What About the "Systems" Part of Positive Systems Approach?

Distortions of Power in Systems – One in a series of posts about how distorted power can affect people with behavioural challenges, and those who are charged with looking after them

1.       “Gossip”

In virtually every human services environment (certainly all of those where I have worked in the past), “gossip” seems ubiquitous. We laughingly called it the “grapevine” in the autism treatment homes I was director of in the late 80’s. After the Marvin Gaye classic: “I heard it through the Grapevine…not much longer would you be mine…”

Later, after taking over leadership of the Mills Community Support Services organization, it became known to me that some staff members of the organization had been overheard “bad-mouthing” the organization to people at the Legion and other public places where people gathered to socialize (and usually drink).

This led me to form a working group, including some clients of the organization, some front-line workers, one of the department managers, and a board member, to investigate the problem and see if we could develop guidance for the organization as a whole, in how to mitigate some of the harms that can come from the mismanagement of information. The working group’s efforts produced what I’m about to relay in this blog.

We began by defining carefully, information we would see as “gossip”. Here were some of the characteristics of what the group saw as “gossip”:

We started with what ought to be the questions one should ask oneself before giving any information to anybody else:

• Does the person I am speaking to need to know or to have this information in the conduct of their responsibilities for the corporation, or are they entitled to the information by their position or responsibilities within the corporation?

• Am I professionally required to give this information to this person?

• Is this the proper time and place to be conveying this information?

• Can the information be overheard by someone who does not have a legitimate need to know or who does not have an abiding interest in the information for the good of the person or the corporation?

• Do I have any or all required permission(s) or authority to speak about this, to this person?

• By giving this information, am I helping the corporation or the person involved without doing harm to anyone else, including the corporation's reputation?

• By giving this information in this way, am I acting according to the appropriate Ethics Code or Code of Conduct?

• Before conveying this information to another, have I taken all appropriate steps to ensure its accuracy?

• If I am unable to ascertain the information’s accuracy, am I properly conveying its level of accuracy?

• Do I need to clarify and correct the information that I have, or that I am hearing, before acting on it?

• What is the good purpose of giving or receiving this information?

• What harm might come of sharing this information?

• Should I report this information to someone else other than the person I am conversing with?

If a person can answer in the affirmative to these questions as appropriate, or can answer questions about harm versus good satisfactorily, it was generally agreed that they were not engaging in “gossip”, but instead, were likely engaged in appropriate professional communication.

Furthermore, we noted that often gossip goes beyond being merely informative or entertaining. Often, gossip is a form of verbal aggression in which "reputation destruction" can be the conscious or unconscious goal. That is, when information is:

• false or misleading, incomplete or factually incorrect

• conveyed with more confidence than it deserves based on readily available facts

• conveyed to people who have no discernable professional interest in the information

• obtained, conveyed or held without reasonable attempt to verify its accuracy before a judgment has been made upon it and/or actions taken based on it

• confidential, sensitive or potentially harmful to an individual or corporate interest

• personal, and obtained and conveyed without consent of the parties directly implicated

• obtained in a manner that is unethical, deceitful, or improper

• discussed in public where there is no professional rationale for doing so

• utilized to advance a personal interest that is contrary to the interest of the individual or corporation

• acted upon as if true when there is discernible reason to believe the information is not accurate or reliable

• bringing harm to the public image of the corporation, directly or indirectly, without reasonable cause

• breaching a prior agreement to treat the information as sensitive or confidential

• showing lack of respect to clients or personnel

• received or conveyed as a “repeat offence” despite counseling or instruction on the information management policies of the Corporation to refrain from engaging in such behaviour

Examining these ideas in reference to specific complaints about “gossip” helps us to determine whether “gossip” is potentially harmful to the organization or its people and whether it is "motivated" to do so (i.e. intentional or deliberate).

Our understanding of these ideas helped us formulate policy for how the organization would treat complaints of any of its members “gossiping” about clients, the organization, its employees or volunteers. As far as I know the policy remains on the books. It engages a "tribunal" of "judges" to determine if, and to what extent, the actions being complained about constitute "gossip" (based on the criteria above); to what extent the actor might be "culpable" for failing to observe the policy; and to what extent the act might be subject to an "educational" consequence, a "warning" consequence, or a progressive discipline consequence. I have not seen any other similar examples to this policy, though every organization typically has a policy on “Confidentiality”, and most also have a code of conduct where something related to this might be indicated.

In future blog posts about “Distortions of Power in Systems” we can draw upon these ideas in evaluating other distorted uses of power affecting people with challenging behaviour, and the people who are charged with caring for them.

Next up: 2. Imprecise, or "sensational" emotionally charged “editorializing”, indicative of "emotional reasoning", "gaslighting", or other forms of manipulative text or speech