Fast Lane
Stopping the rumor mill
How to create an open work environment and eliminate gossip
By Meredyth McKenzie
Smart Business Pittsburgh | February 2008
Kevin Klinvex
Co-founder, Select International Inc.
There is zero tolerance
for gossip at Select
International Inc., and the 70 employees know that if
they break the rule, their jobs
are on the line. Kevin Klinvex,
Select’s co-founder and executive vice president, says that
hurtful gossip can destroy a
company and that creating a
policy forbidding it helps
employees to talk to each
other directly about a problem, instead of hearing about
the problem from others.
This policy at the software
package firm has helped create
a strong, fast-growing company
that increased revenue 60 percent between 2004 and 2006.
Smart Business spoke with
Klinvex about how to create a
culture that doesn’t tolerate
gossip and the importance of
getting out of the weeds and
out of the way.
Q. How do you create a culture
with a zero-gossip policy?
It’s important to have an environment where people feel they
count and are cared about.
Create an environment where
somebody says, ‘I’m doing
more than just going to work; I
have relationships there that
are meaningful and matter.’
Culture should be fun and
exciting, with a lot of kidding
around and laughing and all
that kind of stuff. But hurtful
gossip destroys a department.
Have a work environment
where people feel safe and
productive.
Have a leadership philosophy
where you say, ‘I’m going to
hire builders, get out of the
way and not be controlling.’ If
your mentality is, ‘If you want
something done right, you have to do it yourself,’ you’re
hiring the wrong people, and if
you’re hiring the right people,
you’re driving them crazy. Be
open to feedback.
If you’re going to say you
have a zero-gossip policy, then
when you find out a person is
gossiping or meeting behind
closed doors with others and
spreading rumors, act on that.
We don’t immediately walk up
to the person and say, ‘You’re
fired,’ but we do walk up, collect the information and
say, ‘This cannot happen
again, and if it does,
then we will let you go,’
and we actually do.
Q. How do you get
employees to buy in to
that culture?
It starts with the hiring
process. Hire people
who are smart, strong
leaders and fit the culture. You will find people who are builders,
cutters and maintainers.
You’ll see those passionate people who are
builders, who are high
achievers, who account
for many of the great
ideas and services in the
company. You’ll have maintainers — people who are there to
pick up a paycheck. They say,
‘I’m not going to hurt the company or do great things to help
the company; I’m going to do
my job.’
Then you have cutters who
do damage to the company.
One cutter can ruin an entire
department.
Fire your cutters. Don’t rehabilitate them, try to work with
them or try to put them in
another department. Fire them,
and get them out of your company as quickly as possible.
Q. How do you become open
to feedback?
The first step is awareness.
There is coaching and assessment where things come out,
because oftentimes, it’s part of
a person’s personality.
Once you have that awareness, you become a different
person. You don’t have to go
into a meeting having all the
answers and feeling bad if you
don’t because no one thinks you had the answers to begin
with. You were the only one
who thought that.
It’s a work in progress of moving from that, ‘I’ve got to
look and dress like a CEO, and
when I go into a meeting, I
need to control and intimidate
everybody.’ When you’re to the
point of, ‘I am who I am,’
everybody breathes easier.
Usually when you have a
command-and-control culture, you have people who
hold communication in
because they’re afraid to talk
and afraid they’re going to say
the wrong thing and get their
wrists slapped for it. When
you have that culture of openness, it increases communication, and you get a lot better
ideas.
Q. How do you get out of the
way and allow employees to
do work on their own?
Believe in the people you’ve
hired. When you’re in the
weeds, you’re not looking at
the big picture and can’t be
everywhere. Start to realize
that what you need to do is
keep up with the trends, the
markets, the biggest clients,
and decide where your company is going next.
I got out because I was told
to get out. Have that open culture with your leaders, where
they can walk in and say, ‘Get
out of the weeds; we don’t
want you involved in the meetings anymore.’ Listen to it. If
you’re not listening, you can’t
stay there and think, ‘They
need me here; they need me
everywhere.’
Good people don’t. They’re
smart and know their area better than you know it, so let
them go. Ask for feedback of
what they can do on their own,
where they don’t need you
anymore.
HOW TO REACH: Select International Inc., (412) 358-8595 or www.selectinternational.com
