Deadly Gossip

Deadly Gossip

Ever wondered how an office or a business could become so stressful? An insidious enemy, gossip can easily destroy a reputation or business. In this article, learn how to spot hidden gossip and begin to eradicate it.

Recently, a company nearly reached the brink of destruction in a flurry of scandal. The legal team swooped in and started swinging, taking out the major offenders but also cutting off 25% of the company's clients at the same time. Just before it spiraled completely out of control, a savvy board member spotted the exact problem and halted it. The culprit? A vicious round of gossip about the executive team followed by a lawsuit based on that gossip.

Gossip reaches as high as the C-suite and as low as the mail room in nearly every company. It can seem harmless and inconsequential and even fun or interesting at times, but its roots can be deep and insidious. Perhaps you have seen a beneficial program cut because of gossip, or a contract lost or a person fired. Perhaps that person was you.

What can you do to proof yourself and your business against gossip? Education is the key. Gossip is so ingrained in our culture that sometimes we can miss gossip even when it is right in front of our faces. Gossip is defined as light conversation about sensational or private matters. The danger is the viral nature of this destructive and often untrue communication.

Here are a few pointers to recognize and control gossip.

1. Look for a broad generality.

"All the women around here are lazy," or "The marketing people are cold and calculating." This might seem to be obviously untrue upon inspection, but it can easily wend its way into conversations and become a stuck idea about the group. In the example above (a real one) about the marketing people, the result was that many people in the company avoided the "marketing people". This resulted in poor communications between sales and marketing, and a problem when it came to messaging the product. Not a good result. Pay attention whenever someone lays out a "truism" about an entire group. It's almost guaranteed to be a falsehood.

2. Check for negativity.

Very often, negative statements are largely or partially untrue, particularly if the statement is about a person's character or skills. These "opinions" which have no basis in fact can be very damaging. Call others on it when they throw them around as truth. Ex. "Tim is like a porcupine. Don't give him any new ideas. He just bristles." Not only is this likely false, but it creates problems for Tim. If you pass it along, you are an accomplice to wrecking Tim's relationships.

3. Look for "frequent liars".

"Frequent liars" are those who are routinely gossiping about others. Avoid them. Politely excuse yourself from the conversation. Why? Because if they are gossiping to YOU about others, they will gossip to others about YOU as readily. Don't get caught in the trap. Keep the conversation light and positive if you simply can't get away.

4. Inspect long-standing conflicts.

In any long-standing argument or conflict, there is certain to be a degree of gossip behind it. Get the two arguing parties in a room and ask them this question: "What negative things have you heard about the other person?" Get them to list out everything. Ask them who said these things. Often, the same person is giving negative information to both sides! As soon as they both see what is happening, the conflict vanishes. Make sure you get a few names of people who were stirring up the conflict and work with those people to reduce their gossip level. This is fantastically useful in teambuilding.

Not all those who gossip have bad intentions. It is easy to get caught in a web of gossip in almost any workplace. Little by little, start educating others about the dangers of gossip and you will make your business and your life a little easier.

Wishing you success...

The Seven Deadly Business Sins

Anyone running a business is responsible for seven major functions. Leaving any one of them out could spell disaster for your business. Learn about these seven areas so you can avoid the Seven Deadly Business Sins!

I suppose no one told you that you had to be good at every aspect of business to run one successfully? No one told me either. As a result, over the last 13 years, I have taken vast numbers of classes and read innumerable books to learn about business. Most people think that if they are an expert in what their business delivers, they can run a successful business. As a result, many excellent hair stylists, artists, cooks and other professions end up out of business and broke because they didn't know enough about marketing or sales or some other business topic. 

I don't want you to fall into this trap. The good news is that there are only seven major areas in any business. Only seven. Not 1,000, not even 500. Only seven. If you can master these seven areas and what they are supposed to do in your business, you can be successful. And you can take your talent for cutting hair, making meatballs or arranging flowers to a successful level. 

Without further ado, here are the seven areas and the seven sins to avoid:

1. Strategic Planning

   You may have a business plan or a marketing plan, but are they all integrated? Do you know exactly what size you want your business to be in five years? Do you have the policies and procedures in place to get there? Have you planned out what positions to hire? If not, you might be weak on strategic planning. 

DEADLY SIN #1:  No strategic planning. 

2. Human Resources

 Human Resources includes all the steps you have to take with employees, from recruiting them to onboarding them and training them, even including where and how they receive email and your company protocol for communication. Anything that involves people is in this area. People are so important that hiring them brings you more capacity and therefore more money. And your business won't expand without them. So you have to plan to be constantly growing where people are concerned. A wise business woman once told me, "If your business isn't growing, it's shrinking. There is no middle ground." True.

DEADLY SIN #2:  Not hiring continually. 

3. Marketing & Sales

Many a business owner cries in their coffee over lack of sales, but they have no idea how marketing and sales work together to generate leads and provide opportunities to expand. Most people I have met don't know the definition of the word marketing. Just as an exercise, I challenge you to look it up to make sure you do know. Marketing is what pulls in the majority of your income by providing leads to business. Don't neglect this vital area. 

DEADLY SIN #3:  Not understanding marketing and sales.

4. Finance

You don't have to be a blazing financial wizard to succeed in small business. But there are two components that seem to matter most:  1. accurate accounting, 2. tax planning. If you have a good bookkeeper who can keep your files in order, you are more likely to be organized about your cash flow and not run into a crisis. And a good accountant can help you plan out how to save money in taxes, a welcome relief for small business owners. 

DEADLY SIN #4:  Disorganized finances. 

5. Operations

This is the part of your business that delivers your product or service. The biggest mistake business owners make is not having this aspect thoroughly planned out in advance. A project management function that plans out your business for the next 90 days or beyond will do worlds for your business volume. Although there are many other challenges in an operations division of a company, this challenge is the most common. 

DEADLY SIN #5:  Poor future work planning.

6. Quality Control

Some businesses I work with didn't even have a quality control function when I walked in the first time. Without it, you will be missing information on how your customers like your product, what they like best about it and how you can improve. You will also be missing testimonials from clients or customers. If you don't have a quality control function, put it there now. Even if you have to do it yourself. Send out surveys to your past customers, or just talk to them directly. Anything is better than nothing in this area. 

DEADLY SIN #6:  No quality control on your product or service.

7. Business Development

If you are always thinking of new ways to get customers or new avenues for business partnership, your business development is strong. Most small business owners don't think creatively for new partnership avenues or referral sources. Example:  A sign shop needed new business and found that a key city council member was in charge of updates and renovations to local buildings. The sign shop got the list of local buildings and soliticted customers from that list. Just like that, 10 new customers. Are you thinking creatively about new avenues to get customers? Seminars? Workshops? Local connections? If not, you might be missing out on huge possibilities. 

DEADLY SIN #7:  No creativity on finding new business. 

If you are committing more than one of the seven deadly sins right now, get a plan in place to fix it as soon as possible. 

Wishing you a sin-less business!

The Seven Deadly Business Sins

The Seven Deadly Business Sins