Rumors at work

What do you do when rumors - those that go coursing through almost every workplace start. Worse, what happens when those rumors hurt a member of your staff. The simple answer is you stop the rumors as quickly as possible. But rarely is life or work that simple.

Rumors do start - some because they are true or close (a shred of truth). Many because of fear - the thing that we don't want to happen becomes the reality. Some start to hurt a specific individual.

Most managers who have been around for a while have encountered all of these. Most of us go at the rumor for the simple reason that spreading rumors impacts the company - time. Most of us don't want to see our people waste time on something that is not true or not known. Most of us don't want to see our people hurt.

Whatever the reason that rumors start the goal should be truth - stop the rumor. Stop it quickly before it has an impact on the organization or hurts someone.

Talk to the group publicly if appropriate.
Talk to the individuals who passed on the rumor.
Talk to anyone directly effected by the rumor.

Vacations - Stress Reduction

I recently found the Dilbert Blog!

Given my discussion (random rants) on stress and Scott Adams tech background (he knows of what he speaks and speaks well) I found today's post particularly appropriate. Scott Adams takes a vacation..

Although Scott's thoughts were about the "bad of vacation planning" and the "good of actually being on one" his underlying theme seemed to be "vacation is important". It is especially important in I.T. where people ofter put in long or unusual hours. It's important to have the good memories. The stress reduction inherent in taking time off is critical to individual and organizational well being.

As leaders we need to focus the resources (people and time) on the issues and projects that are important to the business. Making sure that those people are at maximum efficiency is equally important as is managing time within our organizations.

Random rant!