that conversation with them, which I should, it becomes way easier when I separate story and fact and make it clear with them that my story is that the sales team isn't doing their job but the fact is that sales are down 4%, and what I want is to get sales in a better place, but I am willing to shift my story about it being the sales team's fault. And that feeling of ease, that feeling that drama or heightened emotions won't be created by sharing fact, and also sharing that I will change my story and shift it, it makes the choice of direct conversation over gossip significantly easier. 

I want to hear from you

Over the weekend, I was going through a bunch of emails from Founder’s Journal listeners. I had entered email inbox purgatory, where I was sitting on this pile of them and the cool thing to see was it was from so many of my listeners and it literally makes my weekend because it makes me feel great that I'm adding value to people's lives, but it's also amazing to see how diverse and international of a group my listeners are. So if you haven't yet introduced yourself, please shoot me an email at alex@morningbrew.com. Tell me who you are, what you do, and why it is that you listen to the show. And while you're doing that, please subscribe to Founder's Journal and leave a review on the podcast player of your choice, whether it's Apple, Spotify, or another. It is the number one way we grow this show. It's how we get to the top of the charts. And it's why we grew in January by more than 22%. Thanks again for listening, and I'll catch you next episode.