Stop bitching and gossiping! 7 reasons why it is damaging your career!

We all like to have a good moan and complain about our colleagues, bosses and clients etc.  And gossiping feels like fun too. But have you ever stopped to think about the impact this is having on your career?

In his excellent Ted Talk "How to speak so that people want to listen",  Julian Treasure explains 7 ways of ensuring that people won't listen to you:

1. Gossip
2. Criticising, judging
3. Negativity
4. Complaining
5. Excuses, blame throwing
6. Exaggerating..lying
7. Dogma

Just how important is it for people to listen to you? How often do you think: "if only they would listen? And how good would it be if people did listen to you? How much would that help you influence others so that you get what you want?

 Julian goes on to give some great voice control advice and it struck me that whatever we are doing, we all want people to listen to us. In every position, we are - to some extent - trying to influence others and to "sell" ourselves or our ideas.

And that's pretty hard to do, if people don't want to listen to us.

Be honest with yourself, just how much of your day do you spend doing one or more of the things on Julian's guarantee-they-won't-listen-to-you list?

 If you don't believe me, just listen to yourself over the next few days. In each conversation check if you've been doing it.

(And let's knock the old sexist myth right on the head: it's not just the women who do this. Men are right up there when it comes to bitching, moaning and gossiping).

But  what impact do you think all this has on your ability to influence others? How does it affect your ability to get what YOU want?

It's strange. On the one hand, nobody likes people who moan, bitch and complain. And they are the ones who are least likely to get on and progress… (And WE moan about them too!)

So why do we kid ourselves, that all this somehow doesn't apply to us when we do it?

Just about all good sales people know that you need people to like you and trust you if you want to sell to them. And for the rest of us, that means we need to be likeable and trustworthy if we want to influence things around us.

 The simple fact is that when we do those things on Julian's they-won't-listen-list, we are making ourselves lest trustworthy and less likeable.  So we are not only wasting our energy with negativity, we are also limiting our ability to influence others. Which stops us getting what we want.

I hate to think how many times I've done this in the past and people who know me well will doubtless have a long list of stories to tell about me. However, recently, a client, a divisional CEO of major manufacturing group told me his story:

In his early years, Graham was  - like everyone else - engaging in all the back-biting and in-fighting that goes on in a business. There was one particularly aggressive colleague who he just didn't like working with, and he used to get really wound up about him. And moan and complain about him. Things came to a head one day when they had a big fall-out, culminating in a major shouting match. Just about everybody heard it and certainly everybody heard about it.

 Graham felt he was justified, particularly as everybody knew the other guy was aggressive. But a passing comment from a trusted, friendly colleague started him thinking. "Did you realise that you can be aggressive too?" she said. He was shocked. He had no idea about the effect is moaning was having on other people.

 So he started to look at his own behaviour and the way he talks. And got some help. After that, he said "I just thought about the impact my words were having on others and I learned to stop doing it" and that's when things started to get better. "I just to leaving the moaning to the others and concentrated my energy on getting the things I wanted"

 His reward came  when 2 "competitor" colleagues got so embroiled in the in-fighting that disciplinary action was involved. Whilst they were being investigated, Graham quietly got his next promotion . He never looked back from there.

 So next time you feel like gossiping, bitching or moaning, take time out to think about the impact your words will have on other people and the impact it will have on YOUR reputation.

 I hope you have found this helpful. Let me know your stories - how have you turned your fortunes around by not criticising others?

 Please give me a "like" if you've enjoyed this l and please share if you think others should see it too! Thank you.