The Spreading True Rumors

Spreading true rumors is a phrase I picked up in reading Patrick Lencioni’s latest book, The Advantage – Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business.

Doesn’t it pique your interest? What does it mean? Lencioni says that the the rumor mill is the most pervasive (and pernicious in my opinion) means of communications in most companies.

So Lencioni suggests that leaders should take advantage of this medium and spread true rumors.

Communicate verbally and in person to your team after your leadership team meetings. It has the advantage of all people hearing the same message at the same time. They all get to read your body language. They all get to ask questions and learn from those questions and answers. Further, you get the true rumor out before others start spreading actual rumors about what the bosses all were talking about in the meeting.

Cascading messages is the EOS behavior we teach to the leadership teams of our clients. Think of a cascading waterfall. Lencioni uses the same term. Communications flows from the executive leadership team to the next level of management and so on until it reaches all appropriate parties. At the end of every leadership team meeting the leaders review the decisions they have reached, decide the answers to the following questions and then act accordingly,-

1. Who is affected by this decision?
2. What is the agreed upon content we will all share about this decision? – A single message from all of us
3. Who will communicate it? – All of us
4. How will we communicate it? – In person
5. When will we communicate it? – As soon as possible

If you don’t do this, the rumor mill will.