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Hello and welcome to Biz Your Work Life Sorted. I'm em Burnham and today we are diving into a topic that's probably happening in your workplace right now, office gossip. So you know the feeling when you're in the breakroom and someone kind of leans into you and tells you the latest office drama literally my dream scenario. Or when you accidentally get added to a Slack thread that definitely wasn't meant for your eyes and you think you're being a bit ghosted when they suddenly deleted it.
We've all been.
There, But today our career coaches Michelle Batisby and Sophurst are breaking down the surprising science behind workplace gossip, including why it might actually be good for your career, yes really, and how to navigate it without damaging your reputation. Plus, Michelle's going to share her four point framework for identifying when gossip crosses the line from hell full information sharing to toxic behavior. And trust me, you are going to want to take notes on this because I definitely did so.
Michelle.
I am obsessed with this topic because I think it's so nuanced, there's so much gray area, which is why I love debating it. And I think we're all taught that gossip at work is bad, right, That's what we're all taught, But is it really And also, if you're gossiping, is it even your fault? So this is what we're going to get into today. We've got a really juicy episode, Michelle. I've seen gossip completely derail people's careers, but I've also seen it help them get promoted. So I'm really excited
to talk to you about this. Before we dive in, I just want to ask you a question. Do you know the difference between gossiping and venting?
I feel like gossiping has a bit more of a negative association with it, but maybe gossiping also needs a bit of a rebrand, like that might not even be right, But I feel like venting is more about how you feel, and gossiping might be about others, And I think the about others is like why it has a bit of a negative connotation. But to your point, like it might not always be bad.
You're exactly right.
So gossiping is informal talk about someone else when they're not in the room, and it can actually be positive, neutral, or negative. So an example of gossip would be, you know, Sam moved the meeting again. It's the third time this week. I wonder what's really going on. Venting is expressing your own personal feelings or frustration, sort of with the goal of like seeking understanding or like solving the problem in a way. So that would be like, ugh, Sam moved
the meeting again. You know they're always doing this. Now my day's messed up? Should I say something? What do you think?
Like?
That's kind of more venting. Gossip is talking about someone else when not in the room. Venting is more about your own personal feelings about something. But venting can still be bad or dangerous, So like, proceed with caution.
I just think even with the example you just gave, it's already shifted my mindset a little bit on gossiping and venting, because I think I already had perceived like venting isn't bad. But to your point, I think it's really important to call out venting can also be harmful. Like in the example you just gave, I actually felt like venting sounded worse than gossiping.
Interesting, yes, yes, because venting in a way is still like it can still be bad. I think, so this is why it's super nuanced.
Okay, So I went out on my Instagram and I asked, have you gossiped in the workplace?
And it backfired?
And thirty six percent of people said yes, fifty two percent of people said no, I do it in a considered way, and thirteen percent of people said no, I don't gossip at work, which that's strength.
Yeah, or not really understanding the definition of gossip. But yes, did you get any stories about like the type of things that backfired?
Yes?
So then I said, if it backfired, what happened? The thing that I noticed? There is such a consistent theme in these messages. I would say ninety eight percent of the responses I got through about it backfiring or related to stories where there had been digital communication shared so Slack messages, teams, a Facebook group, a WhatsApp group, and people were accidentally added to the threads people wrote it in the wrong thread.
We'll come back to that, but here's some of them verbatim.
I was messaging a friend on teams about my manager, and she replied in the group chat.
It's so easy for this to happen, right.
Oh my god.
Our team Facebook chat was access on a shared laptop with the person it was about.
Yeah, this makes my stomach drop.
Colleague was screen sharing with MS teams open accident and the manager saw us gossipy.
Who Yes, I feel all of these I've I had near misses with all of them, so I like, I almost feel like, yes, I see myself in you.
Holy shit. Oh.
And I think the reason why I wanted to call out the consistency and the theme here is because I think this kind of comes back to one thing I personally hate about a platform like Slack, and it's the very casual nature of it, and it tricks you. It tricks you into feeling safe and like you don't have to think too hard about your delivery and what you're saying. And I think it creates this environment where maybe you think it's okay to start a channel and start bitching
about your manager. And it's very important for people to remember. I just went into the admin settings of my own company's Slack account because I wanted to see if I had the ability to download private group threads. And I can, so your manager's founders' bosses are able to look into that kind of thing. Yeah, I want to, And I think it's like, you wouldn't send emails like this, you know. I think it's very important to remember that, and if you are gossiping or venting, do it in person.
My boss always used to say, never write anything that you wouldn't be happy printed in the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, for example. So this is the interesting part, though, Michelle, because we've just kind of given words of warning. But what's interesting about gossip is that it can be positive, which is why I think this episode's going to be so interesting for people. One thing before we dive in, Michelle, obviously, women gossip more than men.
Do you know by how much? Like what percentage to women gossip more than men?
No, I have no idea.
It's actually a true question because it's zero. Women do not gossip more than men. And it's a stereotype that everyone thinks women gossip more, especially in the workplace, but it's actually not true. So men gossip just as much as women. By the end of this episode, you were going to know exactly how to gossip safely at work.
You're gonna understand what a reputation ripple is. You're going to know how to get out of a gossip ye conversation without it being awkward, and you're going to know how to stop gossip on your team if you're a leader.
So so if I shared some examples of when gossiping backfired for others, I am curious if that has ever happened to you.
Yeah, I've been really caught out and just to the point around sort of like how easy it is to get sucked in, even almost without knowing that you are gossiping. So I had a very senior person at Google. She was actually the head of And it's fine for me to talk about it now because this is all in the past and it's all out in the open.
But so she was the head of YouTube at the time, and she.
Actually got a new job at Uber and I was one of the first people that she told in the company. We had a really good relationship, but I admired her so much. She's probably the leader I admired the most.
So she told me.
I casually, without even thinking about it, told my manager. He told her, oh my god, you're going to Uber. And then she got really upset because she hadn't told her team yet. So she had to come to me and she said, you told this and it's actually really potentially causing me some pain because I haven't even told my team yet.
There was two lessons for me in that moment. One was she shouldn't.
Have had to say you shouldn't share this, because I should have just known when someone shares information with you, you don't just go and share it with other people. They don't need to say don't tell anyone. That should be the default. And the second lesson I learned is she said something so interesting, which is it's okay, I know a secret is a hard burden to hold. So she actually acknowledged that sharing a secret with someone is actually a bit of a burden on them to keep,
and I thought that was such a beautiful thing. And we have a very good relationship now. But I learned a lot in that moment.
That's really fascinating because this will kind of come back later on in the episode. It's actually also an example of how leaders can sometimes model that gossiping is okay, and one of the ways they model that is by sharing confidential information with certain members of their team. So that's also another side to that.
Okay, so I'm loving this.
Soph is going to give us the case for gossip and the case against gossip. So let's see which comes out on top. So hit us with the good.
So from an evolutionary perspective, gossip is partly to thank for the survival of the human race. For anyone who's read the book Sapiens, and now I'm not gonna lie to you, I didn't finish it, but I read enough to know this gossip actually helped humans to build trust and alliances and that's what helped our human race survive sort of thing. So basically it's the original LinkedIn. So, Michelle, if you swap the word gossip for the word information sharing,
you can actually see how helpful it can be. So there's a huge amount of research that someone wonderfully string. Her name's Amy Gallo, and a lot of what we're talking about in the show is her work. If you don't follow her, we'll put her in the show notes. But she's doing some amazing work on how beneficial gossip can actually be in the workplace. But she talks a lot about this idea of social glue, so it can actually form and strengthen social bonds.
And I love this when I heard it.
It's actually a way for people to understand workplace norms and like what's okay, what's not okay? And I'm going to give some examples. And then the third one is that it helps people understand power dynamics, especially for people who are you know, have less status or power or even marginalized groups. Gossip and like information sharing is actually a way for them to understand how these power dynamics actually happen when they themselves don't have power. So I
think it's very interesting. I'm just going to give a couple of examples because I think this really brings to life this idea of gossip as information sharing. So, for example, imagine your boss sort of sends you a weirdly worded email and you're not really sure what to make of it. You might turn to your work besty and be like how would you interpret this? Like how should I respond?
So again, that can actually be helpful to you if you can imagine a situation where you know you're a team and another team keeps getting more budget and your team doesn't get the budget, and you're sitting around as a team kind of talking about and discussing like why does this team keep getting the budget? And talking about
things that are happening over there. And then the other one that I think about a lot is I actually coach people, if you're going to present senior leaders, go and do background research on them, go and talk to their PA, go and talk to people that have worked with them, find out what they do and don't like, find out what is annoying for them in presentations.
And that in a way is actually gossip.
Like I'm encouraging people to gossip because they're getting information about someone when they're not in the room. But that can be so helpful because it means that you're going to be delivering a presentation that's so much more useful for that senior leader. So I think if you frame it as information sharing, it like helps you read the room. It helps you sort of understanding workplace norms and team norms. Imagine the case where someone says, oh, did you hear
about what Jackson did in the meeting? He just, you know, spent the first ten minutes talking about his weekend, Like I wanted to cry. You're like, okay, well I'm not going to spend the first ten minutes of a meeting talking about my weekend. So you kind of learn what's okay and what's not okay. So I think it can be very helpful.
I love this.
I definitely can see it as survival. And this kind of ties back to what we spoke about at the start of the episode, where it's like, maybe gossiping just needs a bit of a rebrand.
I just feel like information sharing is the start of that.
Yeah, I think you're right, Michelle in the rebrand thing. And I think it's because we always think all gossip is bad and actually some gossip can be good.
So Amy Gallo.
Actually talks about this idea of positive gossip, and that is sharing compliments behind someone's back. So if someone does something amazing in a client meeting, no one else is going to know about it. That's not their kind of thing. And people, you know, we're often not good at talking about the things that are great about us, especially women. So to go to your manager and say, like, Michelle
just totally slayd that client meeting. Here's some things that she did, it starts this thing which I love and it's one of the things that I love doing so much at work. It's starting this reputation ripple for someone. If I go and share, like Michelle is actually so good at data analysis and just like bringing human insights to life and the client just loved it. You're then starting to get this reputation as the data person and that can really grow for people if that's something that
you want. So I think you can really build this reputation ripple for someone. Do it in a positive way and not the opposite in a negative way, because that can also you know, people attach themselves.
We've got all these biases. So I really loved.
Doing that for people at work. And this idea of positive gossip.
This also reminds me of something else that you've brought up, and it's actually then like passing that feedback onto people. And so often someone will do good work or you'll think something someone shared in a meeting was great, and it'll just never get back to that person. So this
is kind of fostering that. And it's like, if you are having those side conversations, if you are starting those reputation ripples, like screenshot that conversation and share it with the person you know, Yeah, make it the.
Good stuff that's so true.
Don't accidentally get caught out bad mouthing someone like deliberately share positive gossip. I love that when gossip is never okay is when your primary intention is to hurt someone like never okay. And if you look at the extreme of gossip, it can be so toxic. It can completely tear down organizations. It can really damage people's not just their reputation, but you know, people leave jobs because of
things that are being gossiped about them. It can be so damaging and so hurtful when it is about you, When you are the gossiper and you get caught out, it can completely you know, end your career as well.
So at the extreme level it's properly dangerous. But on the less extreme and probably more frequent, the thing that I've seen happen so much, Michelle, it's this idea of the invisible reputation killer and what it is that people will gossip and they think it's not really getting around, it's not really getting to other people because it never
really gets back to them. It's rare that someone goes back and says, by the way, you know that thing that you said, Now everyone's talking about it and everyone knows that you spread that. But you just start to build up this reputation of being a gossip and being someone who is maybe constantly complaining and you're like always saying bad things about other people. I've really seen it damage people's relationships. So it can be this invisible reputation
killer and it can make you look really immature. So that's the main thing that I've seen, especially with young people, is this immaturity sort of thing.
And I think the main thing that you need to understand is this.
Is a truth no matter what company you're at, no matter what country.
Message to junior people.
Senior people know what's going on down on your level way more than you think. And senior people, junior people know what's going on on your level way more than you think. So, like the gossip just gets shared around, and I think people underestimate how much people are sharing it.
Everyone gossips. Do younger people gossip more? Interestingly?
I did the research on this and it's slightly Yes, partly it's an age thing, but also partly it's back to this point of like people in lower positions can be more vulnerable to negative gossip. They have less power and they have less information. In a way, yeah, one hundred percent.
I think it comes back to transparency and clarity and if you're leaving gaps in information, then people will just fill in the blanks for themselves exactly, and so I think that's probably why the gossip might take slightly different shapes on different levels. But yeah, this is what I really want to get into next, and it's the fact that gossiping can also be a result of poor leadership and a toxic work environment, and it really should be a wake up call to leaders, not necessarily to employees
if gossip is rampant in your organization. So let's get into why companies are partially to blame next. Okay, so gossip is usually a symptom of something else going on
in an organization. So I think it's really important if there is a lot of gossip going on and you're a leader, founder, exec, whatever it is, to kind of check yourself a little bit and see maybe if you're partially to blame, or if there's something going on at senior levels which needs to change to improve the way gossip is going down in your organization, if it is more of the negative side of things. So there's a few reasons why companies are partially to blame. The first
one is lack of transparency. So I think I mentioned this before. When there is lack of transparency, employees will just fill in the blanks and creativity will kick in and they can take it any which way. So as a leader, you really need to be shaping the narrative yourself. So I don't know, I just feel like it makes so much sense.
Oh my god.
Think about anytime there's like company restructure or redundancies, when no one's sharing any information at the top.
And that's been gossip is the most rife.
One hundred percent, And like a way to combat that is like bring your team in on your challenges. That's like a very good way to make people feel valued, appreciated, herd and to shut those like rumor mills down. The second one is managers who play favorites, so employees might gossip as a response to injustice, Like if they see people getting promotions or pay rises and they don't understand it,
people will speculate. So that's kind of a simple one as well, like being very transparent around performance reviews, rating systems, bringing people in on that information and kind of arming them with the tools themselves to like know what's rewarded and why, will shut that down. The third one, and I just like this is what I personally felt is low morale or just a toxic culture. So when people don't feel appreciated, or they feel undervalued, or they're overworked,
they can turn to gossiping as a coping mechanism. And like, I've definitely experienced this where you just feel like you're not appreciated and you're almost trying to suss out does anyone else feel that way as well? Like is this just a me thing? Or like are we all copying
the rough end of the stick here? And then once you realize like someone else has experienced that or they've had encounters with that, it can just create this vortex of like you venting and gossip being about how fucked you think the environment you're in is.
It's so true, and I'm just thinking, like, at organizations the goal is not to completely stamp out gossip at all, but I think you monitor it so like if you're seeing gossip rising or it's getting more toxic, you really do need to try and change that.
But it also is super hard.
I'm just thinking, even back to Google, like our leaders did all of those things right, and we just talk about it all the time, and people would still gossip and complain, invention, all that kind of stuff. So it's like it's going to happen, but it's watching the level when it just tips the scale and it's like fully toxic. And I think you know that as a leader.
I totally agree, and I think that's like an important point to drive home as well. Like even in the best organizations and like this most squeaky clean bow on top of everything, like gossip is still going to exist. I think it's just human nature to your point, but yeah, it's the level at which it goes down.
Okay.
The fourth point is weak feedback. Loops and genuine opportunities to deliver would feedback. So if there isn't this culture of accountability and being able to share your frustrations and being able to seek help open and honestly, people just start whispering about their concerns. And this comes back to
leaders modeling that from the top down. And I think this can be as simple as if you're a manager, just asking questions in your one to ones, like what's one thing I could do differently to make your job easier? That is a question that is easy for someone to respond to, but actually starts to dig into what any of their issues might actually be that they're not going to just bring up. If you say, do you have any feedback for me? Like get a bit more specific,
what could I do differently to help you? It just starts showing that you're open to feedback, and it can be as simple as that, so you don't appear unapproachable. I saw a TikTok that kind of kicked off this whole train of thought for me because I was thinking about my own experiences with gossip inventing and when it was most toxic, and it definitely was in organizations where the leadership wasn't quite there. And I just think it's
really important to point out. And this creator, whose handle is very, very nice, she just had two lines that I loved, and it was gossip is not a failure of your team. It's a leadership wake up call, and in the absence of clarity, the imagination will take over, which will always lead to gossip. I just think those are nice little prompts for people to think about and be aware of.
So, Michelle, a very quick exercise that I love to do with the people that I work with is one rewind ten years.
You're probably at high school, the people I work with, the gen z.
You're at high school, think about your approach to gossip and information sharing. Now, think about how you feel about it now and how that has changed. Then I want you to go forward, think forward ten years. Think about people at your company or outside that are high quality people, people that you really respect. Then I get them to write down some words. Think about any words that you have that come to mind about this person. Now let's
see does gossip does high drama come up? It never comes up because you find that the people that you respect and admire are not the gossips. And then the third thing we do is we watch this TikTok video which is basically about the difference between what rich people and broke people talk about, right, and then we build
this connection. Basically, she says in the video, rich people talk about goals and ideas and like things they're doing self development, and broke people talk about people each other, drama, celebrity news. And the comparison that I draw not to say that you know, broke people gossip and rich people don't.
It's not that.
What I have observed in my twenty years of working in some really amazing places is that the best people are so excited about the work or their own personal growth, or like the big things the company is doing, they don't have time to gossip and just to talk about the bullshit that's going on. So I really try to channel.
That with people.
That's the three step exercise and we will link that TikTok in the show notes as well as the one that Michelle shared. And then finally how to gossip safely it work. So first of all, you're gonna ask yourself, what type of gossip is this positive? Negative, neutral? And why am I sharing it? If it's for the purpose of information sharing, maybe it's okay. If it's for the purpose of hurting someone, never okay. You want to be leaning into positive gossip if it makes sense. And then
vent and vault. So if you need to vent, pick one person maximum two that you really trust, and that person is your vault. You do not go and vent to multiple people. It is always gonna undermine you.
That's totally it.
Like I do feel like sometimes that person that vault is like your lifeline. They're like how you survive, especially if you are in a tough environment. So I love that exactly.
Venting you need it like it can be so healthy. You need to get stuff out. You can't bottle everything up. Pick your vault pay portrayal. So back to all the stuff MA show was sharing about slack DMS going over. Basically, if you need to say something bad, say it in person in a like closed door room where you feel very safe and no one's listening. Don't say it in a hallway, and don't say it on slack, And then think long term, So what would future you do? The
word I always come back to is integrity. And I think to myself, you know, when you have the opportunity to gossip and you don't, when you have the opportunity to share a big secret and you don't, you create integrity for yourself and the person you're really trying to impress here is you. You can create so much self belief and you know it can do amazing things for yourself if you are the type of person that actually says, I'm not a gossip, I have integrity.
Bring it back to that front page test and think long term.
Exactly, and just the final point, because I think what undermines a lot of us as well is like we sort of get sucked into these gossipy conversations and you almost like don't know how to get out of them because it is a way of having social bonds and you don't want to be like the awkward person who's like, sorry,
I didn't gossip. But then the two just like really helpful lines to get out of it, you know, instead of agreeing with the gossip or you know, adding to the gossip, you might say like, oh, I actually haven't seen that side of that person before, or you can pivot and just change the subjects, so like oh yeah, like you know, speaking of that meeting, did you hear about this new project? So just sort of trying to change the subject to something else.
Americans do this thing where when they don't want to talk about something or they're not really giving you much, they'll just be like huh and it's like kind of this ending like ah okay, like this ending.
Have you noticed that.
They say like huh, Like it's like an ah a and it's like giving you nothing, but also almost like you don't know if they're agreeing or disagreeing, and it's almost like a full stop.
Smart and then you're just questioning yourself like okay, maybe I.
Should stopping now yes, seriously, all.
Right on that note, that's the episode.
Ha ha ha.
So the biggest takeaway for me from this episode is that gossip isn't inherently bad, thank god. It is all about intention. Are you sharing information to help others navigate workplace dynamics or are you just trying to tear someone down. That's the key question that we should all be asking ourselves. If you want more insights on building positive workplace relationships, please check out this week's biz Newsletter, where Soph breaks down her three step exercise for becoming a more mature
communicator at work. And also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at biz by Mama Mia for daily career tips and behind the scenes content. I will catch you in Thursday's biz Inbox episode where we will answer all of your career dilemmas. Bye. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on