Thursday, December 12, 2013

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.

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