# The Pros and Cons of Workplace Gossip

An episode of [The Science of Personality Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1517116280), 13 Jan 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1134107/episodes/18501383-the-pros-and-cons-of-workplace-gossip.mp3

In the latest episode of The Science of Personality, Ryne and Blake are joined by new Hogan Assessments CEO, Allison Howell, to discuss the pros and cons of gossip in the workplace. Gossip is common in all facets of our everyday lives but, in the workplace, gossip is often viewed as disruptive and unproductive. However, more recently gossip has been seen in a more positive light. What was once perceived as an organization’s worst enemy is now often its biggest ally. This is a topic Allison explored in depth over the past year and that’s why we thought she would be the perfect guest to discuss the positives and negatives of gossip in the workplace.

## Transcript

[0:04] SPEAKER_00: People are the most consequential and dangerous forces on earth.
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: Well, personality psychology is about the nature of human nature.
[0:11] SPEAKER_00: It's about people.
[0:12] SPEAKER_00: And wouldn't that be useful to know?
[0:14] SPEAKER_00: It seems to me.
[0:14] SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't think of a more important problem.
[0:19] SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments, the global leader in personality and leadership.
[0:27] SPEAKER_01: Guided by your hosts, Hogan Chief Science Officer and world-renowned personality psychologist, Dr.
[0:32] SPEAKER_01: Ryan Sherman, alongside Hogan's PR manager and resident storyteller, Blake Lepp, this podcast explores the impact of personality on life, leadership, and the nature of human nature.
[0:47] SPEAKER_03: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Science of Personality Podcast.
[0:51] SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Ryan Sherman, along with my co-host, as always, Blake Lepp.
[0:56] SPEAKER_03: Say hello, Blake.
[0:58] SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Science of Personality Podcast, episode 141.
[1:03] SPEAKER_02: Today, Ryan and I are joined by Hogan Assessment CEO Allison Howe to discuss the pros and cons of gossip in the workplace.
[1:12] SPEAKER_02: Gossip is common in all facets of our everyday lives, but in the workplace, gossip is often viewed as disruptive and unproductive.
[1:20] SPEAKER_02: However, more recently, gossip has been seen in a more positive light.
[1:24] SPEAKER_02: What was once perceived as an organization's worst enemy is now often its biggest ally.
[1:30] SPEAKER_02: This is a topic Allison explored in depth over the past year, and that's why we thought she would be the perfect guest to discuss the positives and negatives of gossip in the workplace.
[1:40] SPEAKER_02: But before we get to our conversation with Allison, if you wish to give us any ideas for upcoming episodes or you want to ask Reiner Me a question, shoot us an email at hello at the science of personality.com or follow the science of personality on LinkedIn.
[1:55] SPEAKER_02: Now, let's get to it.
[1:57] SPEAKER_02: Allison, welcome to the podcast.
[1:59] SPEAKER_02: Is there anything you'd like to share with our audience before we get started?
[2:04] SPEAKER_04: Thanks for having me.
[2:05] SPEAKER_04: I'm excited to talk with you guys today.
[2:07] SPEAKER_04: Um I will just share the on the topic of our topic of the day, gossip.
[2:14] SPEAKER_04: Um this might seem like uh maybe an odd topic for me to be talking about, but I just wanted to share with the audience that my background is in mass communications, and I spent a lot of time studying the flow of communications between people.
[2:26] SPEAKER_04: In fact, um a silly little anecdote from when I was in graduate school that I spent a lot of time studying um bait shops and their role in preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species uh as sort of an informal communication channel.
[2:41] SPEAKER_04: So um I find it to be a fascinating topic and I'm excited to talk with you guys today.
[2:45] SPEAKER_03: Wow.
[2:46] SPEAKER_03: I did not know that.
[2:47] SPEAKER_03: That is really interesting.
[2:49] SPEAKER_03: Uh well, we can talk more about it today or some other time, however you feel, Allison.
[2:54] SPEAKER_03: But uh super excited to have you join us today on the podcast.
[2:58] SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, for so for our audience uh members who who who may not uh know you, you've been uh in the role of head of marketing and our head of our product teams.
[3:07] SPEAKER_03: And I'm I know I'm not getting the title correct for the last several years, been prior to that, uh just running uh our market being the head of our marketing department as well uh here at Hogan.
[3:17] SPEAKER_03: But why don't you give our audience sort of a uh a career run-up to to this new role of CEO?
[3:25] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
[3:26] SPEAKER_04: How far back do you want me to go?
[3:27] SPEAKER_04: I can go back to my my start in the bait shop space, or we can go a little bit more more recent.
[3:33] SPEAKER_02: Let's go bait shop to the C-suite.
[3:35] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[3:37] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, oh probably.
[3:40] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[3:41] SPEAKER_04: Uh no, that I I say that jokingly because I I did start my my first job uh when I was in high school, paint under the table was at a local bait shop and old-fashioned ice cream parlor, and it kind of opened up doors for me that I never really would have imagined.
[3:56] SPEAKER_04: So um, but that was that was very, very early days.
[4:00] SPEAKER_04: Um I let's see.
[4:02] SPEAKER_04: So I got my start at Hogan um a little over a decade ago.
[4:06] SPEAKER_04: Actually, I was living in Paris working uh actually I was on a uh scholarship at the Sorbonne in Paris doing some teaching and some research.
[4:15] SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's that's where I met Dr.
[4:17] SPEAKER_04: Hogan.
[4:18] SPEAKER_04: Uh, got introduced to the the world of Hogan and started working with our our distributor in Paris for a couple of years, moved back to the US uh and started in a market research role, um, which is kind of a natural fit just because I love to listen to the market and see what trends are.
[4:35] SPEAKER_04: It fits really nicely with my MassCom background.
[4:37] SPEAKER_04: Um, that lead it led into a brand strategy role, supporting our global markets marketing director, senior marketing director, VP of market innovation with product, and now uh as of earlier this week, CEO.
[4:53] SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean it's been quite the journey, and uh I know uh I uh speaking for myself, but I'm absolutely sure I'm also speaking for for many others.
[5:02] SPEAKER_03: Uh I was, I mean, I saw uh reactions and things on social media uh to the announcement earlier this week as well, that that many of us are looking forward to the future, looking forward to um, you know, uh what the what the future looks like with you as CEO, what kind of changes might you have in mind, not asking you to to answer those questions here today, but um, or or what what you know what uh the vision for Hogan might look like in the future.
[5:27] SPEAKER_03: And I know that uh all of us are super excited for it and and really looking forward to it.
[5:31] SPEAKER_03: So again, thanks for making some time early in your tenure to uh to join us today.
[5:37] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
[5:39] SPEAKER_04: I'm happy to chat with you guys.
[5:41] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and for our audience, Allison has had to put up with me for quite some time now.
[5:46] SPEAKER_02: And if you have to work with me directly, hey, this is it's not it's not an easy task because uh but how we kind of equal each other out is we are both very high on mischievous um for our Hogan users out there.
[5:59] SPEAKER_02: And um we have uh I think found both found each other on the end of each other's pranks.
[6:06] SPEAKER_02: Um and sometimes uh you know I I I believe there was even one prank.
[6:10] SPEAKER_02: I won't even get into it where you started the prank and then I kind of got I I sniffed it out and then played along and got you back in the same prank.
[6:22] SPEAKER_02: But we don't have to get into the details of that.
[6:24] SPEAKER_02: But I think you recall what I'm talking about.
[6:27] SPEAKER_04: I I do indeed.
[6:28] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we've had a number of of good pranks throughout the years.
[6:31] SPEAKER_04: That's been one of the most fun parts of working on the marketing team.
[6:35] SPEAKER_02: Well, if we run into any of our listeners in person, we'll we'll tell you the full story.
[6:39] SPEAKER_02: But but uh well, Allison, let's kick this up the way we do with most of our episodes.
[6:44] SPEAKER_02: Today's topic is gossip in the workplace.
[6:46] SPEAKER_02: So, Allison, how would you define gossip?
[6:49] SPEAKER_02: What whenever you think of gossip, what's how would you describe it to someone else?
[6:54] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a great question.
[6:55] SPEAKER_04: And I think at its core, gossip is really about uh an informal means of communication, uh oftentimes working its way through some social networks.
[7:04] SPEAKER_04: Uh the key here is that gossip tends to be unofficial.
[7:09] SPEAKER_04: Um I will say though that when we think about gossip, a lot of times we kind of jump to spreading rumors or misinformation or um kind of manipulating situations through through these unofficial channels.
[7:22] SPEAKER_04: Um, or in certain cases, it could be just a group of ladies gabbing together and that's considered gossip.
[7:28] SPEAKER_04: Um, but it is a lot broader than that and is really about leveraging these unofficial channels to share information.
[7:34] SPEAKER_04: Um, it serves an important purpose for people to make sense of what's happening around them.
[7:40] SPEAKER_04: Um, and I would also add that gossip tends to focus more on people in relationships than say policies, although that you know that could certainly be part of it.
[7:48] SPEAKER_04: Um, but the goal is really to kind of provide contextual clues for understanding the world around you.
[7:55] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, Alison, we talk a lot at Hogan about identity and reputation.
[8:01] SPEAKER_03: And it strikes me that uh, you know, gossip is one of these ways of conveying information about someone's reputation.
[8:08] SPEAKER_03: Uh it's also uh I think feels like it's sort of a way of maybe controlling uh the conversations around people, or but but I think it's also a way of sort of um communicating what's to be expected or or what you might predict in a future interaction.
[8:25] SPEAKER_03: Uh did you have any you care to round out any of those issues for for some of our listeners, particularly around that reputation topic and about how gossip ties in with our reputations?
[8:35] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
[8:37] SPEAKER_04: Um I mean I I think we could just think of an example, one that we put can all probably identify with is like you know, you think of when you start a new job, you go through all the official uh steps of the interviewing and onboarding and doing all your paperwork and all that stuff.
[8:53] SPEAKER_04: And then you have a chance to meet your team and you're able to have some time with your team in a more informal setting.
[8:58] SPEAKER_04: And that's when you get the real information.
[9:00] SPEAKER_04: That's when you know you can you can dig into like, okay, what do I need to know about working with this boss?
[9:05] SPEAKER_04: Like what traps might I fall into?
[9:08] SPEAKER_04: What things you know do I need to be be aware of?
[9:10] SPEAKER_04: And like that type of information tends to be a lot more valuable for uh an employee coming in to like navigate the social situation at work than you know anything that you're gonna get from the official channels.
[9:23] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense to me too, particularly when you think about um the kind of information you might find out about your boss on an interview, even if you're not interviewing with your boss, right?
[9:33] SPEAKER_03: You're interviewing with somebody else, and you know, you might ask them, well, what's it like to work for this person, right?
[9:38] SPEAKER_03: They're gonna tell you a certain sort of things, but you know, the the kind of information you might really want to get, like the kind of information you're talking about, might be something you have to pick up more informally.
[9:49] SPEAKER_03: Can you say anything about like um how you know, I don't know, how long does it typically take, or can what can somebody might expect before uh they can start picking up that kind of gossip?
[10:01] SPEAKER_03: Do you have to earn people's trust first?
[10:05] SPEAKER_03: How does that work sort of work in practice?
[10:07] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean that's kind of a hard question to answer because I think there's a lot of factors that can play into it, and and part of it isn't on an individual level, right?
[10:16] SPEAKER_04: Like some people are just more attuned to others uh than other people are um and able to kind of discern characteristics about somebody else.
[10:25] SPEAKER_04: Other times um it might be the work environment where there's you know a little bit more openness to sharing and the relationships that people have with their managers.
[10:34] SPEAKER_04: You know, if you have somebody who is working for a boss that they despise and they suddenly feel like they trust this new person, they're probably gonna disclose a lot more information than they would if the if the new person is uh you know a little bit more suspect or haven't quite determined if they're they're trustworthy.
[10:51] SPEAKER_04: It kind of happens on both sides.
[10:53] SPEAKER_04: So it's hard to say how long, but I think that that trust element is crucial to kind of being able to access the information that you're trying to get to because there's a risk in sharing certain information and engaging in gossip, right?
[11:05] SPEAKER_04: Like you could you could get uh you could get caught, you could, you know, you might be saying wrong information and you never you never know where that will end up sometimes.
[11:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess there's there's also the people who um um perhaps they're they're like, oh well, I'm already looking for something new, so I don't really I don't really have much to lose here, or maybe they've you know, they're like, well, I've been here long enough, I'm tired of this, I'm ready to move on, so maybe they're more likely to engage in gossip as well and just trust the new person or not even care if they have to trust them or not.
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I guess that just depends on what situation you're in, you know, at your employment status.
[11:45] SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, the word gossip seems to carry with it a mostly negative connotation.
[11:51] SPEAKER_02: I'm curious, why do you why do you think that's the case if we're seeing more of a positive uptick now?
[11:55] SPEAKER_02: Because predominantly I feel like it's it's got a negative uh association with it.
[12:02] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I I love this question because it's actually a lot deeper than you than you might think it to be.
[12:08] SPEAKER_04: Um I think on its face, the kind of the more obvious answer is that gossip is thought about as you know, spreading rumors, uh, or that information is just incorrect.
[12:19] SPEAKER_04: And and like I think a great example of that is you know, think about the the telephone game that you played as a kid, and you saw how easily information can change when it's like when it passes hands.
[12:28] SPEAKER_04: And so I think there's sort of this natural thought, well, you know, you can't really trust gossip because you don't know if it's the truth or if it's not.
[12:34] SPEAKER_04: So so that's like one level of it.
[12:37] SPEAKER_04: Um, but what I think is more interesting is when you dig a little bit deeper into the topic of gossip and looking the at the role that it's played in more of like a historical context.
[12:48] SPEAKER_04: Um, so gossip is often framed by people in power as sort of morally suspect.
[12:55] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, it's kind of back channel communication and information that uh people in power might not want being shared.
[13:02] SPEAKER_04: And so there's this level of um social control in uh trying to stop gossip from happening or prevent it from happening, or even just labeling it as negative and trying to um, you know, dismiss it because it's uh viewed as this way.
[13:17] SPEAKER_04: Um the other thing that you know I'm happy to dig into at any time is looking at the gendered aspect of it, um, which is it's just really endlessly fascinating to dig into that, where like, you know, honest face, I mentioned that gossip can be viewed as sort of a you know a women's thing of girls getting together and gabbing.
[13:34] SPEAKER_04: Um, but it serves a really important purpose throughout history of almost acting as like a survival mechanism uh where you're sharing information about like dangers and risks and things that you're not allowed to speak about openly.
[13:47] SPEAKER_04: And so this like this kind of under or sorry, the difficult to detect method of communication is able to share information that might be uh helpful for somebody's survival or you know, success or happiness, that sort of thing.
[14:02] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, you know, your your comment there reminded me, Alison, that uh it's now been many years ago, many, but many years ago, I had the great fortune to have this trip to Birginoro, Italy, and you can look it up.
[14:15] SPEAKER_03: It's a very tiny town in Italy uh for for some conference events there.
[14:21] SPEAKER_03: Uh, and in the town there's this tower, or not tower, it's sort of like this pole in the middle of the town, and there's these rings on this pole, and you go, wow, what's this pole all about?
[14:33] SPEAKER_03: Well, it turns out the town is supposedly like well known for hospitality, that's their big thing.
[14:39] SPEAKER_03: And uh what happened many, many years ago was that travelers would come through town and they would stop, and all of the the sort of elite families of the town would argue over who would get to host the traveler because they wanted to hear the latest gossip.
[14:57] SPEAKER_03: What was the latest news?
[14:58] SPEAKER_03: This was the way information was spread.
[14:59] SPEAKER_03: There was no internet, there was no newspapers, right?
[15:02] SPEAKER_03: This is how information traveled was by word of mouth.
[15:05] SPEAKER_03: And so this this uh pole was erected with different rings on it, with each ring corresponding to a different family in town, and whoever the traveler hung their, wrung their uh you know, then they tied their horse to one of the rings, that's the family that got to host them.
[15:23] SPEAKER_03: That way it would end this sort of dispute over who got to host the traveler.
[15:27] SPEAKER_03: But it strikes me, based on your comments, Allison, that that's just one of those indications about the the sort of uh positives that have been associated with gossip for a long time.
[15:38] SPEAKER_03: Um I mean, I I I just I guess I'm sort of curious about sort of gossip throughout history, right?
[15:44] SPEAKER_03: We're tending to think about it as you know, today gossip in the workplace, but you know, I assume it served this kind of function historically as well, no?
[15:53] SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
[15:55] SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, and and I think when you think about it in terms of like power dynamics, there throughout history there are people who are in positions of power and people who are not in positions of power.
[16:05] SPEAKER_04: And gossip has really played an interesting role in uh you know earlier times when the methods of communication were a lot more archaic than what we have now, and uh, you know, providing information about potential dangers and risks.
[16:19] SPEAKER_04: And um, even actually, I did a project at one point looking at uh the role of like witches and witchcraft and witch hunts and things like that.
[16:28] SPEAKER_04: And when you dig into this and you you look at the the role of witchcraft, like there's an element of that where it is actually about kind of having these spaces for primarily women, not exclusively, but primarily women to share knowledge and information that's outside of these, you know, these power structures, and and people didn't like that.
[16:50] SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, it's not an exaggeration to say that people have been killed over gossip.
[16:54] SPEAKER_04: Um, and usually there's there's good reason for it.
[16:58] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I mean that that's a really interesting point because we we we started talking a little bit about some of the you know why why gossip isn't always negative, but certainly sometimes it is.
[17:07] SPEAKER_03: Can you can you talk about you know times or occasions or what are the sort of the downsides that are associated with gossip as well?
[17:14] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, of course.
[17:16] SPEAKER_04: And I think that's that's a lot easier to like think of.
[17:18] SPEAKER_04: I think we've all had experiences throughout our lives where you are the subject of rumors, or um, you know, I feel like school age people are are fighting this all the time, right?
[17:29] SPEAKER_04: Where there's information being shared that may not be accurate for you.
[17:33] SPEAKER_04: So it's it can be quite dangerous, it can be quite destructive.
[17:37] SPEAKER_04: I think it really depends on the intent of the person who's uh you know sharing the information or gossiping, um, you know, smear campaigns and that sort of thing, things that really kind of get to that reputational damage are are pretty dangerous.
[17:52] SPEAKER_02: Okay, now that we've covered some of the you know negatives of workplace gossip, I'm curious, Allison, why is it making such a positive comeback?
[17:58] SPEAKER_02: You know, what are some of the pros of workplace gossip?
[18:04] SPEAKER_04: So, yeah, once again, I think this is the this is a pretty layered uh question.
[18:09] SPEAKER_04: Uh and and so uh I'll I'll kind of take a broad answer to it first, which is that the world is full of misinformation right now.
[18:19] SPEAKER_04: Um, and we between AI and kind of a crazy political world and distrust in mass media or mainstream media, if you will, uh it's really hard to know like what is happening.
[18:33] SPEAKER_04: And so I think the role of gossip is is I don't want to say it's coming back because it's always there, but we're talking about it in different ways because it becomes this more, in a sense, almost a more trustworthy way of communicating.
[18:47] SPEAKER_04: Again, I don't want to say the gossip itself is going to be trustworthy, but you look to people in your social network who you trust to to gather information, right?
[18:56] SPEAKER_04: And uh I think you know, in addition to just kind of the state of the world, if we talked about the workplace, we've got VUCA and BANI, the new acronym, it's brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible, I think, is sort of the way of the world where you don't know what's happening.
[19:12] SPEAKER_04: And so you're kind of constantly looking for uh reliable sources of information to make sense of the world.
[19:18] SPEAKER_04: Um, on top of that, uh especially for those of us living in the US where it's everything is advertising, people are getting really tired of constantly being advertised to or sold to.
[19:31] SPEAKER_04: Uh, and um I think we see this trend playing out where it was traditional advertising for a long time, now it's influencer marketing, and now you're starting to have this mistrust of anybody on TikTok or social media who's gonna be trying to sell you things.
[19:43] SPEAKER_04: And so you're you're looking at other ways to gather information to have you know some more authentic interactions or uh recommendations or advice or that sort of thing, or it's it's just it's not the traditional thing.
[19:56] SPEAKER_04: So that whole landscape is changing in a really interesting way.
[19:59] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that is really fascinating, Alison, because I think about um you know, it used to be uh you know, expertise uh was considered so valuable sort of in a communication standpoint, right?
[20:11] SPEAKER_03: You wanted to have an expert, an expert could come on and um persuade uh people of a sort of way of thinking or a point of view.
[20:21] SPEAKER_03: Uh, but to your point, it seems like one of the things that has hurt expertise has been that feeling of being sold to, right?
[20:28] SPEAKER_03: Oh, we're gonna bring on this expert, this is Dr.
[20:31] SPEAKER_03: So-and-so, who's gonna tell you that you should take this pill or you should eat these foods, uh, or uh, or that these are these things are bad for you, these things are good for you, this is the right exercise for you, um, or you know, experts around any kind of thing.
[20:46] SPEAKER_03: I mean, right, we've seen it thing with things like climate change, we've seen it uh around other kinds of you know, big health scares.
[20:53] SPEAKER_03: Uh so I mean, do you think that that's part of this this tie-in here, the sort of loss of trust and expertise has to do with that uh phenomenon of feeling like we're being sold to all the time?
[21:04] SPEAKER_03: And maybe it's sort of raised the levels of skepticism among uh among consumers?
[21:10] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
[21:12] SPEAKER_04: Uh well, and if I may, I'll let me share a story from this bait shop research that I did long ago.
[21:18] SPEAKER_04: Um, where I so like I mentioned, my my graduate work is in mass communications, and I was working as part of this grant for uh preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species, which is a total mouthful.
[21:33] SPEAKER_04: Um and the the goal was to figure out how to persuade people to take on certain behaviors like cleaning off your boat before you transfer it from one lake to another, and um you know, there's a whole series of steps that that you should be doing so that you're not polluting the lakes.
[21:51] SPEAKER_04: Um I thought it was a fairly noble thing, right?
[21:54] SPEAKER_04: And uh we did this project to look at beet shop owners.
[22:00] SPEAKER_04: Owners as uh like opinion leaders was the term that we were using.
[22:04] SPEAKER_04: Um, so I drove around the state, I lived in Wisconsin, so I drove around northern Wisconsin where there's lots of lakes, more lakes than Minnesota, just a fun fact.
[22:12] SPEAKER_04: Um, and met with a bunch of bait shop owners and dug into it.
[22:17] SPEAKER_04: And what I found was really fascinating is I I kind of expected to have pretty straightforward conversations because I had worked in a bait shop before, I sort of knew what the environment was going to be like.
[22:26] SPEAKER_04: But I found, first of all, they didn't want to talk to me because I was being funded by the Department of Natural Resources through the state.
[22:34] SPEAKER_04: Um, and there is a huge mistrust around the state in that uh governmental department.
[22:40] SPEAKER_04: Then when I shared that, okay, yes, I'm this is where the funding is coming from, but I I work as a graduate student student for the University of Wisconsin, okay, that opened up the lines of communication just a little bit more.
[22:51] SPEAKER_04: And I was able to dig in and I found pretty quickly that uh these bait shop owners really were viewed as opinion leaders because they were were kind of trusted people within the their their communities, and people like to talk to them and go into the bait shop and they'd have conversations about, you know, where the fishing is good or anything around town.
[23:09] SPEAKER_04: Um, and the information about, hey, let's protect our lakes was a much less concerning, you know, it was the messenger was much less concerning because it was a distrusted bait shop owner.
[23:20] SPEAKER_04: Um and it kind of uncovered all of these other things in these communities where there's um it just challenges across the various populations that are fishing and buying bait.
[23:32] SPEAKER_04: And so it ended up being like a way richer topic than I expected it to be, but it really showed me how these like kind of nodules of trusted parties, um, they might not be what you think, but they can be really, really effective in sharing information in a world where you might not be able to trust the institutions that you probably should be able to.
[23:53] SPEAKER_03: You know, Alison, this this topic or you know, touching, you know, connecting gossip and trust together reminds me of another, I think, related concept, you know, but we we haven't talked about this, so I don't know what you'll think about.
[24:06] SPEAKER_03: But it's the concept of secrets, right?
[24:08] SPEAKER_03: So um, you know, there's workplace gossip, but uh, there's also secrets that are shared.
[24:13] SPEAKER_03: Uh, probably everyone has had the experience of, you know, someone says, Hey, I'm gonna tell you this, but don't tell anyone else, right?
[24:19] SPEAKER_03: That kind of thing.
[24:21] SPEAKER_03: And it it strikes me that there are you know a number of different modes for sharing a secret, right?
[24:26] SPEAKER_03: You sometimes you don't have to share a secret.
[24:29] SPEAKER_03: Um, I I do know of one person once told me a story that happened in their workplace.
[24:34] SPEAKER_03: And this did not happen at Hogan, to be very clear.
[24:37] SPEAKER_03: Uh, this was a totally different workplace.
[24:39] SPEAKER_03: Um, but they told me about someone who, uh a colleague of theirs, a work colleague of theirs, who told them about a couple who were having an affair who both also worked at that workplace.
[24:49] SPEAKER_03: And my colleague, the person who was telling me this, I thought, well, why does this person share this secret with me?
[24:55] SPEAKER_03: And I wondered the same thing myself to the extent to which is this about trying to build trust?
[25:00] SPEAKER_03: Is this about trying to build bonds?
[25:02] SPEAKER_03: And to some extent, I wonder if gossip is about the same kind of thing, right?
[25:06] SPEAKER_03: The sharing secrets or sharing gossip is also about um affiliation and building bonds between people.
[25:12] SPEAKER_03: What do you think about that?
[25:14] SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
[25:15] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, I I think there's a couple of parts of that story that that resonate for me.
[25:20] SPEAKER_04: And when yeah, it is absolutely sharing bonds.
[25:23] SPEAKER_04: It's sort of you you put out some information and see how the other person responds.
[25:27] SPEAKER_04: And depending on how they they respond, that's going to uh build a relationship or not, depending on how that reaction is.
[25:34] SPEAKER_04: I think there's an aspect to like something like that as well, where when somebody is like the keeper of a secret, there's a little bit of a status element to it too.
[25:44] SPEAKER_04: When you're the person who's in the know, um that kind of positions you in a way where you might be useful or valuable to other people.
[25:52] SPEAKER_04: Um so I think it's interesting to kind of look at how that impacts some of the relationships when you're able to gather information effectively, uh, especially compared to other people.
[26:02] SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, I like that.
[26:03] SPEAKER_03: This this idea that, you know, I hey I'm a person who has information, right?
[26:07] SPEAKER_03: You know, this I have a little bit of power, I have a little bit of yeah.
[26:11] SPEAKER_03: It's on the one hand, you could say they're they're trying to build trust in me, but on the other hand, they're also letting you know, you know, I'm the kind of person who knows information.
[26:18] SPEAKER_03: You might need me for something in the future.
[26:20] SPEAKER_03: That's really fascinating.
[26:21] SPEAKER_04: Right.
[26:22] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[26:23] SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of value in in having access to that kind of information.
[26:29] SPEAKER_02: Okay, this has nothing to do with our overall conversation, but just humor me for one second.
[26:35] SPEAKER_02: For the invasive species thing, were any did any of this involve the lamprey?
[26:41] SPEAKER_04: Um yes.
[26:44] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there's a lot of different invasive species, and the ones that I was focused on were less of the lamprey, uh, like zebra mussels, and god, I can't I can't even remember what all we were focused on, but yes, that that is one of them.
[26:57] SPEAKER_02: Okay, so okay.
[26:58] SPEAKER_02: Sorry, sorry for the audience.
[27:00] SPEAKER_02: I I'm a nerd about this stuff.
[27:01] SPEAKER_02: I love fishing, and I I did look into this before I went up and uh visited Lake Michigan.
[27:06] SPEAKER_02: So I was I was really, really curious about that.
[27:08] SPEAKER_02: So sorry.
[27:09] SPEAKER_02: Moving on to our our next question.
[27:11] SPEAKER_02: Um so what do we know from a personality standpoint about those who engage in gossip?
[27:16] SPEAKER_02: Because obviously, my first instinct says extroverts are probably the likely culprits, but what other personality factors might be at play?
[27:25] SPEAKER_02: And and Ryan, I'd I'd be curious, you know, after Allison gives her answer, what your thoughts are on this as well.
[27:32] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I same, I'm I'm curious to hear how Ryan responds to the question too, because he's much more of an expert than than I am on the personality side of it.
[27:40] SPEAKER_04: But extroversion, I think does, um, although I don't know that that would be like the biggest contributing factor.
[27:47] SPEAKER_04: I mean, certainly if somebody is looking to build relationships or get or get attention because they want to share some information, absolutely.
[27:54] SPEAKER_04: But I also think to like skepticism, curiosity, um, status-related value is kind of what we were just talking about.
[28:03] SPEAKER_04: People who are like you and me, Blake, who are maybe more hype mischievous.
[28:06] SPEAKER_04: We like to kind of know what's going on and you know, get the a layer deeper than you know what's on the surface.
[28:12] SPEAKER_04: Um leisurely, I have to think would would play into it too, where there's sort of uh here's the kind of the official stance, but behind the scenes I'm gonna act in a different way, and that might be engaging in gossip.
[28:23] SPEAKER_04: Um, so I think there's a number of different things, but I also think it really depends on the context too, right?
[28:28] SPEAKER_04: Like that you could be somebody who's very empathetic and very curious, and you want to engage in gossip because you're wanting to like protect yourself or protect your team and find out what's going on.
[28:38] SPEAKER_04: So it's not necessarily you know a nefarious thing.
[28:41] SPEAKER_04: You might be driven by some like fairly admirable qualities, but um, I think those all kind of come into play depending on the scenario.
[28:48] SPEAKER_04: So, Ryan, really curious to hear what you have to say.
[28:51] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I think it's a really interesting question.
[28:54] SPEAKER_03: I don't know that we that there's great data.
[28:56] SPEAKER_03: Um, there probably is in some journal somewhere.
[28:59] SPEAKER_03: There's probably, and I admit I didn't try to go search it up ahead of time.
[29:03] SPEAKER_03: So there probably is something.
[29:05] SPEAKER_03: I mean, it on just sort of at a base rate sense, it does make sense that those sort of extroverted kind of things might be related to frequency engaging in gossip, but that's I think a little misleading because that's also just going to be frequency and engaging in social interaction, period.
[29:22] SPEAKER_03: So I think it's a little unfair to be like, oh, those people gossip more because they're extroverted.
[29:26] SPEAKER_03: It's like, well, they just socially interact more, and part of social interaction includes gossip.
[29:31] SPEAKER_03: I think from a personality standpoint, I mean the reality is everybody needs gossip.
[29:35] SPEAKER_03: At some point, everybody uses gossip, everybody uh engages in gossip.
[29:40] SPEAKER_03: I do think, Allison, some of the ones that you pointed to um make more sense to me in terms of being uh associated with frequency of gossip or using gossip or engaging in gossip that's beyond um like imagine if we took the entire percentage of your social interactions, right?
[30:01] SPEAKER_03: And we said, okay, what percentage of those were gossip?
[30:05] SPEAKER_03: That's where I think you would see some of the things like uh mischievous, some of the things like leisurely show up.
[30:10] SPEAKER_03: I think also colorful to some extent.
[30:13] SPEAKER_03: Um to the degree to which uh you know it can be seen as exciting to gossip and kind of you know fun and and and um uh sort of dramatic.
[30:23] SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, here's the latest uh story, the latest news, I have to share this with you, right?
[30:27] SPEAKER_03: That that can kind of have a bit of a colorful feel, a little dramatic feel to it as well.
[30:32] SPEAKER_03: So I mean, I think those kinds of things stand out to me.
[30:35] SPEAKER_03: Um, but again, it's to your point, it's not necessarily that it's always bad.
[30:40] SPEAKER_03: I I do agree with you that I think um, you know, uh people can be gossiping for altruistic reasons as well, certainly.
[30:48] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[30:49] SPEAKER_04: Well, and I feel like you could even go uh scale by scale and kind of break it down.
[30:54] SPEAKER_04: Uh I was just thinking of people who are probably lower adjusted might be more inclined to gossip because they just they want to know what's happening and they're a little bit more fearful of, you know, if there's a communication void, like what's going on.
[31:08] SPEAKER_04: People who are higher adjusted maybe they just don't care as much and might not engage.
[31:12] SPEAKER_04: And so that probably has an impact on the other scales too, how those are expressed and in the ways that gossip happens.
[31:18] SPEAKER_04: But I think at the end of the day, I totally agree with you.
[31:20] SPEAKER_04: I mean, gossip is going to happen.
[31:21] SPEAKER_04: Um, everybody's going to engage in some sort of gossip.
[31:24] SPEAKER_04: It might not always be ill-intentioned or you know, for a specific purpose, but we all like to share information with each other.
[31:32] SPEAKER_02: You know, one that stands out to me though, I mean, yeah, you're probably right.
[31:35] SPEAKER_02: We could probably go scale by scale, especially on the HDS, you know, and maybe see why this is a factor that people are, you know, engage in gossip more.
[31:44] SPEAKER_02: But skeptical started to stand out to me.
[31:47] SPEAKER_02: You know, someone who's, you know, kind of questioning what maybe what upper management is doing.
[31:53] SPEAKER_02: Um and in doing that, maybe they already have they've formulated their own theory, or maybe they're trying to formulate their own theory, and as such, they're maybe um trying to, you know, talk to other people just to figure out what's going on behind the scenes that maybe they're curious about.
[32:11] SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
[32:12] SPEAKER_02: What do you all think about skeptical as as being another culprit?
[32:18] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I absolutely think it's part of it.
[32:20] SPEAKER_04: And you know, I think people who are highly skeptical are going to be constantly sort of scanning their environment to see potential dangers, and gossip is just part and parcel of that, or you're trying to gather as much information as you can to make sense of what's going on.
[32:33] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, I don't know if there's more of a tendency as somebody who's higher skeptical to engage in kind of the rumor mongering or leaning into like conspiracy theories.
[32:42] SPEAKER_04: I'd be curious, Ryan, if you have any insight on that.
[32:45] SPEAKER_03: That was exactly the term that came to mind for me when I was thinking about Blake's question was we just did a pie, I think I want to say we just did it.
[32:53] SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna say we just did it this last fall, but Blake's probably gonna be like, no, Ryan, that was like two falls ago or something.
[32:59] SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
[33:00] SPEAKER_03: But I swear we just did uh not too long ago a podcast on conspiracy theories, and it got me thinking that yeah, to some extent, skeptical is has got this connection with both gossip and and and creating, right?
[33:14] SPEAKER_03: Sort of establishing these kind of conspiracy theories as well.
[33:18] SPEAKER_02: Well, Ryan, I I I would love to tell you when it was, but I think whenever you count the 141 full episodes that we've done, and I think we've done like 19 or 20 bonus episodes, so that's 160 episodes.
[33:32] SPEAKER_02: I can't keep track of it all at this point, so I'm not even gonna try or even look it up.
[33:36] SPEAKER_02: So well, Allison, um, traditional corporate communication, you know, it often moves at a snail's pace while gossip seems to spread like wildfire, especially I'm from a small town, so I grew up with gossip.
[33:50] SPEAKER_02: I mean, you say one thing on one end of town, it makes it to the other end of town before a F1 card could get there.
[33:56] SPEAKER_02: Um but what are some of the benefits of the speedy pace of gossip within organizations?
[34:05] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's that's a really good question.
[34:06] SPEAKER_04: And I think I mean it's absolutely true, right?
[34:09] SPEAKER_04: Like to traditional corporate communication often takes time, and there are reasons why an organization might not be able to share all of kind of the juicy details that you would want to know.
[34:20] SPEAKER_04: Like if somebody ends up being fired from a role, an organization's not gonna go and share all of the details of why they were dismissed.
[34:27] SPEAKER_04: So that's where gossip can sometimes slip in and say, okay, what happened?
[34:30] SPEAKER_04: Like, you know, unofficially, what do we need to know?
[34:32] SPEAKER_04: Or, you know, is am I at risk?
[34:34] SPEAKER_04: That sort of thing.
[34:35] SPEAKER_04: And so gossip, you know, I think the the positive side of the speedy pace of gossip is that it can fill in the information gaps when you don't have a lot of information of what's going on, you can kind of look to your social network to help figure out what is happening and what you need to know.
[34:52] SPEAKER_04: Um and I think that's just sort of a natural thing, right?
[34:55] SPEAKER_04: If there's there's something that happens, uh, whether that's through communication or an event and you're not quite sure what is going on, it's natural to look for somebody that you trust in your in your network or you know, trusted coworker to see what they know, what they can tell you.
[35:11] SPEAKER_04: Um so so I think it just does provide that expediency and like, in a sense, some stability for people who are just like maybe naturally nervous in the absence of information.
[35:21] SPEAKER_04: Um so I yeah, I think there's kind of a reassuring aspect to it at times.
[35:26] SPEAKER_04: You know, of course, there are limits to that when it when gossip tends to be more of the destructive nature, that's not necessarily going to help, or if the rumors are just you know wildly untrue, that doesn't help either.
[35:38] SPEAKER_04: But I think having some of those, you know, the unofficial mechanisms to get information out can help reassure people a lot.
[35:45] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I agree.
[35:46] SPEAKER_03: And that that also ties in to this concept that that uh Bob Hogan talks about in socioanalytic theory, uh, which is around the sort of need for for uh predictability, need for order, need for structure, right?
[36:01] SPEAKER_03: Needing to know uh what's gonna happen next.
[36:04] SPEAKER_03: And that's one of the to your point about reassurance, right?
[36:07] SPEAKER_03: That's what that's about.
[36:08] SPEAKER_03: It's it's wanting to feel sort of safe and secure because we know what's gonna happen next, or we know why this thing has happened.
[36:14] SPEAKER_03: I think to your example, Allison, if someone is terminated, you know, people wonder, well, could this happen to me, right?
[36:21] SPEAKER_03: That's that's a a common thing that somebody might wonder about.
[36:25] SPEAKER_03: And uh sometimes gossip can help go, okay, I'm okay because it was for these other things, and these things don't, right?
[36:32] SPEAKER_03: Because to your point, you know, typically an organization isn't going to announce this is why this person was terminated, right?
[36:38] SPEAKER_03: So it has to be be found through those through those other channels.
[36:42] SPEAKER_03: And in the IO world, they often refer to the the sort of uh there's the the structure of the organization, the organogram, right?
[36:50] SPEAKER_03: So you can like draw out the structure of the organization and say, okay, these are where everybody is.
[36:56] SPEAKER_03: And it's sort of um naive, I think, but also um sort of you might think looking at the structure of an organization, ah, this is how communication flows through the organization.
[37:09] SPEAKER_03: But actually, we know that an organization uh communicates very differently.
[37:14] SPEAKER_03: It's what Iopsychologists would call the sociogram, right?
[37:17] SPEAKER_03: That there's different people in different parts of an organization who are actually connected to each other because they're friends, maybe they're related to each other, uh, or they know somebody in another part of the organization who knows somebody in another part of the organization.
[37:28] SPEAKER_03: And so communication often spreads through organizations much more quickly through this sociogram rather than through that um organigram.
[37:38] SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it's it's really interesting.
[37:40] SPEAKER_03: I don't think I've seen any research on this, Allison.
[37:42] SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you have either.
[37:44] SPEAKER_03: Um like with the way things work now with uh with organizations so tied into things like Microsoft products, collaborative products, Microsoft Teams, even these systems like Slack, you you would think there could be more research on these sort of sociograms and how information actually travels in an organization, but but I don't know that I've really seen anything on that.
[38:08] SPEAKER_03: Have you seen anything around that?
[38:10] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a great question.
[38:12] SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to think.
[38:12] SPEAKER_04: I I haven't seen anything more recently, and and absolutely from a quantitative standpoint, it's it's a lot easier to gather that information because we can track the communication much easier if everything's online.
[38:23] SPEAKER_04: Um, but when I think back to my grad school days, I I do recall seeing a fair amount of studies that did look at kind of the networking effects of communication and um you know, following you know, where, well, a few different ways to look at it.
[38:38] SPEAKER_04: Like I can remember seeing some maps about like uh tweets and how information gets kind of centralized with like a few different key influencers or you know, people who are really active on Twitter.
[38:49] SPEAKER_04: Um, I there's also some interesting research on uh kind of the network effects on individual behavior.
[38:56] SPEAKER_04: And like I think there was studies looking at um like healthy behaviors and how like you know the people within your orbit, like uh, you know, I don't know, one person removed from you can influence your you know healthy or unhealthy behaviors more than almost anything else.
[39:12] SPEAKER_04: So there is some research, uh, but it'd be really interesting to look at like you know, how does it actually play out in a workplace?
[39:19] SPEAKER_04: Because I would think that there's some centralization as you know, people who happen to always be in the know of things and and go to it then be the people that people go to to say, okay, what's going on?
[39:28] SPEAKER_04: What do you what do you know?
[39:30] SPEAKER_04: Um but that's yeah, that's just a hypothesis on my end.
[39:33] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that makes sense.
[39:34] SPEAKER_03: That sort of you could apply those kind of, I've I've kind of forgotten about those, those network, those are super popular for a while, those sort of network analysis approaches.
[39:42] SPEAKER_03: You could apply those to your workplace organizations and sort of understand who these sort of hub people are that are right, you know, really transmitting a lot of information.
[39:51] SPEAKER_03: That would be kind of fun to do.
[39:53] SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
[39:54] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, new research project for us.
[39:57] SPEAKER_02: Well, before I get to my next question, I just want to I want to highlight that you know, this this topic of gossip that we're discussing today was actually one that uh was part of our PR efforts in 2025, working with um our our team over at Hopscotch, our PR firm that I work with.
[40:12] SPEAKER_02: So I know they're listening, so so hello, Hopscotch team.
[40:15] SPEAKER_02: I know you're gonna hear this.
[40:16] SPEAKER_02: But um uh as part of that, Allison, you wrote a piece on gossip last year, and one of the key things you highlighted was constructive gossip versus destructive gossip.
[40:28] SPEAKER_02: So, in practice, how can leaders tell the difference between the two before it starts to erode or damage trust?
[40:36] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it's a really good question.
[40:38] SPEAKER_04: And I it's one of these, there's no like black and white or hard and fast rule for understanding this because the nature of gossip just changes all the time.
[40:48] SPEAKER_04: Uh so my response to that is that one, gossip is going to happen full stop.
[40:55] SPEAKER_04: There's there's nothing you can do about it.
[40:57] SPEAKER_04: And if you try, like as a leader, you try to control that flow of information, it will backfire, right?
[41:05] SPEAKER_04: Anytime there have been efforts to say you can't speak about this in the workplace, people are gonna find other ways to share that information.
[41:13] SPEAKER_04: Uh, and so doing so is just it's a feudal effort.
[41:18] SPEAKER_04: Um so for the leader, I think it is more about how you create the space where people feel open and uh you know have that psychological safety, maybe have new mechanisms for providing feedback either directly to their manager or leader or to HR or someplace where they you know they need to talk about information.
[41:38] SPEAKER_04: I think encouraging opening open sharing is is really good.
[41:43] SPEAKER_04: Um but to the question around you know being able to tell the difference between constructive and destructive, I think that's really hard to do in isolation.
[41:51] SPEAKER_04: It is more of an aggregate, kind of trying to keep your uh you know, ear to the ground and say, okay, what are people saying?
[41:57] SPEAKER_04: What are people thinking?
[41:58] SPEAKER_04: Figuring out ways to find information that people aren't going to tell you directly, because as a leader, people aren't going to come and give you direct feedback about how much they dislike you, right?
[42:07] SPEAKER_04: So you may need to find other ways to kind of collect some of that information and solicit feedback to be able to keep tabs on it.
[42:14] SPEAKER_04: I also think that um there's probably a tipping point where if you're able to kind of listen and be open to that information, you can maybe judge, okay, this is tipping into destructive and this is ruining morale or you know, making people, you know, affecting people's mental health, for example.
[42:32] SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, how you address that is a different question, but I think it's it's really trying to keep a little bit of a finger on the pulse without trying to control it too much.
[42:42] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
[42:44] SPEAKER_03: Like the sort of the effect of information share on, say, things like engagement, you know, maybe give you an indicator of if this is if this was constructive or destructive.
[42:54] SPEAKER_03: Um Alison, it seems to me that some the motive of the sender, right, sort of plays a role here, whether it's constructive or destructive, but is it really sort of just um a guessing game to determine what was the sender of the message's motive?
[43:10] SPEAKER_03: Or are there other kind of clues that we can pick up from the sender to understand if this is sort of constructive or destructive?
[43:18] SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's that's a great question.
[43:20] SPEAKER_04: And honestly, I don't know that I I could even try to answer that.
[43:24] SPEAKER_04: Um what I think of when you ask that question is really like the context clues.
[43:31] SPEAKER_04: And I think it's something, you know, we're in a mostly remote work environment at Hogan, and there is a a part of things where you know decisions get made, or you might hear something indirectly about something that somebody's working on that you didn't know about.
[43:47] SPEAKER_04: And it is kind of a natural assumption to be like, oh, well, why didn't they talk to me about this?
[43:53] SPEAKER_04: I can't believe they didn't let me know.
[43:54] SPEAKER_04: And I think we, you know, ourselves as leaders, we have to kind of stop and pause and say, okay, there's probably more conflict.
[44:00] SPEAKER_04: To this, decisions or you know, information wasn't shared necessarily to hurt me or make my life harder.
[44:06] SPEAKER_04: Uh so let's dig in a little bit and kind of be open to understanding what the context was or what the you know what factors led into making a decision or uh you know tackling some sort of project, that sort of thing.
[44:18] SPEAKER_03: You know, your uh your previous discussion here, Allison, uh, you know, about sort of just information sharing or attempts to control how gossip is communicated makes me think about sort of authoritarian states as well.
[44:32] SPEAKER_03: And right, attempts to control the media.
[44:35] SPEAKER_03: I suspect, uh, at least, I mean, some people might say I live in an authoritarian state, I'm just naive to notice it.
[44:43] SPEAKER_03: But uh, I suspect that those sort of attempts to control the media just result in alternative communication patterns where information is shared, but it's through sort of non-official kind of channels.
[44:55] SPEAKER_03: Uh, because I think people just uh to the reasons we talked about earlier have this basic desire to want to know accurate information, or at least to the best of their ability, what's the truth, right?
[45:07] SPEAKER_03: And I think to some extent that's what this is about.
[45:09] SPEAKER_03: So does that happen?
[45:11] SPEAKER_03: I mean, based on your experience in working in mass communication, to what extent do uh these attempts to control gossip really just lead to um other kinds of channels developing?
[45:24] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for sure.
[45:26] SPEAKER_04: Uh it makes me think of a bunch of different things.
[45:28] SPEAKER_04: I like one, actually, I I recently had an interesting conversation with a coworker.
[45:32] SPEAKER_04: We were attending a conference uh last year, and uh there was a presentation by a former CEO of Reddit, and it part of the conversation was talking about how more and more people are using Reddit for search these days because they're no longer trusting AI or um you know Google to provide the the most accurate results because it's all you know funded by advertising and and traffic and things like that.
[46:00] SPEAKER_04: Um so people are naturally looking for more reputable sources of information.
[46:06] SPEAKER_04: Uh, increasingly, I think the big media uh channels, I guess, and you know, New York Times and Washington Post and things that have a lot of funding by some of these billionaires, there's a lot more skepticism and and distrust, this feeling like they're not sharing all of the information or they're selectively choosing information.
[46:27] SPEAKER_04: I mean, we're just recently we had the the um with like CBS bearing a, I think it was CBS bearing a story uh that really should not have been buried.
[46:37] SPEAKER_04: Um so yeah, absolutely.
[46:38] SPEAKER_04: I think that that happens.
[46:39] SPEAKER_04: I think what one of the things that makes it difficult though is where do you go?
[46:45] SPEAKER_04: And a lot of like social networks depend on critical mass of people being on it, right?
[46:50] SPEAKER_04: So I could say, okay, I'm I'm done with TikTok, it's owned by Oracle now, I'm gonna find something else.
[46:54] SPEAKER_04: But but where do I go?
[46:55] SPEAKER_04: Because you need to have other people that you can interact with on these social platforms.
[47:00] SPEAKER_04: Um, and so it it's it's harder and harder to find that, but um, I I think it will continue.
[47:06] SPEAKER_04: People may be figuring out other more analog ways to communicate that they feel like it's a little bit more trustworthy.
[47:12] SPEAKER_03: You know, this is the second time in a pretty short time frame now I've heard something about Google, and it's really consistent with my experience, which is that uh I think I heard someone say, well, when you Google search something, you probably want to skip the first three results because those are all paid advertisement things.
[47:30] SPEAKER_03: And so you want to go to like the fourth result on a Google search, and you know, you sort of you sort of just confirmed that that that that same thing there.
[47:38] SPEAKER_03: So uh yeah, that's such a good point.
[47:41] SPEAKER_03: I mean, it used to be right, this is the place you would go to find information, but now um it seems like it's the place uh where you know you might not exactly get the information you're looking for.
[47:53] SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's this does leave people in this unique position of you know trying to find what what is that reliable source of information.
[48:01] SPEAKER_03: So where do you go these days?
[48:04] SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, that's a that's a great question.
[48:06] SPEAKER_04: I feel I feel like I'm searching for for something new.
[48:09] SPEAKER_04: I, you know, from a social standpoint, I'm a big TikTok user, but I feel like the the quality of content is going down and it's it's increasingly just ads, ad after ad after ad.
[48:21] SPEAKER_04: Uh, and that's kind of the trend with all of these these things.
[48:24] SPEAKER_04: And I I actually I feel like I shouldn't even say this out loud, but I I ended my New York Times subscription because I was getting so frustrated with the lack of information uh coming from them and some of the opinion pieces on New York Times have been very questionable uh of late.
[48:39] SPEAKER_04: And so I I don't feel like I have a really good source of information.
[48:43] SPEAKER_04: I do find myself on Reddit more and more.
[48:45] SPEAKER_04: I was never really a big Reddit user, but you can you know get some interesting takes on things.
[48:49] SPEAKER_04: It's full of conspiracy theories, to be fair, but but what isn't these days?
[48:54] SPEAKER_04: Um so you know, I've just been kind of looking for something that aggregates across a number of media sources because I don't know that you you can like really trust one uh source these days.
[49:04] SPEAKER_04: How about you guys?
[49:06] SPEAKER_02: Uh I was about to say, I I've once you brought this up, I've noticed myself going to Reddit more and more here lately, more more so than I did, you know, maybe a year ago.
[49:17] SPEAKER_02: But I I would say in the past six months, that is something that I've relied on quite a bit whenever I'm trying to just get information about whatever XYZ thing is.
[49:28] SPEAKER_02: So Reddit's kind of what I'm going to these days.
[49:32] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[49:32] SPEAKER_03: I have I have to admit for myself, I find myself relying more and more on AI sorts of sources to try to get, you know, to try to get to answers to things that I'm looking for.
[49:45] SPEAKER_03: Um it's not always the best choice for all the reasons that we know about AI, but sometimes I go, you know what, this might at least help me get to some consensus uh rather than uh a variety of mixed opinions.
[50:00] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think there's this uh the assumption that it, you know, because it has access to all of the data in the world, supposedly that you have it's gonna kind of fall into like whatever is the the best aggregate average answer, so to speak.
[50:15] SPEAKER_04: Um but you gotta be skeptical of that.
[50:18] SPEAKER_04: And I say that with you know my marketing background, Google has spent uh you know, the last decade plus figuring out how to optimize content and companies know exactly how to position content on their websites to appear in the searches, and now all of those searches are changing because people are using Gemini.
[50:37] SPEAKER_04: That's like you know, curating the information, they're not clicking on the links anymore.
[50:41] SPEAKER_04: Well, companies who have spent a lot of time building out their content, then they tend to be a little bit higher on the you know the Gemini curation, if you will, but it's still engineered on the back end because it's whether or not companies have have provided the necessary information to you know get hit by that algorithm.
[51:00] SPEAKER_04: Um, so you still can't totally trust it.
[51:01] SPEAKER_04: I mean you don't think you can really trust Reddit either because there's algorithms behind that with what you know what's being shared, but it's you know you think about if you you're trying to find like a product recommendation or you know, best service, and right yeah, it's like you you almost can't trust anything as you don't know what's you know sponsored or what's not or what's you know an influencer getting paid behind the scenes, that sort of thing.
[51:21] SPEAKER_04: So it's it's really hard these days.
[51:25] SPEAKER_02: Well, Allison, I I will I do want to tell one quick little story because you mentioned earlier about leaders kind of you know creating a kind of a safe place for you know their team to to be able to engage and and be able to you know talk about these things.
[51:39] SPEAKER_02: I remember there was one time, I don't even remember what the what you were you what information you were delivering to us.
[51:46] SPEAKER_02: It was whenever you were in your role as marketing director, and we had it was we were all remote at that point and you know still are, but you you kind of called us together for like a happy hour to kind of you know deliver some information.
[52:02] SPEAKER_02: And I remember you, and and this is not flattery because you're the new CEO.
[52:05] SPEAKER_02: You know I'm a straight shooter, I'll tell you how it is no matter what.
[52:08] SPEAKER_02: I'll say it right here.
[52:10] SPEAKER_02: But um, but um there was a point once you kind of got done and you and you you told us whatever it was, and again, I don't remember.
[52:19] SPEAKER_02: What I do remember about it is you said, okay, guys, I'm gonna drop off the call and let you all just kind of talk this out amongst yourselves so you all can can discuss this and not have to think about me being here and have to monitor what you're saying.
[52:36] SPEAKER_02: And you actually just hopped off the call and the rest of us were able to to sit there and just kind of talk it out.
[52:44] SPEAKER_02: And I just it was just one of those times where I'm like, wow, really, you know, really kind of appreciate that because I'm not sure that had ever happened before, you know, in my career.
[52:53] SPEAKER_02: So uh that was that was a really cool thing that you did.
[52:56] SPEAKER_02: So I don't, you know, there's your your your flattery for the day.
[53:01] SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm I as you know, I'm very low recognition, so I'm very uncomfortable with that.
[53:05] SPEAKER_04: But that actually does that does mean a lot to me because I I remember that.
[53:09] SPEAKER_04: I also don't remember the context.
[53:10] SPEAKER_04: I don't remember what was being discussed, and I am somebody who enjoys a little bit of gossip, so it was a little bit hard to to get out of there, but fully recognized that you're not gonna say the same things around your manager or leader than you than you will with your peers.
[53:24] SPEAKER_04: And so that's uh yeah, I'm I'm glad that that that worked at that point.
[53:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I think it worked and it worked well.
[53:31] SPEAKER_02: So okay, so back to that article that you wrote last year.
[53:35] SPEAKER_02: Um, in it, you also mentioned that gossip provides leaders with insight into organizational health.
[53:41] SPEAKER_02: So what signals or takeaways should leaders look for in workplace gossip that might not show up in, let's say, engagement surveys?
[53:53] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, I can I think it comes back to having the right listening mechanisms in place.
[53:58] SPEAKER_04: And it might not be formal listening mechanisms, it might be just kind of having uh some managers who are able to deliver news to, you know, I'm saying this from the position of you know an executive at the company.
[54:11] SPEAKER_04: And, you know, Ryan, I think you can probably relate to this as well, that uh there's a lot of things that don't necessarily make it to us, but there are oftentimes a couple of key people who are able to deliver news and they're not so afraid of that.
[54:24] SPEAKER_04: And so I think that can be a really valuable mechanism.
[54:27] SPEAKER_04: Um, I think when you are able to detect that gossip is running rampant and might be having an impact on morale, that's how you know that the internal communication processes aren't working, right?
[54:39] SPEAKER_04: Like people don't necessarily need to gossip uh as much, I'd say, uh if the if they're getting the information that they need, but if there's just you know rumors kind of abound and information being spread all over the place where it's like, wait, where did that even come from?
[54:54] SPEAKER_04: Uh, then you that's really a sign to go back and say, okay, I think we need to put in some some different processes to get information out to the troops, so to speak.
[55:03] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean that that makes a lot of sense to me.
[55:05] SPEAKER_03: And and I do think that I think that's you know pretty um pretty pretty good advice, I think, for leaders is to think about, you know, you know, who do I have, who are people that I, you know, I can trust to bring me to bring me information.
[55:18] SPEAKER_03: Because I mean I think there's an old story about uh, well, there's stories about a number of presidents of the United States who said you know they had so much more difficult time knowing what was really going on once they became became the president, right?
[55:33] SPEAKER_03: Once you become uh a leader in an organization, people are less likely to tell you information that perhaps you you most need to know.
[55:40] SPEAKER_03: Uh and so I think that's a good point to try to find these allies, these ones that you can trust who can really can you bring you that critical information?
[55:49] SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, and I think it's it's a good point too, because you know, engagement surveys may not tell the whole tale as well, because you know, for for all the reasons that people know about engagement surveys, uh people may um sort of uh color things a little too brightly.
[56:05] SPEAKER_03: So I yeah, so I think you know that's probably the best insight, I would say, is to try to find those people inside your organization who you can trust to bring you information, but it's very tricky to be those people too, um, I would say, because they have to have the trust of other people to not stitches, right?
[56:26] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
[56:27] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[56:28] SPEAKER_03: So I don't know.
[56:29] SPEAKER_03: What do you think about you know those sort of people that are in the middle, those sort of people who are bringing information?
[56:34] SPEAKER_03: What you know, what what is the makeup psychologically for those people that that can make them you know capable of doing that?
[56:43] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh that's that's a big question of what you know what is their psychological makeup.
[56:48] SPEAKER_04: But I do think of, you know, I think two examples that we have uh of you know some internal employees who might be more vocal or willing to stick their neck out to share information.
[56:58] SPEAKER_04: And sometimes it's just like their ability to be the messenger and deliver the message in the right tone.
[57:05] SPEAKER_04: Um, and that's not necessarily something that you can like plan for or train, but I think there are some people who are able to just kind of say what needs to be said in a way that's not going to get anyone in trouble.
[57:17] SPEAKER_04: I think it's also really important for uh us as leaders to be careful in how we treat information.
[57:23] SPEAKER_04: Like if you're overly punitive, I mean, sometimes uh some sort of uh reaction is necessary, but sometimes if it's just kind of information gathering, being really careful to not be punitive because as soon as you give that impression that you're not open to receiving that information, then people are gonna shut down and not not share that information either.
[57:43] SPEAKER_04: So uh yeah, it's it's an interesting and probably a nuanced question to figure out who can be those sort of nodes of communication for you.
[57:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think you're you're also right about that, because you know, you may say, hey, I'm gonna use this information as a leader for you know some objective, but as soon as you do that, you may be you know cutting off your source of information all of a sudden to go, okay, well, I'm never, you know what I mean, I'm never gonna tell that person anything again, right?
[58:07] SPEAKER_03: So um, so yeah, you have to use some some sort of um you know discernment in terms of how to best use that information so that you know you might continue to still get that information in the future.
[58:20] SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
[58:23] SPEAKER_02: Well, Allison, this has been an awesome conversation, but I do have one last question before we let you go.
[58:29] SPEAKER_02: And I it's similar to you know what we normally you know end our episodes with.
[58:34] SPEAKER_02: And that's if you were advising a leadership team, what advice would you give them to ensure gossip stays a strategic asset rather than a liability?
[58:46] SPEAKER_04: Um yeah, I some of that I think I've I've spoken to already, but worth repeating.
[58:52] SPEAKER_04: Uh maybe a couple of new ideas here is that I mean, one, I think probably a first step is to determine for an organization like what kind of behavior is tolerated and what isn't, right?
[59:02] SPEAKER_04: Like it's very easy for rumors to just spread and reputations to be damaged and that sort of thing.
[59:10] SPEAKER_04: So being clear on uh, you know, if there's any sort of information that might be um, you know, like a form of harassment, for example, just being really clear that here here is the disciplinary action that can happen if you engage in this type of behavior.
[59:24] SPEAKER_04: A lot of companies have that uh already, but probably some communication around that can also help.
[59:30] SPEAKER_04: Uh otherwise, like I said, I think it's really about those listening mechanisms and having uh trusted people, trusted ways to provide information, whether that's you know, anonymous, uh like a suggestion box or an idea box or something or an email box where you can have some sort of anonymity.
[59:49] SPEAKER_04: Um, I think those things can always help, creating the space for people to share information and you know what it kind of takes time, I think, is developing a reputation with people to show that you are uh you're not going to be punitive in response to that.
[1:00:04] SPEAKER_04: So that's you know, it's spending taking the time to build trust and you know invite feedback, show that you're you're able to listen to the feedback and you know act on it, that sort of thing.
[1:00:12] SPEAKER_04: Um, so you know, some things I think are easier to implement than others, and just really takes time in relationship building.
[1:00:19] SPEAKER_04: Um, but kind of keeping your personal feelings out of it and just really being able to um be open to what you're hearing and and react appropriately is is key.
[1:00:31] SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, I think that's great advice.
[1:00:34] SPEAKER_03: And um, I just want to say uh that I really appreciate you taking some time out to come on here today, Allison, to share some of this wisdom with uh with our audience.
[1:00:44] SPEAKER_03: Um and hopefully they can use that uh in their own careers and in their own daily lives.
[1:00:49] SPEAKER_03: And and for our those who are working in the consulting world can use that to help advise their clients around these topics in the future as well.
[1:00:58] SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, thanks so much for coming on today.
[1:01:01] SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thanks to you, thanks to you guys.
[1:01:03] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Allison, this has been great.
[1:01:05] SPEAKER_02: I think our audience is gonna love it.
[1:01:06] SPEAKER_02: And uh also good to hear from the from the new CEO.
[1:01:09] SPEAKER_02: So I I think uh, you know, for those out there, uh, we hope you enjoy this and kind of get a glimpse of what where where Hogan's heading.
[1:01:16] SPEAKER_02: And we'll be uh you'll be you'll be seeing more of us, and we'll be sure to bring Allison back onto the podcast in the future to you know talk about whatever it is that's going on in the in the world of personality.
[1:01:27] SPEAKER_02: So Allison, thank you for joining us.
[1:01:30] SPEAKER_04: Thank you guys.
[1:01:33] SPEAKER_02: And that does it for the Science of Personality Podcast, episode 141.
[1:01:37] SPEAKER_02: Be sure to join us in two weeks for another fun and informative episode.
[1:01:41] SPEAKER_02: Cheers, everybody.
[1:01:46] SPEAKER_01: This has been the Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments.
[1:01:51] SPEAKER_01: You can access all episodes on our website, the science of personality.com, or on the streaming service of your choice.
[1:01:58] SPEAKER_01: See you next time.

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