Cultivating the Office Grapevine
[excerpt]

By Peter J. Nofel,
Associate Editor

Just like any other plant, the office grapevine sometimes needs trimmed and sometimes needs nurtured. Getting a good grip on it is tough, but often rewarding

No matter how fast computer whisk information from point to point, the ubiquitous office grapevine seems to be three steps ahead. And gaining.

To this day, a mid-west-based manager remains puzzled by it all. "I once discreetly walked into my boss' office to tell him I was resigning to accept a new post at another company," he remembers. "No one was supposed to know I was making the visit. And yet, before I walked out his door, I later heard, people knew I was in there. I'll never understand how."

The grapevine is an informal communications network with a speed that rivals and sometimes bests all other means of message transmission. The information carried along it can be as mundane as the simple resignation described, or as important as an impending merger. When you consider the grapevine has its roots in the rumor mill, its surprising that a large part of the information supplied through the grapevine is either true or carries within it a kernel of truth.

"If you slice through the office grapevine, you'd find two-thirds of it is just personal chit-chat," says William Mangum, president, Thomas-Mangum, Inc., a Los Angeles-based management consulting firm. "The information usually concerns what's happening to who. It's what keeps an office humming, and in many ways, it is what keeps office work from becoming boring to people."

Placing a percentage on such a nebulous thing as the ratio of personal information to business fact in gossip, can be like counting the number of dancing angels on a pin-head, but others tend to agree with Mangum's estimate. "In my opinion, I would say about 80 percent of the information circulated on the grapevine is oriented toward the individual, while 20 percent of it concerns the company," estimates Randy Thurman, vice president of human resources, Datapoint Corp., San Antonio, TX.

Rumors of affairs, marital trouble, or divorce may make juicy conversation, but there are other aspects of the grapevine to consider. While the vine's tendrils can be noticeable in-house, they also extend between businesses as well. Industry grapevines can sink a company, or at least drive it upon jagged financial reefs.

"Some companies will typically plant an industry grapevine so they can use it for their own ends," Mangum reports. "It's purpose cold be to deflate a competitor's   posture, improve its own position, combat adverse information in the marketplace, or improve public relations. A number of companies use the grapevine purposely in these ways and others. They'll never admit to it, but they use it."

So, the grapevine bears two types of fruit. Rumors within a company that can affect internal functions and rumors between companies that can affect its stature, or profit and loss picture . . .

– excerpt ends –