How to Gossip Your Way to Success
The most frustrating experience in leadership is making poor people-decisions. You had such high hopes.
People-decisions make or break leaders.
You’re fortunate if you get people-decisions right 50% of the time. Jack Welch said he got people-decisions right about 50% of the time when he became a manager at GE.
The better you are at people-decisions, the better leader you are.
You spend too much time making decisions about projects and programs and too little on people.
Three essential people-tasks:
- Align with their aspirations.
- Leverage their strengths.
- Compensate for their weaknesses.
Successful leaders take others higher. But, it’s easy to hinder the success of others by losing sight of who they are.
12 questions for good gossips:
Talk about people with lots of people. Engage in good gossip all the time.
- Who is creating energy in your department? Who is draining it?
- How does Bob respond to new challenges?
- What are Mary’s strengths?
- How might Ann’s strengths become destructive?
- What questions does Jim ask?
- When is Joe at his best?
- How does Mark talk about failure? People who hide failures are more likely to fail in the future. Those who are never wrong grow worse over time.
- What specifically do you see in Barry that makes you believe he’ll succeed?
- How does Linda respond to surprises, disappointment, or success?
- When was the last time Cindy asked for help?
- How does Henry see his impact on others?
- What discourages Laura?
3 warnings for good gossips:
- Beware the halo effect. Take a long-term view of people.
- Release people from pressure to be like you.
- Forgetting the positive and focusing on the negative. Bad is magnetic.
Bring more people into your people-decisions.
How can leaders make good people-decisions?
What factors contribute to poor people-decisions?
Dan, good thoughts on “good gossip”, I like the method. My strengths do not include getting people in the right seat of the bus, I have tried a few times. I am below 50%. As a leader I have relied on others or teams to make these decisions. I will be sharing this post with them. Appreciate your thoughts and words.
Thanks Scott. I respect your candor and wisdom to trust the strengths of others. If we never trust others we become our own bottle-neck.
I think the perspectives here are quite important. if some of the most successful leaders like Jack Welch got it right only 50% of the time in people decisions, what about the rest that are trying to be successful? The challenge would be in doing a balancing act and the fine line that may exist between good gossip and bad gossip, which if crossed can destroy trust and everything goes downhill from there.
When I saw the title I thought “oh, I’m not going to like this one”. And then I loved the questions. maybe question 12 is “Is Alf open to new ideas and seeing things in a different light?”
Further to question 10: Who did Cindy ask for help? Is she going to same old group of cronies or is she willing to stretch herself and seek help from a wider circle of influence and contribution?
Thanks Alf. Looks like Alf is open to seeing things from a new perspective. 🙂
Dan,
I have see Talkers and Doers, that is where difficult becomes intense, to differentiate between them can be a task that will drive one insane at times! They talk the talk but really can’t do the task, comes down to trial and error,or as you have stated in the past ” What does your gut tell you”?
Typically one looks at experience and education for guide lines but these guidelines can be manipulated to say what they want it to say not really what they can do. Give them their best shot and if you don’t succeed “try and try again”.
Thanks Tim. So true. On one hand you don’t want someone’s past to be a limiting factor for them. But, the past is the most reliable predictor of the future.
Dear Dan,
Good gossip is always elating. We should take care in not divulging personal information about others. We should also need to take care of our intention. It should not be malicious in nature. Any gossip that can make people to smile or laugh without harming someone is good gossip. I have seen many people talking unfavorable about others in gossip. People should have maturity in what they say and what they mean.
I agree with you that good people-decision based on 50:50 is good decision. It is not possible to have more agreement when issues need tough decision. It may not be possible to unite many people on issue when there are diverse opinion. Such differences may be natural, so leaders need create awareness and convince people about the decision. If required, they need to take initiative. People need someone to lead them. Leaders should convince to take blame and give credit in case of failure or success. This way, they can unite people.
When people perceive to be accountable for wrong reason, they do not come forward even for simple reason. Leaders need to infuse confidence not only by talks but by actions. This can create lot of difference.
Thanks Ajay. Your warnings are well taken. Talking about others must always serve the best interests of our organizations and the people involved.
Dan, I like the approach of getting folks to talk about the positive aspects of colleagues or good gossip. We work with StrengthsQuest where I work and I see this approach working with talking about colleagues talents.
Hello Dan,
An excellent example of why hiring for job talent is so powerful, it helps put the right people into the right seats on the right bus.
Gossip is gossip. If you have something to say about a staff member/employee, teammate, crew member, or another supervisor or manager, step up to the plate. Say it face-to-face. Make it a one-on-one communication, that can lead BOTH of you to greater things.
This is a dangerous path to take for any leader. It may give you great insights into how your team actually functions, but I see a couple of big problems cropping up.
* Confirmation Bias – as the leader, it’s very hard to not ask leading questions that will most likely result in the answers you expect to hear.
* Feedback Loop – do you really expect that what gets said behind closed doors won’t itself become the subject of gossip?
Sorry Dan, you’ve taken me a bit too far outside my comfort zone today. I think this is a high risk / low reward leadership strategy.
David Pethick
Co-Founder, http://leading.io
Good questions for the gossips
Nobody has recognized the major pitfall potential in the comment, “Release people from pressure to be like you.”
This is a tremendous point because many leaders don’t notice that what they really want is for people to meet their expectations and that too often is meted out as professional vanity, “if I can do this, why can’t they?” Kind of thinking.
Let people know that to err is human and forgivable if coupled with the intent to improve. …,and that you don’t know all the right answers. There is room for growth all around.