Avoid the gossip; go to the source.

I was really proud of myself for years, for decades even, of being a “standup guy.” A person who wouldn’t talk smack about other people behind their backs. It’s not that I would avoid tough conversations; but what I would say about somebody in a conversation would be the same thing I would say about them anywhere – whether the person who I was talking about was in the room or not. Maybe a different way to say it is I feel like a straight shooter. I wasn’t just prideful about it; I was pretty conceited about this –what you see is what you get with me. I don’t pull any punches, and I won’t sugarcoat things. 

But honestly, this just wasn’t accurate. I certainly would talk trash about other people. I would gossip. Sometimes it was gossipy drama coming right out of my mouth; which is, simply said, flat-out wrong. Other times it would simply be me just entertaining other gossip that was going on around me. I wasn’t “adding to” the gossip, but I was pretty quiet and not jumping in to shut the junky gossip down. Or, said another way, I didn’t speak up when I should’ve.

Why would I do this? I could come up with so many reasons: This is just what people do; that was the culture or subculture of the team; the leaders of the team or the organization participated in this kind of poor behavior; the team was just following the example of the leadership—Etc., etc., etc., excuse, excuse, excuse.

But if I’m being candid with you and with myself, there was a deep running insecurity in me that felt like I had to put other people down in order to build myself up. And any way that I dress this up, that “I’m a standup guy, and I’m just going to tell people exactly how things are” was not true. I wasn’t that standup of a guy. Instead, I was insecure, and it leaked into my communications about other people.

For years, I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal self-awareness, learning, and growth. Now I am much further along the path of looking at myself in the mirror and doing a good audit of who I am and what I’m about.  

Before I go on, I have to say that I have not arrived. I’m so far from that. There are still miles and miles to go on this trek of “increased self-awareness.” But I’ve done a lot of deep work and have traveled far in a journey of deep learning about myself. I’ve done some hard exploring, looking at the squigglies under the rocks deep in my heart and mind. I’m looking at these squigglies, and they’re not pretty. I’m dealing with them and trying to flick them off the rocks, one at a time. Out of this deep work that I’ve been doing comes a strong credo that I live by: I am a no-gossip person. In fact, not only do I live this out in my personal and professional life, but I also consult executive teams and leaders on this. I use the tool “Go TO THE SOURCE” to teach the concept and give some practicality to the principle of not having gossip in the relationship, team, or organization.

In essence, the tool illustrates that anytime somebody comes to you and they are trying to gossip, you should say, “Go to the person that you’re talking about instead of coming to me and talking about them behind their back.” You are encouraging the gossiper to have a conversation with the person they have an issue with and to try and work it out. Now, I may get involved if the two people can’t work it out, and then I would allow myself to be brought into the conversation; but not until there has been an earnest attempt to work it out amongst themselves. We need a strict firewall where gossip and drama said about other people are not entertained.

It’s a great personal practice for you to unequivocally live by when you interact with your family, in-laws, friends, and people in your inner circle. It’s also a great business practice. I have learned that after people see you truly live this out, they stop coming to you with gossip – where gossip doesn’t come your way because they know that you’re going to shoot it down the minute it comes out of your mouth. We have to be militant about being a no-gossip person and anchor ourselves in the middle of a no-gossip zone. This will give you incredible inner peace. It has for me.  

Is your team at work a no-gossip team? I would strongly encourage you to do a self-audit on whether or not you are a safe person that will deter drama and gossip. Do the honest assessment for you and your team, then correct the course if needed. It will be so worth it – for you and everyone within your ecosystem.