The Grapevine in an Organization essay
A modern manager is required to have an ability to act competently in different situations of communication and interaction, including the conditions of spread of different rumors, speculations, and fairy tales. It is no secret that the subordinates often turn to him as to an official, authoritative person with the question like “Is it true that?” Therefore, the ability to act competently in this situation is necessary to any supervisor.
A rumor is a common talk, news about someone or something; this is a message for any events, yet unsubstantiated, that is transferred in the mass of people from one person to another. The nature of the rumors can be objective (or spontaneous) and subjective (or deliberate).
For the purpose to research topic better, it is important to give the definition to the main term of our discussion. According to Crampton, Hodge & Mishra (1998), the definition of the grapevine is the following: “the ‘grapevine’ or ‘rumor’ is the major informal communication medium in an organization. As the name suggests, the grapevine is entwined throughout the organization with branches going in all directions. Rumors are often a rapid form of communication. They spread quickly, uncontrollably and, once started, are often hard to stop. Because rumors can harm both individuals and the organization itself, managers must consider how to control or manage rumor mills.”
To continue, criteria of a rumor as a social phenomenon, that is, its characteristic features are the following:
- rumor is a form of interpersonal (rare – public and media) communication. Although we are often witnesses of an unconscious spread of any rumor by the mass media;
- rumor is an informative (rather than, say, analytic) message, that is the core of a rumor is composed of information about real or imagined events;
- rumor is an emotionally meaningful message to the audience. If it does not affect the feelings and emotions of people, there will be no rumor as such.
What are the main conditions and causes of the rumors? According to Rowan (1979), the emergence and spread of rumors is possible only involving an information vacuum, expressed in an unsatisfied interest. In other words, the rumor is an information that satisfies some psychological need of people, unmet by other means.
The conditions and the nature of the substantive reasons should include the following:
– Interest of the audience to a certain topic. An attempt to spread a rumor among the people of Belarus of an unexpected increase in the price of elephants in India is ridiculous and unrealistic. This post is easy to believe, but it will not pass on to others. Psychologists have identified a pattern: the most ridiculous post, if it is of interest, can be passed on and capture a significant audience. The main thing is not so much the reliability of the information, but the unsatisfied interest;
– Lack of reliable information on the topic of interest. We are not talking about the objective validity of available information, but about a subjective assessment of the own awareness. Social practice showed two patterns: first, the most accurate information derived from a non-authoritative source, retain information deficit, but the false information from a prestigious source for this audience eliminate the deficit and block the spread of rumors. Second, the intensity of the circulation of the rumor is directly proportional to the interest of the audience to the topic and is inversely proportional to the number of official posts at the moment and the credibility of the source of information.
The emergence of rumors is also affected by conditions and causes of functional character: implementation of the need to communicate by means of rumors, facilitation of interpersonal contacts; implementation of an unmet need for self-assertion in the group; desire to reduce emotional stress in a large group; compensation of emotional failure in circumstances where the situation is devoid of significant events.
Rumors are classified in a number of reasons. At the base of the spatial sign rumors are divided into local (i.e., marked in a relatively small social groups), regional, national and transnational.
By expressive sign (i.e. the type of emotional reaction) rumors are divided into ‘rumor – desire,’ ‘rumor – fear’ and ‘aggressive rumor’. Let us examine them in detail. ‘Rumor-desire’ occurs when people try to indulge in wishful thinking, and at a time when reality comes into contradiction with the fact that people need. ‘Rumor-desire’ is not minor and harmless, as it looks at the first glance. Its danger is that the expectations stimulated by it are regularly replaced by frustration, which, in its turn, generates either aggression, or apathy, disrupting the normal functioning of the social communities. This is confirmed by examples from the history of World War II.
According to Oliver (2004), Hitler’s agents in the United States of America repeatedly dissolved the rumors like: “The war will be over by Christmas”, “Germany will not be enough oil for six months”, “In two – three months a coup d’état will happen in Germany”. Whenever the period figuring in the plot of such rumor approached, and the desired did not occur, as a rule, a noticeable depression of the public mood, increasing of negatively stained assessments and opinions appeared.
Anglo-American agents were not also far behind the enemy. In autumn 1944 they started a rumor that Churchill family lived in Dresden, and for this reason the Anglo-American air forces did not bomb the city. The rumor caused a massive influx of refugees in this southern German city. But on the night of 13 to 14 February 1945 more than 1,400 bombers in three waves at the intervals of four or five hours razed the city and its environs to the ground. As a result of this massive raid 135 thousand innocent civilians were killed.
“Rumor-fear” is a fearful anticipation of any event and is made possible by a fairly common habit of people to expect pessimistically the worst. The appearance of such rumors often occurs during periods of acute social stress or conflict (natural disaster, war, revolutionary situation, coup d’etat, etc.), that is, when the overall situation is very unclear. The range of these rumors is from the simply pessimistic to the downright panic ones. The motives of their appearance lie in attempts to obtain satisfaction from the fear split with someone and a secret hope for the opportunity to refute the story frightening. But even if there is no denial, the shared fear is tolerated more easily.
“Aggressive rumor” is based on prejudice and expresses a sharply negative attitude of some groups of people to an object appearing in the story of rumor. It appears most often during social stresses, but mainly related to intergroup conflicts.
According to the reliability of the information rumors are divided into:
– absolutely false, that is only reflecting the mood of the audience; unreliable in the main with the elements of plausibility;
– believable rumors, that is relatively close to reality;
– reliable rumors with the elements of improbability (the most dangerous ones).
In this connection it should be noted, according to Spillan, Mino & Rowles (2002), that as a rule rumors can not be absolutely reliable, because in the process of transmission by word of mouth, they are inevitably distorted and are always a little different from the truth. In the process of circulating a rumor is transformed. This is expressed in three main processes: smoothing, concentrating and adaptation.
In the process of smoothing the rumor becomes smaller and shorter due to the disappearance of those details that seem irrelevant to the given audience. For example, the color and brand of cars collided, the name of the scene of an accident, clothes and names of the participants of the events, etc.
In the process of sharpening the scales of the details that appear to be important for the given audience increase (for example, the number of actors, the number of victims, the degree of success or failure, etc.). It is important to emphasize the following feature: the significance or irrelevance of the specific details is determined not only and not as much by their objective proportion as by the dominant in this audience value orientations, expectations, etc. Depending on this the details of this rumor may be ‘smoothed’ or, conversely, ‘pointed’. For example, if the clothes, hair or eye color reflect their racial, ethnic, religious affiliation, and the strained relations have developed in the region, a rumor can quickly get an aggressive color, and relevant details will be dominant, although the actual event could play a secondary role.
Adaptation is designed to adapt the rumor to the mental needs of the audience, under the dominant in the given audience model of the world. For example, in a laboratory experiment, one of the subjects in a group of white Americans was demonstrated for a few seconds a picture of two men arguing: white and black. The white man was armed with an open razor, the black one was unarmed. After that the first subject told the content of the photograph to the second one, who did not see the picture, the second one told to the third one, etc. Characteristically, that as a result of adaptation the razor was ‘jumping’ from the hands of the white man to the hands of the black one – a hard stereotype of the ‘aggressive black man’ was told on. Smoothing, sharpening, and adaptation can complement each other and to the extent of the rumor spread can lead to a radical rejection of its plot from reality.
Mishra (1990) argues that “the grapevine is flexible and personal and can spread information faster than the formal communication channels. The grapevine is also capable of penetrating even the tightest security because it cuts across organizational lines and deals directly with people in the know. Bosses who chose not to pay attention to the grapevine have 50% less credible information than those who do.”
What are the basic steps to prevent and counteract rumors? The main thing at the implementation of preventive measures is creating an emotional atmosphere in the community and organizations, excluding the possibility of spreading rumors. Papa, Daniels &
Spiker (2008) stated that the main activities of the head to prevent speculation may be as follows:
- Establishing and maintaining the effectiveness of information management system. The main condition for this is to identify information needs. As it has already been mentioned, the main cause of the rumors is the lack of information on the topic of interest. That is why the definition of information needs is an important preventive measure which does not allow rumors to arise.
To this end, the manager must determine:
– the necessary level of information that a subordinate should have for optimal performance of his functions;
– suitable forms, suitable time points, intervals of information transfer.
It is helpful to be guided by knowledge of the following recommendations and laws:
- a) the information flow should be organized in such a way that everyone should know not only what the problem is and how it should be done, but also why and what the interest of each person is;
- b) the growth of education and qualifications increases the need for information (not only and not as much in quantity but in quality of information);
- c) to meet the information needs it is necessary to use all kinds and forms of communication, making emphasis on the informal communication;
- d) an important area is the exact identification of sources of information (both formal and informal), and specific work with them.
- Targeting employees with respect to safe and reliable means of information, publications, etc.
3. The presence of a stable feedback. - Maintaining good governance at all levels. At critical moments exactly the leaders are the chief source of information.
The measures of active opposition are carried out depending on the audience, in which a rumor is spread. With low confidence in the source of information the direst selection of the subject to its exposure can cause, on the contrary, the circulation of a rumor. In this case it is needed, without mentioning the rumor and its story, to find an indirect cause for the massive transfer of information, the content of which would be radically contrary to the contents of the rumor. With a high confidence in the source of information a direct and persuasive refutation of the rumor is more efficient, and usually puts an end to its circulation.
When working with the source of the rumors it is expedient to use the following tactics:
- Use less lengthy rebuttals and statements, more specific issues of disagreement and concise. For example, the following phrases: “I think that this is not true”, “If it is, as you noticed, just a rumor, let’s not to waste time on it”
- Specifically ask the source of rumors about where he learned the message. For example, the following phrases: “I did not know that. How did you find out?”, “Who told you that?”, “Apparently, I need to talk to that person alone”.
- Get the source of the rumors to convince you of plausibility of rumors. For example, the following phrases: “Why do you think that what you said is right?”, “On what is your conviction that this is true?”, “Is it because someone wants, or such is really the case?”
Thus, knowledge of the leader about the causes and conditions of the rumors, the basic preventive and active measures to counteraction allows to create a healthy social and psychological atmosphere in the organization, to strengthen trust among the employees.
