Office Grapevine: Tune-in or Tune-out?
Krishnakumar Ramanathan
Managing Director and Group CEO S & S Power | Acrastyle | Hamilton Research and Technology | At the intersection of Engineering and Management lie infinite possibilities!
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Office Grapevine – to Tune-in or Tune-out? / 057, 15 Oct 2022
We all know somebody in our office who is always tuned in to everything that is happening in the organisation, or the informal communications channel called 'Grapevine'. Then there are some who are totally tuned out, not bothered at all about what is happening. The rest are all tuned-in, in varying degrees of awareness. Irrespective of whether we are tuned in or out, we are all connected to this Grapevine, and contribute to it, in some way, either knowingly or unknowingly. Since the Grapevine is often linked to office politics, many of us face the dilemma – should we tune-in or tune out, should we engage or stay aloof? That is the theme of this article. Do read on!
In my early career, when I first moved from a small town to a big city office, a wizened colleague welcomed me to what he called ‘Chanakyapuri’, or a place of political intrigues. I learnt from experience that it was, as well as wasn’t, what it was made out to be. The Grapevine was expectedly strong, and initially I stayed away, fearing the unknown. But once I overcame that fear, and cautiously engaged with it, realisation dawned that it wasn’t politics per se, but was more a matter of understanding perspectives, opinions, group goals, organisational priority shifts, etc. I understood the need to consider multiple points of view, to broaden my perceptions, to build relationships with diverse stakeholders, to find a mentor, and to also make peace with detractors.
So now that we have established that tuning-in to the Grapevine is not necessarily evil, and maybe necessary at times, let us look at some Grapevine etiquette:
It is said that we need two currencies to thrive at work – ‘performance’ currency and ‘relationship’ currency. The former is directly related to our skills and experience, and the latter is directly related to our networking, in which the office Grapevine plays a major role. If we handle it right, maintaining the etiquettes, then it can amplify our performance and give us valuable insights into how our organisation thinks or will respond to changes.
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I hope you enjoyed reading this one, and as always, I request you to share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments section. Let us build a conversation on this topic!
Warm regards, Krishnakumar.
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PgMP , PMP Certified Program and Project Management Professional in Instrumentation and Industrial Automation
2 年Grapevine , performance and networking currency. New office vocabulary added to my dictionary!!! Once you enter into corporate, you are in the game ; one has to play it.
Head-EHS -Associate Vice president @Greenko assessment management
2 年Dear Sir, Absolutely right and nice narration about the facts on the “office Grapevine’’
Government Relation - Event Managenent - Collaboration - Strategic Partnership - B2B, B2G - B2C, Exhibition Operations and marketing professional
2 年Very well written at times really don't understand whether to engage or stay out of it. Well written sir
Motor Design | Engineering | EPC Projects | Commissioning | Installation | Leadership | Siemens | Ex-Thyssenkrupp Industries |
2 年As always enjoyed reading your article.. I would like to add some points while tuning in grapevine like one can know the people first while getting involved in such discussions (as someone should not go to HR/Management everytime to verify) and one can listen more than talking while having grapevine.. Thanks!