Great leaders care about their team’s culture as much as their profitability. They understand sustained high performance and increasing profitability are built upon the solid foundation of a positive and contagious esprit de corps. Gallup documents the fact that organizations with above-average culture produce results at a level of 30% above their competition. BTL leaders learn to identify and eradicate beliefs and habits eroding their team’s culture while practicing and protecting the essentials of building an engaging culture.
At BTL we believe that there is one habit above all others that destroys our efforts to build a great culture—the habit of allowing and spreading gossip.
Gossip gotta go.
We have all seen and heard colleagues—and ourselves, if we are honest—commit character assassination without speaking a single word of protest to protect another’s reputation. Gossip is truth telling without courage. The practice of allowing and spreading gossip short-circuits the potential of your insights and observations to help another when you only tell them to a third party. STOP spreading this kinda stuff.
Replace the gossip habit with a better one. Begin by not letting it in. Due to your position on the org chart, you will hear a constant stream of information about others. It is very easy to listen to information from a third party that should be communicated directly to the second party. Is Sally telling you something about Sue that she should tell directly to Sue? If you are in the habit of listening to Sally’s bit of information without making sure that she tells it to Sue, you have become an accomplice to the gossip dragon—and it will eventually burn you and your entire team.
A better habit for you is to ask Sally this question—“Have you told this to Sue?” Often you will hear some kind of equivocation like, “I haven’t had time,” or “I was going to talk to her later,” or even, “I don’t think that she will listen.” This is the point at which you break into the cycle of the prevailing lower culture of allowing and even encouraging gossip and lift it to a higher level. You slay the gossip dragon by simply saying, “Sally, if this is important enough for you to want to tell me, then it is important enough for you to tell Sue. Let’s go into her office right now and have this conversation together.” If Sally really believes in what she wanted to say to Sue, you will help her become a truth teller with courage. If what she wanted to say does not pass the test of honest feedback, you will have stopped gossip dead in its tracks. Congrats. You just did your job.
The second habit to develop in yourself and on your team is the habit of not spreading gossip. King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, says that gossip is like a “tasty morsel.” Words of gossip are the hors d’oeuvres that feed the dragon. They are the mainstay of an ineffective team. Listening to gossip keeps us from the real meat and potatoes of building a great culture and a high-performing team. The BTL builder wants courage to replace cowardice. They want to build the active discipline of truth telling instead of the passive avoidance of victim hood. Do you see it? Are you modeling it? Do you demand it from your team?
Effective leaders know that their own example speaks the loudest. They know that they must persistently resist the urge to snack on information that will harm their team’s culture. They set an example of getting people together to speak honestly about the issues that constantly arise when any group of disparate people begin to work together as a real team. Great leaders initiate and spread the kind of conversation that will build resonance in their team. Together we improve demands truth telling. Gossip gotta go. This kinda culture has to built and fought for. You, the BTL leader, gotta lead the way.
Today, my new client got his butt kicked by his builder. He was listening to gossip, spreading gossip, and doing so without his awareness. You, most likely, are more like him than you think. Gossip gotta go, my friend. Y.O.U. gotta stop spreading it…
BUILT TO LEAD 