Humans live on rumours. That is why celebrity magazines make so much money. Why there is room for all manner of fake information in our societies. Why we spend at least some time discussing what ifs and maybes of not only our own but others’ lives.
Evolutionarily, passing on information can be considered a matter of safety and survival. Not going somewhere that others feel is unsafe, or where others have indeed gone but few have come back, knowing where clean water and good food can be found and where someone we care about might have gone are all information that should help us survive all kinds of situations, both as individuals and as groups; socially, the information we pass on may no longer be aimed solely for survival and safety, but can have hierarchical – and often Othering, which is a part of hierarchy – meaning instead. It may not be about factual safety, but can masquerade as such (think of fear of taint by association), or can have real social consequences within the group (including discriminatory, where discrimination is practiced freely or simply hasn’t been properly tackled). This kind of rumour generally relies on group cohesion and the exclusion of the minority as an Other, or aims at an outside Other (be that another business or town or anything else that we may feel the division of Us vs Them towards).
But rumour can have a different role as well – one that enables a manipulative bully to sow not only discord but often hostility and terror literally everywhere. When that happens at the office, it can have equally serious consequences as it can in any other environment, so it’s important to tackle rumours not only as and if they happen, but as a mode of behaviour.
One thing not to do is consider all rumour harmful. “I hear Janet went to the beach this weekend” is a neutral rumour; what makes it a rumour is that we do not know, from Janet (or presumably someone who had seen her or been with her) that she had indeed been to the beach.
What keeps it neutral is a response such as “I did think she looked quite rested/tanned/happy”, or “Wow, I need to ask her where she’d gone… I’d love to know where she gets so tanned at this time of the year”.
What could make it pass from neutral to potentially harmful are responses such as “I wonder where she gets the money to go on trips on her pay”; “She is such a show-off… saw her showing off that tan this morning” and anything within this vein. The reason these are potentially harmful is that they are already casting aspersions on Janet’s character. She may be really good at budgeting; she may be doing a job on the side (eg translating) to get a little extra cash in; or perhaps she has lost someone and has inherited. Bottom line is that while Janet is presumably a perfectly innocent person, the negative answer to the rumour bears the potential of making her seem like someone suspicious and nasty simply because she went to the beach (supposedly)… possibly when one of the other speakers did not. Furthermore, the next assertion – of her being a show-off – is a personal bias. It is very difficult to quantify what is showing off; showing off is a social construct that we apply, often incredibly willy-nilly, to people in our vicinity, usually those we do not like. Therefore, it is a biased perspective from word go. It gets applied to people who are just more outgoing than others, people who cover up their insecurities by exhibiting a social hierarchy trait like money, power, clothes, looks, etc., and literally everything in between. The aim, however, is definitely to present Janet in a negative light, and that aim could both evolve into stories to “confirm” the viewpoint about Janet (confirmation bias) to others (Us vs Them, Othering), and effectively try to turn others against Janet as much as tolerate negative behaviours towards her (ostracising; bullying).
As rumours get treated as fact when passed through enough people almost automatically, it is important to understand that they have a tremendous potential of disrupting all and any life, including at the office. Janet may have never actually gone to the beach; she may be struggling with money because she is supporting a loved one who is in need of care (which can cost a lot) and doesn’t have the finances or the time to devote to herself in any way; but rumour can and does overwrite everything we feel and think we know about a person, often leaving them alone in an unsympathetic environment with a picture of self over their actual self they have no control over and cannot be positively influenced, because people are already biased and will be more likely to trust the bias held by everyone in that environment than any other evidence. And everything she does will be judged through the lens of what people think she’s like vs actual actions and behaviour, with people twisting facts to fit the perceptions, all too often automatically.
This isn’t something rare; it happens all the time. All discrimination and bias ultimately include this behaviour; we see it in anything ranging from social perceptions of an Other (celebrities, successful people, homeless, any group that is viewed as different and therefore not trustworthy) to active acts of discrimination towards a group. It can influence witness memory, because it takes very little to go from “I wouldn’t be surprised if” and “They (whoever They are in this case) always/are… (generalised perception, rarely based on fact) to believing something did happen the way the bias would predict it should. In terms of technology, it becomes a catalyst, an outside “proof” of our beliefs much like many previous attempts to create a generalised, fool-proof, pre-emptive social order have. Technology isn’t biased against someone – we are, as is our innovating and our use of the tech in question.
At an office, the consequences are not dissimilar, both in effect and the result. The effect is mistrust, dislike and hostility/ostracising towards a person or several. The result is lessened team efficacy (so between the members thereof), along with possible unwanted aggressive/defensive behaviours on the part of the Us group (but potentially also from the victim(s) when they have been pushed far enough) and lessened overall efficiency of the team regarding work in general (so the work aimed outside the office itself, to a third party).
THE OFFICE “OVERLORD”
While rumours can be started simply by members of the team who do not work well with others in general or fail to “click” with a specific team member but lack the professionality and solution strategies to deal with this, they can be a part of a malicious control spate of a single bully, with or without an accomplice.
This kind of person isn’t merely a bully; demeaning, heckling or even threatening others is not enough to them. Especially the bullies who like working quietly, or who wish to be seen as victims, tend towards a “divide and conquer” approach, which means that they either try to single out one or perhaps two individuals or literally target everyone, but so that everyone feels they are the isolated target.
The point of doing so is to make the victim feel alone and helpless (which is ultimately the point of all psychological violence), and at the mercy of the bully. That in itself may be the sole goal of theirs; they may be only interested in the feeling of power over someone. Alternatively, this is merely a start of something, and it very much depends on the person in question just how far it is going to go.
All office bullying (and bullying in general) must be taken seriously, if for no other reason because of that one factor. Action and reaction are in part shaped by society’s behaviour towards it, creating patterns that are repeated because they are seen as an acceptable way of behaving in a specific situation. This means that the social, cultural and religious patterns of your environment must be considered just as seriously as the personality of the bully involved when determining the likely outcome, and even with the best people on the job, you may still be lacking data that could prevent really serious outcomes if you let things get too far.
So my advice is always to take all kind of bullying – including malicious rumour – seriously when it starts, and create a no-nonsense approach to it at your workplace.
One tactic that a manipulative bully will use will be to turn others against a person by showing them in the worst light possible. What that might mean, what aspect of them will be portrayed or endeavoured to be portrayed as negative depends on the environment; it may bear religious, cultural or social stigmas (such as suspicions of secretly belonging to a different than preferred religion or aspersions about sexual orientation or sexual habits in rigid environments where such discrimination is not only possible, but desired). Their quality of work, however, is an always ready, always available way to blacken the victim’s name to any bully, and it is there that they often strike. Be it by leaving them out of conversations that are crucial for their work quality, by lying to them in clever ways that don’t incriminate the bully but make the victim seem like they are stupid or not paying attention, destroying their work… are just some of the available arsenal in trying to present someone as highly incompetent or negative.
Another is often experienced when a bully is given the power over the trainees.
In the case of most bullies, the true power lies in the power not only over the victim(s), but over the perceptions of others. It is therefore not at all unusual for a bully to “warn” people who have just started working somewhere regarding other office members. This is a particularly clever trick, as trainees generally tend to rely on their supervisor at least to some extent. To this person, a really clever manipulator will present themselves a kindly (even if everyone at the office runs at the sight of them otherwise). They may be diligent and dutiful in their tasks even if they are otherwise at best mediocre as an employee; they will put on a great show of personal interest and kindness to amp up the trust of the person in their direct line of responsibility. At the same time, they will point out, bit by bit, whom “not to trust”… in other words, the true victims of the bully.
It may be someone who is “not nice” to the bully (perhaps because they stood up for themselves in a way that affronted the bully but not enough to put them off for good – some bullies can be very difficult to persuade to let be); it may be someone whose work efficiency throws alarming or bad light on the bully’s slacking or mediocrity. It may literally be a parting shot of an office nightmare who is leaving for some reason, training their replacement so that at least some form of discord survives their departure. Reasons vary, as does the ultimate success of the plan… although it’s good to remember that, even if the plan fails in the long run, the person who will have harboured the prejudices, even if they begin to see they had been deliberately misled, will fare poorly in the team once they had already established themselves as the mini-me of the person who had psychologically (and perhaps even otherwise) tormented their co-workers up till then.
The solution to this particular problem is easy – don’t let the bully train the replacement. Be aware of how people feel about someone, and mindful of being manipulated. If the whole point of an office is to join together a team of remarkable people all bent on working on a project they have in common, then expertise is as important as attitude, and that goes for recognising problematic behaviours even when they are hard to spot, creating a clear, no tolerance policy towards bullying and understanding that bias is easy… but getting out of it is not.