How long and twisted is your office grapevine? Is it a thriving people-eating plant? Or is it a shrinking violet? The grapevine is only detrimental to your corporate culture if you let it be.

The culture of your department, organization or team may be difficult to describe to an outsider; but it's as distinctive as the cubicles, carpet and coffee cups. And every person in the company - but especially managers - can help create and manage that culture every day. If it's stifling, sabotaging and stressful, you can change it. Individually, you can open and protect a path through any negativity that keeps your team from achieving its goal. You do this by managing the grapevine.

Feed the Grapevine: What You Say Is What You See

It's true in sports and it's true in the workplace: Positive players are the result of positive chatter.

"Your words create the culture you and your co-workers operate in," explains Dianna Booher, CEO of Booher Consultants, a Dallas-based communication training and consulting firm. "Your presentations, hallway conversations, e-mails, video-conference announcements and lunch room conversations will either clarify or confuse, motivate or demoralize, encourage or immobilize, uplift or undermine, support or sabotage."

But how do you take control of the rumor mill? Here are some of Booher's proven steps to help you use that office grapevine proactively rather than getting strangled by it.

1. Focus on the Relevant, Helpful and Current

In the absence of information, people make up their own. Holding a periodic staff meeting or sending out an e-mail will not do the trick in "getting the goal/message out there." You need to:

• Solicit opinions
• Ask questions
• Be specific
• Be relevant
• Be current
• Verify assumptions
• Clarify conclusions

Remember: You cannot over-communicate - as long as your words are not intended as a smoke screen. Purposeful gobbledygook only leads people to question your motives.

2. Correct Immediately Any Negative Perceptions Known to Be False or Misleading

Time is of the essence. If your organization has ever suffered a product or service crisis, then you understand the importance of beating a path to the media door rather than have the media hunt (or haunt) you. This principle of immediacy applies to more than public crises. It's equally true when facing internal situations and issues. Tackle the tough stuff on a timely basis before chaos builds.

3. Screen E-mail Scuttlebutt

People tend to use e-mail communications to broadcast concerns or complaints they would not normally raise in person. The rumor mill churns more vigorously than if the author were to simply comment to a colleague. As one senior vice president observes about his division: "People say things in e-mail they wouldn't dare say to each other or about each other if they were in actual conversation. They're so negative, and yet we're supposed to be a service organization. They say incorrect things about what's happened and then copy a dozen people. Then I have to go calm everybody down and correct the problem."

4. Squelch Gossip

How do you know the difference between innocent grapevine scuttlebutt and gossip? Grapevine scuttlebutt engages people for the tasks; gossip, on the other hand, can be distinguished by the lack of real facts. The gossiping sender appears to be pouting. When this sender is hiding behind e-mail, your first and natural reaction is probably, "Why did he send this to me?" With scuttlebutt, you can immediately understand why you were on the list and you can see that the sender is trying to advance a cause without working through normal communication channels for your company.

5. Plant Stories of Heroism

Take every opportunity to offer personal positive opinions about your co-workers, other departments or executive leadership. Who's doing what well and when? The culture of leadership, the culture of customer service, the culture of teamwork - all these perceptions are built one conversation at a time.

The corporate grapevine is not easy to control. But you can make it manageable, if you make it your aim:

• To promote clear, complete, current communication
• To replace gossip with graciousness
• To shape culture with positive opinions about your colleagues, clients and your workplace community.

My thanks to Dianna Booher, author of more than 40 books including Communicate with Confidence, Speak with Confidence and E-Writing, for sharing these grapevine pruning tips with us today.

Wishing you career success and a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lauryn Franzoni
www.ExecuNet.com

HEROES OF WORKPLACE SAFETY

St. Patrick

By Catherine Jones

St. Patrick: More Priest than Safety Engineer.

St. Patrick, the figure we're celebrating today, is associated with many Irish symbols - the shamrock and the gift of gab, for example. But, alas, he didn't have the luck of the Irish.

Born somewhere along the British coastline in 389AD, Patrick was captured by a raiding party when he was 14-years-old, taken to Ireland and sold as a slave. While tending the flocks of a Druid chieftain, Patrick spent much of his time alone and in prayer, strengthening his Christian faith. After six years of captivity, Patrick escaped, returned home and took up studies for the priesthood. He later returned to Ireland and began a 40-year mission of converting its people. He died on March 17, 461AD.

Legend has it that St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes. If this is true, it would add one more claim to St. Patrick's fame: Status as one of the world's earliest industrial hygienists. Unfortunately, it's probably not true. According to scientists, there were no snakes in post-glacial Ireland. The whole banishment of serpents legend is thus best understood as an allegory symbolizing St. Patrick's purging Ireland of pagans.

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