As Kenya pushes forward in our post-Covid economic recovery after the darkest days of the pandemic, we face headwinds brought on by global lingering virus-related supply problems, the Russian invasion of Ukraine upending value chains, and a surging United States Dollar value hammering the Kenyan Shilling exchange rate, Kenyan organisations also face internal shocks as employees react to the uncertainty with fear, resignations, and, sadly, gossip.
This, the mid-way point of 2022, brings an ample time to re-examine the communications pitfalls in your company. Communications creates power for whoever uses it. Executives in a firm usually think they wield the most power because they legitimately hold the power.
Unfortunately for them, often the employee or employees who control the most communications often have more power than even the senior management and can bring an organisation to its knees.
Realise that there exists two types of internal communications: official and unofficial. Official internal communications often come from the CEO, public relations, or human resources departments. Unofficial communications come through office gossip. Managers should watch out for excessive office gossip.
If you, as the company’s leader, withhold information and does not share enough about your firm’s direction, strategy, intentions, and operations, then your employees who desire certainty in their lives will fill in the blanks with their own stories. Adequate amounts of official communications so that employees remain up-to-date on company happenings helps reduce employee stress and fear thus reducing office gossip, but also boosts your leadership power.
But how do you investigate the effectiveness of your internal communications? Survey your employees quarterly. In your surveys, do not ask simple yes or no questions. Ask questions where employees may rate the communication effectiveness on a scale of 1 to 7. Then ask open ended questions: “what did you find particularly useful in our communications during the past quarter”, “do you feel adequately informed about organisational strategy and operations?”, etc.
Next, how do you track office gossip? Survey employees on two more fronts. First, ask employees to list the top three other employees who they talk to on a regular basis. Second, ask employees to list the top three other employees who give them the most updates, informal or formal, on happenings within the company.
Third, request the staff to list their top three favourite employees to talk with at the firm. Hopefully, the employee’s own manager should be among those listed in one of the three categories. If not, you need to coach your departmental managers to communicate more.
Also, you should map out the responses from the surveys. Try to notice patterns. If, for example, a quality control officer seems to appear as the most frequent communicator in your whole organisation, then that officer actually carries the most weight of power in the company.
The quality control officer’s opinion becomes the opinion that sets the mood for the whole company. She or he may uplift or bring down the firm’s work ethic and other employee’s feelings of commitment to your firm.
When employees feel worse about where they work due to organisational gossip, they do not work as hard, and such behaviour results in lower company performance. Inasmuch, such power in the hands of an inappropriate communicator is dangerous to the success of your firm.
Famous researcher Ron Burt refers to such communication mapping as network structure theory. It presents a powerful tool for leaders to control the appropriate flow of information and improve company performance.
Once you identify the workplace gossips, then you need to deal with them promptly. You could warn them informally or formally, reassign their work duties, or fire them outright. You cannot wait and see if the situation self-corrects. You must take action immediately.
In short, take internal office communications seriously. Empower your employees through open regular transparent communications, but beware of office gossips that destroy organisational effectiveness.
