The Grapevine

There is a very famous song by Marvin Gaye entitled, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." What is the meaning of the grapevine? When we hear something through the grapevine, we are learning it informally and unofficially by means of gossip and rumor. This information is usually passed from one person to another by word of mouth, text, or email. It is passed perhaps in a confidential manner among friends or colleagues sometimes with the accompanying statement, "Don't tell anybody I told you." Yeah, right. Thirty minutes later, because every person has a trust partner, everybody in the organization knows. But what do they know? Usually nothing because the grapevine mostly contains what happened but the reason it happened or the real problem that created the situation is missing. When these facts are missing, people make up facts to fill the gaps. Everybody wants to speculate or "juice" it up. The grapevine can also imply information obtained from overheard conversations or other anonymous sources. For instance "I heard through the grapevine that Jack got a nasty email from the boss and is considering leaving the organization." The grapevine can be a deadly virus in organizations. It has created enemies, lowered morale, hampered productivity, dampened spirits, broken confidences and created mistrust. Formal and official communication should be the antidote to combat the deadly grapevine. The top manager should prevent these negative consequencies by having the courage to either formally and officially communicate the truth or take steps to strip all the grapes off the vine thereby quelling the gossip and rumor.

Motivation

In my work as a facilitator, I get a lot of questions about interpersonal relations between supervisors and employees. One question asked over and over is, "Given the lack of resources in this stressed economy, how does one find ways to motivate employees that do not involve financial resources?" I think it is key for supervisors to understand the first step to motivate employees is to find out something about them--what turns them on and what turns them off. We should then focus on doing as much as we can to turn them on and refrain from doing things that turn them off. Employees are motivated by praise, challenge, being in on decisions that affect them, as well as other forms of recognition that do not cost money. I invite other examples of actions supervisors can take to motivate employees.

"Cal, if I am having trouble with my boss should I move to a new job?" "Don't move yet because you might be the problem and if that is the case, you will only take the problem with you. Try getting to know your boss--expectations, vision, goals, strengths, weaknesses, communication styles, and motivations. Then try to change your own behavior so that it complements your boss and your relationship will probably improve."

Leadership

Last week I was facilitating a seminar for a group of new supervisors and one of them asked me, "Cal, if you were promoted from a position within your team to the position of supervisor, would you maintain the same social relationships with your friends that you now supervise?" I thought that was a very challenging question and had to think about it before giving an answer. I advised it would be unwise to maintain the same relationships because it might create a conflict of interest. Maintaining a close social relationship may create a morale problem because some of your employees may accuse you of favoritism.

Counseling Employees

I am Calvin Swartz, President of Progressive Success Corporation. I am a management consultant specializing in facilitating supervision, leadership, and management development seminars. I will be using my blog as a medium for exchanging views about techniques for solving supervisory and management problems related to interpersonal relations in the work place. This is the first one designed to get your comments and start a dialog about these relationships. In my seminars, I use unique names related to the issues to create interest and assist in describing the situations. I will be using these characters in future topics.
For many years, participants in my seminars have had the opportunity to ask me, "Cal, what would you do if...?" questions. In a recent seminar, a new supervisor, Ibee D. Nusuper asked, "Cal, what would you do if two people showed up late for work? I supervise 16 people in my new job. Last week, two of them showed up 1 hour late. To correct this problem, I called the whole team together because I wanted everyone to get the message I would not tolerate late arrivals. Did I do the right thing?"
"No, you did not do the right thing. Mass punish only aleinates those who did not break the rules. In the future you should first ensure that everyone is aware of the rules. Then when an individual breaks the rules, only deal with that person."
What advice would you offer Ibee? Was it appropriate to call the whole team together when only two people were late? Would your advice be different for other acts of misconduct? Please share your thoughts regarding this situation.