05.08.11 The 9th Managerial Flaw that Encourages Negative Gossip : Ineffective Office Communication

Ineffective Office Communication

Looking at Aaron and the golden calf saga, one cannot help but wonder whether he ever took the step to actively, frequently, regularly and consistently remind the children of Israel that Moses would return. After all, and as I said, Aaron had visited God on Mount Sinai and known that He was for real. If he (Aaron) tried to engage the masses, then his communication was ineffective since they were convinced that Moses would never return and succeeded in getting him (Aaron) to make an idol for them to worship.

In the case of our JuaLink story, the director, Eliya, was an ineffective communicator as well, considering that he had not bothered to update his team that a publicity manager would be joining them soon. That information gap was the loophole that Lulu used to concoct a rumour that Faraja had been hired through the ‘back door’. The fact that management had not formally briefed the workforce either, rendered Lulu’s rumour easy to believe by peers. Related to that was Eliya’s failure to inform Lulu ahead of time that she was just about to relinquish some of her duties to the new publicity manager. No wonder the change had not been well-received by the publicity officer who then chose to revert to negative gossip as a form of backlash.

Therefore, ineffective office communication is another managerial weakness that could breed negative gossip in an organisation, in addition to muzzling team members from sharing any views that are contrary to those of supervisors. Such a tendency ends up pushing team members to revert to ‘corridor talk’, which eventually ignites negative gossip, especially if staff are dissatisfied with the organisation’s policies or services.

Last but not least, when communication between supervisors and members is so insufficient that the two parties are not constantly and adequately informed and hence on ‘different pages’; gossip is a common end-result. As team members grapple to fill the information gaps, what started off as ‘guesses’ can quickly turn into ‘undeniable reality’; and, in many cases, that is how deceitful negative gossip is generated.