Rumor Mill Chaos

Some practices are plagued with rumor mill problems while other practices are lucky enough to only have to deal with gossip girls on occasion. Either way, an active rumor mill can wreak havoc on a time. It can be a major determining factor in employee retention. It can diminish the efficiency of team members, thus impacting the productivity of the office. It can also lead to explosive meetings or events. Addressing gossip problems on your team take swift action. Listen to Bethany give key tips for addressing rumor mill problems. 

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Transcript

Are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real dental drama? If so, then

0:09

you've come to the right place. Join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr. Reena Kuba

0:14

as we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made while managing dental drama.

0:22

Let's get started. Happy Monday, everybody. Before I dive into today's

0:27

content, I do want to let you know that October Digest is available. Today is the day

0:36

and it is once again chocked full of fantastic resources. Um I there's a

0:42

bonus episode from me where I talk about making sure that your team is adopting an A team mindset rather than B team.

0:50

Dr. Kuba challenges you guys on productivity killers. We have a

0:56

fantastic communication roleplay in there as well as some management resources uh particularly how to manage

1:03

different personality types. It's again you got to do yourself a favor, click in the show notes and become a subscriber

1:10

today. If you're one of the few that haven't subscribed yet, what are you waiting for? Just click and subscribe.

1:17

It's 49 bucks a month. The best money you'll ever spend. Okay, let's shift

1:22

gears and dive into today's episode. So, I'm going to fly solo on this one

1:27

because I want to talk about the rumor mill. And the rumor mill is

1:34

one of those things that sometimes we just assume it's always churning, but

1:41

sometimes the churning can cause real and substantial problems. And so I want to talk about how to navigate the

1:48

challenges of first of all knowing that the rumor mill is running and figuring

1:54

out how to shut it down. So there's a lot of different

1:59

examples honestly of this that I've just been thinking of over the past few days and I want to dive into some of the

2:07

negative outcomes of the rumor mill. So first of all, there is some level of

2:13

rumor rumor mill that is always running. A lot of times it's at a very low pace.

2:21

There's it may come up from time to time, but it's infrequent and more or

2:26

less harmless. In those cases, there's really nothing that I would recommend that you do. Just let it ride and know

2:33

that people have bad days. You can periodically remind people of your expectation, that

2:40

you are a positive office that's encouraging to one another, that we're here to build each other up rather than

2:47

to tear people down. And hopefully those reminders every so often will keep your

2:53

rumor mill at a minimum. But a lot of times I see that the rumor mill is out

2:59

of control. And I see a ton of negative backlash

3:06

when a rumor mill is out of control. So when I say out of control, I mean that

3:12

first of all, we have chronic complaining behind closed doors,

3:17

whispering about other team members. Um, sometimes it can come out, the

3:23

frustrations can kind of come out even overtly in a team meeting or you

3:28

overhear an argument between two employees and you're like, "Wow, something's definitely wrong." But a lot

3:35

of times the rumor mill is virtually silent. You, as a practice owner or as a

3:41

team leader, you don't even know it's going on. You may sense some tension

3:47

between this person and that person, but for the most part, you're like, maybe they just don't like each other. And you

3:52

have a tendency to kind of brush it off and attempt to move forward. But I will

3:59

tell you, there is no moving forward when the rumor mill is running because

4:06

number one, the rumor mill causes injury. It inflicts pain on other

4:12

people. If they hear overhear another team member speaking negatively about

4:18

them or if they hear through the grape vine that a team member was speaking negatively about them, it hurts. It

4:26

wounds. You know that old phrase of sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. It's just

4:31

not true. Words hurt. And most people do not have the ability to brush those

4:38

words off. And so it can cause um injury to the person that's on the receiving

4:44

end of those negative comments. But usually there's a chain reaction. We see

4:51

whoever the epicenter is speaking negatively about a team member. word gets back to that team member that

4:57

there's been negative words spoken about her and then she begins talking to other team members about this person that

5:04

started this rumor mill or this gossip mill is maybe another way to talk about it. So there's a chain reaction that

5:13

usually occurs that is longlasting. You know, I think about fireworks um in

5:19

this particular scenario where a rumor mill or a gossip mill is almost like one

5:26

of those fireworks that has the real long I don't even know the technical

5:31

term for it, but the thing that burns and you light it and you see this the

5:36

fire moving along that rope or that cord, whatever it is. Um, pyrochnics is

5:42

not my thing apparently. But you light that cord and if it's long, let's just

5:47

imagine that it's the length of a football field and the firework is at the end. The rumor mill is running,

5:53

churning, gossip is going pretty chronically and then all of a sudden it

5:59

reaches a point where something just blows up. Now, it's hard to see. Just

6:05

like we imagine that firework across a long football field, it's very hard to see that little spark that's moving

6:12

along the line, but we see the fireworks and then we wonder, we're like, "What in

6:18

the heck happened? How did all of this drama blow up? When did this start?" And

6:24

it started way back when. But because we weren't wise enough to see the rumor

6:30

mill running, we didn't put a stop to it. We didn't douse it in water. We didn't yank that cord out of the

6:37

fireworks to to pull it completely out. We just let it keep going either because

6:42

we didn't know it was happening or because we chose to ignore it and kind

6:48

of chalk it up to small potatoes. So, I think we've got to take the gossiping

6:54

and the rumor meal very very seriously. And this is how we do it.

7:00

So first of all, it is important that you have key people on your team that

7:07

are informants for you. They usually do this out of loyalty. And I want you to

7:14

look for the people that would do it out of loyalty. Some will do it out of

7:20

manipulation. They view it as a chance to have the manager's ear or the office

7:26

owner's ear. And so they're bringing bad news to the practice owner all the time.

7:32

And they're doing it for their own reasons, but oftentimes it's self-game. Oftent times it's to gain loyalty from

7:40

the doctor and to have kind of that in, so to speak. Uh sometimes they just like

7:46

the power of being able to tell on somebody else. I don't know how many of you are parents out there, but you know

7:53

if you've got a kid that really values being the tattlete um because they're

7:58

receiving some type of reward for that from you either intentionally or

8:03

unintentionally. They there's something internally that they desire by telling on other kids. And the same thing is

8:10

true in your practice. You may have somebody that is your informant, but it's always negatively slated towards

8:17

one particular team member or it could be negatively slated for all team members. They never have a positive

8:24

thing to say about anybody. And so there's this complex that can start to

8:29

develop where you as a manager or a leader think you've only got one good person on the team because your

8:35

informant keeps telling you that. So, I don't want you relying on somebody that

8:42

has ulterior motives. What I would recommend is finding somebody who is

8:47

loyal to you, loyal to the practice, and is mature. And if you've got an

8:53

informant, let's say a negative informant, somebody that I wouldn't recommend, you can, if you trust this

9:01

other team member, you can begin to seek out information from her. Now, I

9:06

wouldn't go so much as to say, "Hey, rumor mill Rhonda came and told me X, Y,

9:12

and Z. Is that true?" No, we don't have to do that. We can say, "I'm kind of

9:17

getting the vibe that there's some tension between Rhonda and Sally. I just

9:23

wanted to get your opinion on that. Do you have any feedback for me? I'm I'm not up there with you guys. I don't

9:29

know. I would love any information and insight that you can provide." So, it's still neutral, but you're trying to

9:36

solicit some information from this person. Now, this person needs to know

9:41

that they can trust you, that you're not going to turn around and tell Rhonda and Sally, "Oh, by the way, Susie is the one

9:48

that told me that there's tension here." Susie will never tell you anything again if you do not protect her privacy and

9:57

the relationship that she has with the other team members. So step number one

10:02

is find a reliable resource. Let's say you don't have one of those on the team.

10:08

You're like, I don't know who I can trust or I've got a small team and I

10:13

don't there's three of them and I really don't trust any of those um team members. Then it's going to be important

10:20

for you to find ways to touch base individually with each of the team

10:26

members. Maybe that's a 10-minute manager meeting over lunch and you're like, "Hey, Sally, can you um spend 10

10:33

minutes of of your lunch break with me today? Of course, stay clocked in because we're going to talk shop." And

10:39

then you just have feedback questions that you ask. Hey, what what do you feel like is going really well on our team?

10:44

What do you feel like we could improve? How would you describe your relationship with other team members? Do you feel

10:50

like we all get along right now? Do you feel like we have a culture where we're encouraging and supportive of one

10:56

another? You can ask these leading or prompting type questions that you ask your teammates every so often if you

11:03

don't have a natural informant or somebody that you know you can trust. And then you'll notice, you know, the

11:10

first time may be super neutral. Oh, we've got a great team. It's wonderful. Oh, no. We all like each other and it's

11:15

just happy, happy, happy. That's fantastic. And I hope that's true. I want that to be true for you. But I

11:21

wouldn't trust that that's true for a whole year. I might follow up the next quarter, two or three months down the

11:27

road, and go, "Hey, it's my 10-minute touch base. I just want to get your feedback again." And it may be happy,

11:32

happy, happy again. And you're like, "That's fantastic. Fantastic." But we don't want to do away with this touch

11:39

base type meeting because you never know when something's going to pop up. And

11:46

usually when it pops up, we want to snuff it out as quickly as possible, which is why I do suggest an interval of

11:53

two to three months of touching base. Now, let's say you do have an informant, a trustworthy informant on the team,

12:00

then you can potentially touch base with them a little bit more regularly. Maybe that's monthly. And it could still be in

12:06

the format of 10 minutes. You're like, "Hey, Susie, 10 minutes. Fill me in. What do you feel like's going on on with

12:13

the team right now? how do you feel like we're doing? And then Susie can kind of bring you up to speed. The sooner we can

12:20

pick up on potential conflict on the team, the better we can handle it. So,

12:27

let's say in these quick one-on-one meetings or with your informant meeting

12:33

that something is brought to your attention. Yeah, there really seems to be some tension between Rhonda and

12:39

Sally. Can't quite put my finger on it, but they definitely have not been happy

12:45

with one another. Oh, really? What makes you say that? Can you tell me more about

12:50

this? So, if something's brought up, you want to glean as much information out of

12:56

your informant or out of your one-on-one as possible. You can even ask for their opinion. In your opinion, what do you

13:04

think is happening here? In your opinion, what do you think I should do to help the situation? Because sometimes

13:12

the person that you're talking to will say, "I think you just need to give it time. You know, Rhonda just finished up

13:17

her divorce. I think she's a little bit on edge. I think everything's going to blow over." Or you might say, "You know

13:24

what? I would really recommend pulling Rhonda and Sally into a meeting together. They need to talk it out." And

13:31

then you're you kind of are starting to build a game plan of how to problem

13:36

solve this gossip mill or this rumor mill. Now

13:42

there are going to be times that you are lucky enough I'll say to catch the

13:50

gossip in action. When this happens, in the rare case that

13:56

it does, and you overhear team member number one talking badly about somebody

14:02

to team member number two, then it's going to be very important that you immediately

14:08

address that. So, let's say you saw person one and two having a chat or you overheard them having a chat and it was

14:15

very negative in nature. I would immediately same day. I probably

14:20

wouldn't wait any longer than same day, but if need be, next day, I would pull

14:26

those two aside, team member one and two, and say, "Listen, I overheard you talking about Sally the other day. Tell

14:33

me what's going on." And hopefully they fess up and they explain why they're frustrated about Sally, and you can

14:40

address those concerns. But even if Sally is doing something egregiously wrong, you have to set the tone with

14:47

team member one and two that this is not acceptable. So you can listen to them say, "Okay,

14:53

I'm going to address that with Sally. We'll get a solution." But before we dismiss this meeting, I want to let you

15:00

both know that I am not okay with team members talking negatively about one

15:06

another. I personally believe that there is nothing productive that can come out of it. So I want to make sure that in

15:13

the future if you guys have a problem with Sally, you take that information either directly to Sally, which would be

15:21

my preference, or you bring it to me and you let me deal with it. But as far as

15:26

team member to team member, I expect you to speak positively about your team members. So, please do not continue

15:33

talking negatively about Sally and give me time to get these performance issues dealt with. I know that sounds like an

15:41

uncomfortable conversation and I firmly agree with you, it is, but if you do not

15:48

deal with it in that moment, it's going to continue to happen and it's going to

15:53

cause a lot of damage. Okay. Secondly, let's say that multiple people

16:00

are involved in this rumor mill process and you're like, I don't even know where to start. Every corner I turn, I hear

16:06

somebody saying something negative about the other person. To me, then you've got a pretty pervasive problem. It's not

16:13

just one little firework. It's a lot of fireworks that are waiting to go off. And you have got to nip that in the bud.

16:21

So, what I would do if I were you is I would call a team meeting and I would

16:27

send not only a very clear message about what you expect from every team member.

16:32

I expect that there's not a negative word spoken. I expect that if you have a

16:38

problem with a team member that you go directly to that person and you address

16:43

the problem. I expect for you to assume the best in your team members rather

16:50

than continuing to assume the worst. If they missed a step in their process or

16:56

in their checklist that they were supposed to do rather than assuming they're lazy and telling the rest of the

17:01

team that they're lazy, why don't you assume that something she got distracted in some way? Oh my goodness, she was

17:07

probably in the middle of this and got pulled onto the clinical floor. Let me finish that up for her. Or I know

17:16

Rhonda's been going through a really hard time lately with the divorce. I bet she's pretty tired. I'm going to do this

17:22

trait for her. I'm going to finish this up and I'm and I'm happy to do it. Okay. So, you begin to set expectations in

17:29

this team meeting of how you want people to behave towards one another.

17:36

Sometimes that's enough and all you have to do is set that stage and people are

17:42

like, "Oh yeah, she's right or he's right." And they step in line. But a lot of times it's a natural behavior that

17:48

does not stop. So let's say that you continue to get rumblings or overhear

17:55

people speaking negatively. Now it's time to enter into some consequences.

18:01

You call a team meeting again. You say, "Hey, I'm disappointed. I made my

18:06

expectations really clear last time, and I continue to walk into conversations that are negative. Therefore, I have the

18:15

same expectations." Go back through those again. These are my expectations that we assume the best about one

18:20

another, that we're happy to jump in and help, etc., etc. You go back through everything. And then you say from today

18:28

going forward if I step into a conversation or if I see whispering or

18:34

if I get wind that there's negative communication that's occurring there

18:39

will be a consequence. Now you have to decide what those consequences are and I would present those consequences in this

18:46

second team meeting. I would say, "Okay, so the consequences are that if I catch

18:52

anybody engaged in negative dialogue, our bonus goes away for the month. Nobody gets a

18:59

bonus." What? That's not fair. What if I What if I wasn't the one talking? You're right. It's not fair. But gossip isn't

19:06

fair either. And so, we are not going to put up with that. The whole team will lose their bonus if they hear it. The

19:13

reason that we make this a whole team thing is because if there is negative

19:19

gossip going on between two me two team members and somebody o overhears it. We

19:25

want to create an environment where that team jumps in and says hey remember we

19:30

got to cut that out. Let's not talk about that right now or how can we turn this around. So, it encourages your team

19:36

members to jump in and try to get your co-worker, their co-workers rerouted to

19:41

the positive, but also this is a full practice thing. The whole team needs to

19:50

be in alignment. So, if one fails, we all fail. That's the definition of teamwork is we're in this thing

19:56

together, good or bad. And so just like we would reap the rewards of the

20:02

practice doing well, we're also going to reap the consequences. So it could be, hey, if I hear this again, the whole

20:08

bonus is going away. Or, hey, if I hear this rumor mill running again, then we

20:15

are going to do individual writeups for every single team member, even if you weren't one of the ones talking.

20:22

or hey, we've got this great team building event coming up where we've

20:28

rented out the massage place and we are going to all go get massages and I will

20:35

cancel that if I hear anything about negative communication again. So, you

20:42

got to have a consequence. If the rumor mill did not stop after your first

20:47

meeting, then you have to follow through. This may sound like I'm talking

20:53

about a parenting episode. As I'm sitting here talking, I'm like, this is parenting 101, right? We set really

21:00

clear expectations. Really clear. We let our team know

21:05

what's going to happen if they don't abide by those expectations. And then we follow through with the consequence. we

21:12

cannot go light or we can't get to the end of the month and go, "Oh my gosh, I heard six out of the eight people saying

21:19

something negative, so I'm going to still give the bonus to those two." No,

21:24

you said that if this continued that all people would lose their bonus. Stick to

21:30

it. And I know it doesn't feel good, but you need to follow through with your threat if you have any chance of this

21:38

rumor mill being shut down. Now, every once in a while, you'll realize that

21:45

there's a strong epicenter that you've got one team member that

21:51

just stirs things back up again or churns things back up. If that is the

21:56

case and you don't feel like this is a teamwide thing, then I would highly

22:03

recommend that you get one on-one with that rumor mill starter as fast as

22:08

possible. You set the expectations. You tell her the consequences. And then the

22:15

very next time that she makes the mistake of saying something negative about a teammate, you do a written

22:21

warning and you let her know if I hear this happening again, I will let you go.

22:26

This needs to be the case. Whether this is a brand new team member or an incredibly experienced and valuable team

22:33

member, I am telling you the team will suffer if this rumor person stays on

22:39

your team. The practice will suffer. It will absolutely decrease your efficiency

22:45

and your productivity to keep this person on board. So you need to send a very strong message to that rumor mill

22:52

person that you will not tolerate this kind of behavior.

22:58

Now, if you want to infuse some positive in here because you're like, "That sounds like a lot of consequences, a lot

23:05

of conversations." You are correct. It's a lot, but it's worth your time and effort. If you want to be like, "How can

23:12

I approach this in a positive way?" Well, in addition to your negative

23:18

conversations or your negative consequences that you're having to create and implement, you can also have

23:25

positive things that you infuse, forced positive things like, "Hey, I've left

23:32

cards out in the break room from for everybody. Can everybody please take two and write an encouraging note to their

23:39

teammate?" You could do an activity where you have poster board. You write

23:46

the team member's name and you have an activity where team members go around

23:51

and write positive and encouraging things to that team member or they write down qualities that they love about that

23:57

team member. And again, that can force some of this posit positivity. You can

24:03

do more team building where people are expected to get to know one another and bond over the activity.

24:11

There are a million books on happiness

24:16

and being positive and having a sphere of influence that is positive. One of my

24:23

favorite books is called the happiness advantage. It talks all about the power of the mind to pursue and to perceive

24:31

what we need in order to be happy. So you could do a book club where we're

24:37

focusing on this positive mindset, but in most situations, the positive alone

24:44

is not enough to stop a rumor mill. It's enough oftentimes to prevent a rumor

24:51

mill, but it is not enough to stop one. So you got to have the consequence side

24:56

as well or setting the expectations. Now I want to also challenge office

25:02

managers um team leads practice owners you have to watch yourself.

25:09

If you are complaining about a team member even if it's innocently

25:16

something as simple as gosh Sally drives me crazy cuz she's so slow.

25:22

You're setting the expectation that it's okay to say something negative about somebody else. So, you've got to watch

25:28

yourself. Say that stuff in your head. Have a text message that goes out to

25:34

your best friend or your spouse that just says, "Pray for me because Sally's killing me again with her inefficiency."

25:41

Doesn't matter. have some type of outlet that you can get that information out without it going to your team because

25:49

you do not want to inadvertently send the message that it's okay to say something negative. With you saying

25:56

something ne negative, it neutralizes it and makes it no big deal. It sends the message that you're okay with negative

26:03

chatter and therefore you look like a hypocrite if you come out after that and you're like, "Oh yeah, we can't talk

26:09

negatively about people." But you do all the time, doc. You do all the time,

26:14

office manager. So, be very careful that you're abiding by these rules yourself.

26:21

Now, where I see the rumor mill really impacting practices is in two main ways.

26:29

Number one, and probably the most important, staff retention.

26:34

Team members leave when the environment is not pleasant. And can you blame them?

26:40

It's really not worth going to work every day if you're miserable with your existence around these people that

26:47

gossip all the time. Right? So people are self-eliminating. They're removing

26:53

themselves from your situation because they're tired of the cattiness or tired

26:58

of the drama. So staff retention is one of the main things that go in a rumor

27:06

mill situation. The second thing that is also important is productivity

27:12

slashefficiency goes way down. Again, Dr. Dr. Kuba in

27:17

the digest has been talking about efficiency and productivity and this is one of the number one ways to kill

27:24

efficiency cuz if it if it is more enjoyable, pleasant, entertaining to

27:29

pause and have a three or four minute conversation about how stupid one of our team members is, then we're going to be

27:36

drawn to that rather than drawn to thinking about our work work, doing a

27:41

thorough job, following through, etc. So gossip is enticing. It feels good. It

27:50

releases these happy endorphins in our head momentarily. And so we can get real

27:55

distracted by that and not get our job done or make mistakes in the process. So

28:00

I think it's really important to know that efficiency diminishes.

28:06

You also have the risk of losing team members. So those two things alone are

28:12

worth keeping your ear to the ground, listening for when things may go off and then encouraging your team to adopt

28:20

these expectations and to abide by these expectations of how we treat others and

28:26

more importantly how we talk about others. It's also critical to know

28:33

that you have power in this to make a change. I have seen so many offices that

28:38

were filled with rumor and gossip that have turned the ship around. It takes

28:44

time. Don't give up on your efforts quickly. Continue to power through.

28:49

Continue to have the appropriate conversations. Continue to stay on top of things. I know it can be exhausting.

28:56

I can see Koopa rolling her eyes at me right now and saying like, "This this just sounds like too much work. I don't

29:01

want to do it." I get it. But I'm telling you, you want to avoid the fireworks at the end. So, it's worth the

29:08

investment of time. Get to know your team by talking to them or spend time

29:15

with your informant and really think about how you can address the issue of

29:20

gossiping in your practice. starting with yourself first and making your own

29:26

corrections and then in turn taking the time to teach all the other team members

29:32

how to follow a gossip-free life. And I'll be honest, guys, this is a big

29:38

soapbox of mine with myself, with my kids. I have never been one that enjoys

29:44

gossip. As a matter of fact, we teach our kids all the time like, "Hey,

29:49

gossip's going to put you in some tricky situations. If you're caught talking negatively about somebody, it's going to

29:54

come back and bite you in the butt. So, don't do it. Don't engage in it. Don't

29:59

be a part of it." And there is such a lower stress level when we'll actually abide by that. So, I would encourage you

30:08

not only to do this for your team and to make sure that you're on top of it, but do it for yourself as well. Make this a

30:14

life habit that you just are going to choose not to speak negatively about others. You're going to keep those

30:20

thoughts to yourself or you're going to complain about something that you can complain about like the weather or heck

30:28

politics, whatever you want to complain about, but not your team, not your co-workers. Keep that positive. Okay.

30:37

I'm expecting to hear really good things as you guys tackle this challenge. I want you to take it seriously. Make sure

30:44

that your team is taking it seriously and experience happy rumor millf free

30:51

days ahead. Have a great week. Thanks for joining the conversation today. We

30:58

hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone, but we also hope that you're walking away with some

31:04

really great tips and tricks to try in your practice. We value your feedback, so please take a

31:11

few moments to rate and review the podcast. Finally, we want to make sure

31:16

that we're covering the topics that matter to you. So, track us down on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and

31:23

let us know what topics you want us to cover. As always, please know that we

31:29

are rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama.