Re: Gossip LO374

Annette Huang (huanga@whoops.manukau.ac.nz)
Fri, 10 Mar 1995 12:15:45 NZST-12

Mike Elmes wrote in LO361 --
> Replying to LO350 --
>
> I would contend that it is impossible to talk about organizational
> learning without starting with gossip. Small talk in everyday encounters
> is how people and groups of people make sense of organizational issues and
> activities. That to me is learning. To suggest that organizations would
> learn better if gossip could somehow be exorcised is like saying that your
> car would run more quietly if you could just remove the engine. Besides,
> what is do bad about resistance? Isn't there a lot of wisdom in
> resistance?
>
> Mike Elmes
> mbelmes@wpi.edu
>
>

I believe that there are various forms of 'gossip' - the malicious is
destructive, but the sharing of thoughts and ideas in small talk, which is
often about the various people in the organisation or in our world, is the
way we 'tell our life story', make sense of our world, and reveal
ourselves to be human. In many organisations (the one I'm involved in
especially) the informal grapevine works very efficiently - and more
effectively than the formal communication channels. Perhaps the grapevine
just has to be grown from the right stock.

This is my first post to this list - please forgive the lack of rigour in
my thinking. I have been lurking for a some time now and thoroughly enjoy
the interplay of ideas.

Annette Huang Manukau Polytechnic Library
From: "Annette Huang" <huanga@whoops.manukau.ac.nz>

Dis aliter visum est (It seemed like a good idea at the time)