# Workplace Surgery: toxic gossip culture - **Episode:** [172](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/172.md) (2025-02-18) - **Type:** workplace-surgery - **Tags:** toxic-gossip, workplace-culture, psychology, management - **Time:** 33:26–37:51 (start 2006s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/172?t=2006](https://truthliesandwork.com/172?t=2006) --- [33:26] Al Elliott: Did I say psychology? [33:27] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, but it doesn't matter [33:28] Al Elliott: Sorry, you're carried away, you see. And it's her job to help give You, our lovely listeners, advice on work-related problems. Here is the first problem, Leanne. Our friendly culture has become too friendly, way too friendly. We're a fast— [33:43] Anna Reddy: Hello [33:43] Al Elliott: We're a fast-growing startup, and I've noticed that my informal, friendly culture is starting to cause problems as we scale. And I noticed he said my culture, which is maybe a point to take on. Boundaries are blurring, and what used to be casual catch-ups are turning into gossip sessions that affect work relationships. How do I maintain a close-knit atmosphere while introducing more professional boundaries? [34:06] Leanne Elliott: I mean, the first thing to, to remember is that your culture is going to evolve and shift and change as your business grows. It's not going to stay the same. And there could be an element of some of these more casual, informal policies, ways of working don't quite work in a more mature organisation. This could potentially be a really tricky one to unpick. So, I want to try and keep it really simple and practical for you. There's 2 different types of team cohesion in an organisation, the social cohesion, which It seems like you have a lot of, although that's starting to, to maybe get a bit shaky. And there's task cohesion. So, I think what my thought would be is how can you implement some processes, systems, in consultation with your people, to improve task cohesion, to make sure that the work is getting done in the way it needs to get done, to be the most effective, the most productive, the highest performing. And the cool thing about task cohesion as well is once we start to get that right and people understand their individual roles within it, people start to appreciate their colleagues a lot more. Their work is easier, their job is getting easier because of this cohesion within the task, that process. You know, anecdotally, when you've worked in places that are just kind of really slick on their processes, it's nice, it's a good place to be. And that good place to be feeling, that satisfaction you're finding in your actual transactional work, then starts to spread and foster what's called social cohesion, which is those more professional, effective relationships between your colleagues whilst remaining friendly. Yeah. The thing is, you know, the thing I'd reflect on as well, you say that it's, you know, this friendly culture, but it's starting to seep into kind of gossip. That's— they're very uncivil behaviors. Gossip could be, depending on the nature of it, deemed as bullying or discrimination. So it actually needs to be taken quite seriously, um, if these gossip sessions are getting a bit dark to the point they're starting to impact relationships in a negative way. So it might also be time to revisit some of your values. And when I me say values, I mean the behaviours associated with them. So if it is about being an effective team player, what does that mean? And that will mean no gossip. It will mean, you know, helping your team members as and when you're able to. It'll mean making sure that you're fulfilling everything you need to in terms of your tasks to make everyone else's job easier. So I think that would be my thought in the immediate. Fix it. Focus on task cohesion for a little bit. How do you make things a bit slicker, um, a bit more process-driven, particularly as your organisation grows. You're going to thank yourself for doing that now. That in turn is going to breed that, um, social, um, that social cohesion over time. Um, and secondly, maybe revisit your values, um, and specifically the behaviours related to them, because as your organisation grows, these are going to be the behaviours that you don't want to tolerate [36:43] Al Elliott: Absolutely fantastic. Um, I think the, the last thing to, to add on this is, uh, not from a psychological point of view, but just from like a turnover point of view. I think with startups, and I've done several startups, um, some have worked well, some have not worked well at all, uh, but that what I have noticed, and a lot of people notice, is that the people who get you to the, to the first, like the first 12 people, aren't always the 12 people who are going to be around when you're up to 60, 70 people. Um, a lot of people join a startup because they want a specific, a specific excitement, a bit of an adventure or something thing, and they're not the ones who are going to be around later on. So yes, it's important to look at your culture. Yes, your culture is the worst behaviours tolerated. Is that the right definition, Leanne? [37:23] Leanne Elliott: Mm-hmm [37:24] Al Elliott: Um, but at the same time, it's going to change massively as you grow. Um, so, you know, don't set it in stone and don't stress too much. Like Leanne said, she's pointed out some really bad stuff that you need to be careful of there, but also, you know, you're not going to get it right because it's going to change with employee number 13, then it's going to change again with employee number 26. And then if you ever get to like 600 people in, you, you know, it'll be a very different culture, as Jamie Dimon found out. Okay, Leigh, should we be ready for question number 2?