Your Office Is Not Game of Thrones. Beware of Negative Behaviors That Will Hold You Back

Nobody goes into a new job wanting to be the office jerk. Unfortunately, workplace politics, power dynamics, and competition can sometimes make you feel like you're on the set of Game of Thrones. 

There are certain actions that are just begging to draw the wrong kind of attention to you. Let’s call out a few of these bad behaviors in the workplace–and talk about what we can do to stop them.

1. Gossiping. Gossiping if you’re the manager or a senior leader of a group is bad. You undermine the workplace and your employees. Gossiping among peers is more acceptable. A Dutch study last year found that gossiping can help people learn about their social environment. It also builds bonds among people outside the workplace–ie. when you meet new people, you trade stories about what you know about each other’s companies, industries, people. But telling nasty or harmful stories is never good–and totally unacceptable.

2. The meeting after the meeting. Managers know this all too well. Everyone gathers for a meeting to suss out a situation. People throw around ideas. There’s an action plan developed at the end. Duties are assigned. Everyone breaks. Then there’s always Sue who decides to walk into the manager’s office afterwards to express her disagreement with what’s just been decided. Can the manager make changes to the plan? She’s usually got some leverage over the manager. The plan changes and what everyone thought was going to happen isn’t happening because someone used their political clout to have the meeting after the meeting. Just stop.

(Watch Radiate's new video on how to make meetings better because who really likes meetings??)

3. Email wars. Before there were emoji battles, there were email duels. And there still are, mostly because the workplace is stuck on email as a primary form of communication. I’ve ashamedly engaged in a few fights of my own. First off, everything you write can and will be used against you. Second, everything you write while you are emotionally wrought will sound ridiculous six months later. And third, email is probably the most easily misinterpreted medium in the workplace. Better to talk face to face first, phone second.

4. Reply all. Someone sends an email out with a bunch of people copied. Okay. But then the email chain continues as each person replies all, and replies all, and replies all. And usually the subject at hand is something as mundane as scheduling a conference call. In most cases, it’s better to take people off the chain or bcc them so they know the subject is being dealt with. Then when everything is resolved, someone sends out a mass email to confirm. We all have enough junk in our inbox, the last thing we need is Joe telling Sarah and the rest of his marketing department that he has a baseball game to coach and can’t make the 4:30 call.

5. Dropping people who lost their jobs. Years ago, my co-author, Jeff Rosensweig, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, taught me a very important lesson. We were on the phone and he mentioned a certain CEO friend who just got fired. He said he was going to give him a call right away. I asked why. Wouldn’t he want to give him a little time to be by himself first? Jeff said absolutely not, when someone loses a job, most people avoid that person. Suddenly, they’re not as important to speak to as before. Or there’s nothing more to say to them. The point when someone loses their job is precisely the time when you want to give them a ring and tell them you’re there to help. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people gunning for Iggy’s demise, in which case, I quote: “I just can’t worry ’bout no haters, gotta stay on my grind.”

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