Kathryn Waddington Attending to gossip: The key to unlocking hidden knowledge about organisations and teams?

Overview  Piloting material from Gossip and Organizations for future commercial use – feedback please!  Repositioning gossip as organisational communication and knowledge  Introduce concept of reflexive gossip as mindful attention to evaluative talk in and about organisations  Illustrate use and application of an evidence-based framework for working with organisational gossip

New ways of thinking The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees. Erwin Schrödinger ( ) There are things known, and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors…. Jim Morrison ( ) Invention: The creation of new knowledge Innovation: Its development, application and exploitation in the marketplace Clive Holtham, Cass Business School & Interdisciplinary Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice City University London

New ways of seeing Organisational gossip has traditionally been seen as something to be managed or minimized I see it as an important organisational process and the key to unlocking knowledge in ‘unmanaged spaces’ Waddington K (2012) Gossip and Organizations. Routledge. Gossip © Pol Ledent

A framework for reflection © Waddington (2012) The framework worked really well with my team. They were able to get to the moral and ethical issues of their gossiping behaviour much more readily. It also allowed me to frame personal wellbeing, the abuse of power and the key element of intent. Maxine Craig personal communication

The Roaring Forties © Tacita Dean Contextualized critical incidents A tool for team reflexivity:  How much gossip has come to our attention recently?  What are the underlying issues, gaps and themes?  What is the mix of good, bad and toxic gossip?  Do we need to take any action?

Conclusions  Understand that gossip is potentially valuable and usable ‘soft’ information  Question information communicated as gossip and look for other sources of verification/refutation  Look out for emergent ‘gossip-as-knowledge’ arising in collaborative sensemaking conversations  Remember that the decision to gossip, or not, is always an ethical decision  Reflect upon what the content and emotions contained in gossip reveal about underlying organisational problems/issues

References and acknowledgements  Connor, M. (2009). Dealing with the hidden side of organisational life supporting teams and clinicians in difficulty. Paper 1: A case study from South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Prepared for the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry seminar on the development and training of trust leaders. Available at:  Waddington, K. (2012). Gossip and Organizations. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. Available at: Review copies available at:  The LFHE Small Development Project HRM Strategies and Academic Engagement provided empirical material for chapter 5: Gossip and Identity  City University London’s Proof of Concept Catalyst Fund supported some of the material developed for use in this workshop.