How to counter rumors on the grapevine

This article has been quoted in the New York Times. Since formal channels of internal communication don’t address all the socialization needs of employees, informal channels play a significant role in their daily lives. Employees will always engage in informal conversations. These are traditionally face-to-face or verbal conversations, but digital channels are increasingly used. Rumors often are one of the outcomes of such interactions. Communication professionals have a key responsibility to plan and implement strategies to counter rumors on the grapevine. (This article is about rumors in the business world rather than in the broader community. For instance, rumors about COVID-19 and vaccination are not covered.)

Past research found an estimated 80% of grapevine information is oriented toward the individual while 20% concerns the company – Mishra, quoting Nofel (1985). Grapevine communication is estimated to be 70-90% accurate – Mishra (1990), quoting Simmons (1985). Robinson & Thelen, 2019, quote Davis, 1973, who stated that 75% to 90% of information disseminated through the grapevine is correct. Using a survey to collect data from 22,000 shift workers in different industries, Ettorre (1997) found that 55% of workers get most of their information from the grapevine.

Information via the grapevine invariably moves much faster than through formal communication channels. This is its greatest attribute. Social media, text and Twitter messages have joined emails as electronic channels of communication, enabling rumors to spread at lightning speed. Nevertheless, the grapevine still thrives as a face-to-face and word-of-mouth platform. When someone says, “I heard that…”, it often means they are introducing a rumor.

Four types of grapevine rumors

1. Wish fulfillment – identifying the wishes and hopes of employees.
2. ‘Bogey rumors’ – exaggerating employees’ fears and concerns.
3. ‘Wedge-drivers’ – aggressive, unfriendly and damaging. They split groups and dissolve allegiances.
4. ‘Home-stretchers’ – anticipating final decisions or announcements. They tend to fill the gap during times of ambiguity.

Grapevine information mostly accurate

Research shows that grapevine information tends to be about 75% to 90% accurate. Since many rumors start from someone’s account of an actual event, there are usually strong elements of truth in a rumor. However, such grapevine information often contains big errors as people put their own interpretation onto an event or information they have seen, and then they pass it on in a process of partial or selective recall. This is usually a case of confirmation bias – the tendency to interpret new information as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. Though not always harmful, such workplace tales can sap productivity, lower employee morale, tarnish reputations and interfere with formal organizational communication.

‘Management by walking around’

The grapevine can play an important part in the ‘management by walking around’ approach. This is when managers move around the office for a period of time without a particular objective other than catching up informally with employees they come across – just doing minor chores for staff that give the boss the opportunity to stay with them and engage in small talk. Doing this allows them to pick up relevant rumors. They would not be aware of such information if they had stayed in their office all day.

Managers can sometimes purposely send messages through the grapevine to test the likely reaction to a possible management decision. This can allow feedback to be gained and adjustments made before final decisions are made. Thus the grapevine can contribute to a more inclusive workplace.

Why do people spread rumors?

Humans are social animals – we need to talk to others. Chat about others helps to strengthen our existing relationships. Besides entertainment value, gossiping can raise people’s self esteem – we feel more important by getting information first and by the interest it creates. When two people share a rumor or gossip it has the effect of putting them on a relatively equal footing, so it is rare to find people from different levels discussing rumors or gossiping with each other.

Negative consequences

A significant extent of workplace gossip leads to some negative consequences:

• Erosion of trust and morale
• Lost productivity and wasted time
• Increased anxiety among employees as rumors circulate without clarity on what is and isn’t fact
• Divisiveness among employees as people take sides
• Hurt feelings and reputations
• Slow eroding of employee engagement due to good employees leaving the organization because of its unhealthy work environment.

How communicators can work to counter rumors in the workplace

Most internal rumors are about change

Most rumors are concerned with common organizational changes such as possible mergers and acquisitions, new aspects of mergers and acquisition processes that are already under way, staff changes and job security, retrenchment plans and restructurings. Research conducted by DiFonzo & Bordia in 2000 with 74 experienced PR professionals in corporate positions and consultancies, suggested that about a third of rumors relate to personnel changes such as a senior executive leaving to join the opposition, about staff changes due to a shake-up in management, and about changes caused by a merger or acquisition. You can read more on this in my article on corporate communication responses needed for handling by abrupt executive departures

Another third of rumors were about job satisfaction and security. Job satisfaction rumors comprised word-of-mouth comments about unhappy employees, dissatisfaction with management and changed duties. Job security rumors were about lay-offs caused by downsizing, restructuring, plant closures etc.

The balance comprised speculation and gossip on a variety of topics. The research by DiFonzo & Bordia was conducted over two decades ago in 2000 with a small sample of participants. Some of the conclusions reached then may vary now.

Counteract internal rumors

Communicators can expect to encounter harmful rumors on the organizational grapevine quite often – about once a week on average, according to the above DiFonzo & Bordia research in 2000. Although not always harmful, rumors can reduce employee productivity, tarnish personal reputations and interfere with organizational communication. Rumors obviously abound during restructuring and retrenchment processes – when employees are nervous about their jobs they waste time talking about the rumors and their work rate falls.

Taming the grapevine

Rumors flow constantly through every organization. “Have you heard the latest about…?” is commonly heard – and difficult for managers to deal with. Denying a rumor can give it credibility. Asking how it got started can ensure it spreads. Ignoring it risks allowing it to spiral out of control. Rumors about issues central to the future of the organization – takeovers, reorganizations, major managerial changes – can be an enormous distraction to employees.

What can be done? Former World Bank executive, business writer and author, Stephen Denning, suggests in a Harvard Business Review article that one good response in the immediate workplace is to harness the energy of the grapevine to defuse the rumor, using a story with a slightly humorous theme to convince listeners the gossip is either untrue or unreasonable. This kind of story highlights the inconsistency between the rumor and reality. You could also use gentle sarcasm to mock the rumor, the rumor’s author, or even yourself, in an effort to undermine the rumor’s power. However, be mindful that humor can backfire. People won’t respect you if your ‘humor’ is inappropriate, especially if the rumor turns out to be true, or mostly true. If that’s the case, there is little you can do but admit the truthful parts of the rumor, put it in perspective, and move on.

Workplace actions

Six actions can be taken to tackle internal rumors, according to PR consultant Michael Hartland

1. Provide a constructive outlet

• When it comes to spreading workplace rumors, email is a prime culprit. About  one in seven work emails could be considered gossip, and it’s nearly three times as likely to be negative as positive.
• It’s not always possible to prevent rumors, so instead, provide a positive outlet for feedback. Circulate a staff survey to canvass opinions on hot topics. Staffers can air their feelings, and managers can gauge the mood of the workplace. Anonymity encourages staff participation, and built-in reporting makes extracting insights easy. Just make sure such surveys are conducted quickly, or they will lag behind rumors.

2. Share regular updates

• No news is definitely not good news. Rumors spread in a vacuum, and the absence of communication is more likely to breed speculation than bury it.
• Maintaining a system of regular communication is vital – even if there’s nothing new to say. For staff, hearing from managers regularly reinforces a sense of transparency and reassures them that nothing insidious is being hidden.
• Of course, that isn’t to say that absolutely everything should be shared. Commercial sensitivities will preclude the airing of certain details, but regularly updating as much as reasonable is valuable in itself. A well-designed digital newsletter can be highly effective.

3. Be forthright

• Addressing rumors is always more effective when done face to face. For staff, this conveys credibility and openness. If this isn’t feasible, for example if you operate a chain of remote offices or retail stores that would be difficult to visit, use video instead.
• One popular approach to this is to run an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session with your CEO or other senior management. Ensure they’re sufficiently prepped to outline the company position convincingly and to handle likely questions from the staff.

4. Uncover underlying trends

• Try to anticipate harmful rumors before they begin, but that requires detective work. Take a proactive approach to your intranet forums and social media channels. Analyze the content for threads suggesting dissatisfaction. Are there common denominators in subjects, teams, locations etc?
• Respond to subject-based issues through staff surveys, AMAs or other channels. Address team or location-based issues through messages delivered by line managers.

5. Share results and outcomes

• How’s the new product line performing? How did the presentation to that potential big customer go? Where did we finish up last quarter? Organizations have significant events happening all the time, from major projects to sales pitches to quarterly reports. If internal communicators have been doing their job right, employees will be aware of all these, in some cases eagerly awaiting the results.
• It’s crucial to share the results with staff, even when outcomes are disappointing. Few things foster unproductive speculation more than conspicuous absence of awaited information. Share the results equally with all staff, including mobile workers, people in remote offices and those working in non-desk roles.

6.   Encourage correct behavior

• Reinforce your expectations through passive internal communication channels such as corporate screensavers or wallpapers. It’s a gentle yet official reminder of what proper comportment looks and sounds like. It can even be a positive force in the workplace, so the only watercooler talk is about how great it is to work there.

Messaging to prevent and reduce internal rumors

Plans can be activated to prevent and reduce rumors, although rumors are relatively difficult to grapple with. An early warning system is a good way to reduce harmful rumors that are already circulating: staff in various locations can be informally appointed to monitor and report on early indications of rumors.

Preventative measures should include keeping staff regularly, fully and honestly informed of planned changes through a range of tailored formal and informal communication avenues such as emails and face-to-face meetings at various levels. Sometimes external stakeholders also need to receive timely messages to prevent a harmful rumor from spreading outside the organization.

Rumor denials

People’s attention to and belief in a rumor will be affected by several variables involved in a denial, according to DiFonzo & Bordia’s research in 2005

The researchers concluded that high-quality denials reduce belief and anxiety associated with a rumor. Denials that rebut a rumor with convincing arguments should reduce belief in the rumor. Also, denials should provide directions on how to avoid the threatening situation or context alleged in a rumor. This will reduce anxiety and instill a sense of control over threatening and uncertain events. [All commonsense, really.]

Prepare messages in advance

Communication pros could prepare messages on the issues for management and supervisors to communicate in response. The messages should be tailored to specific audiences and need to be couched in the everyday language of the workplace, not in ‘management-speak’. In addition, a rumor ‘hotline’ – an internal telephone service or email address – could be set up to receive questions from employees about rumors in circulation. Text messages and broadcast emails to employees could be put in place.

False rumors should be refuted by an authoritative source. For instance, the chief financial officer should deal with a rumor about cash flow, and the human resources manager should deal with a rumor about pay changes. Sometimes a respected external source is best placed to authoritatively refute a rumor. The refutations should be clear, strong, consistent and truthful. No response or a ‘no comment’ response only add to further damaging speculation, so avoid this as much as possible.

Use several internal channels to respond

The important thing is to maintain a good communication flow using several channels to convey the same message. It is helpful even to say that information is incomplete or discussions are in progress, and staff will be informed as soon as there is progress information available. It is futile to wait until everything is in place before issuing a statement because staff quickly notice unusual happenings and they know when unusual requests for information are received from head office. They will speculate about it – usually with some paranoia.

US research showed that a reasonably effective approach to minimizing rumors is to provide structuring to uncertainty. For instance, by explaining the procedures by which planned changes will be decided, the employer gives employees the comfort of knowing the broad guidelines that will be used. Similarly, telling them when an official announcement will be made at least provides them with some structure or stability of intent, even if the content of the announcement is not known to them.

Management should avoid playing word games with the truth or parts of the truth in order to minimize bad news. Their credibility will suffer massively if they try this – because the truth will inevitably emerge at some stage. During the course of research for their book, Why should anyone be led by you?, on creating the authentic organization, Professors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones “saw over and over that the most admired organizations don’t do ‘spin.'” They say the old practice of ‘covering up’ no longer works. “Spin backfires.” The breadth and depth of information available today has created a more knowledgeable public, less easily swayed by cover ups and misinformation, except in the case of confirmation bias, mentioned above.

How to fight external rumors

External rumors are generally about the stock market (if the organization is a public company), product or service quality, CEO and/or organizational reputation. External rumors are those of interest to customers, news media and their audiences, social media users, shareholders, or the general public (ie, people who purchase/use or potentially purchase/use the organization’s products/services/shares).

The originally secret US wartime ‘How To’ manual on spreading rumors described an effective rumor as being self-propelled,’ described 5 characteristics of widespread external rumors:

• It is easy to remember. It is vivid, and contains local color, concrete detail, often a slogan, and humor.
• It follows a stereotyped plot. It recalls the history and folklore of the target group and is an old story dressed in new clothes.
• It reflects the momentary interests and circumstances of the target group. It interprets some current event and fills a knowledge gap. It contains some verifiable element of fact and appears to be supported by other events or rumors.
• It exploits the emotions and sentiments of the target group. It provides a justification for shared, suppressed emotions and articulates them.
• It is challenging. It contains ‘inside information’ that cannot be verified directly and is ‘neither too plausible nor too implausible.’

Impact of false rumors

Typical false rumors about small and large businesses, such as: “This stock is going to rocket – they’ve struck oil” and “I heard that restaurant serves cat as chicken.”

The impact of false rumors can seriously damage a company’s health. External rumors have damaged corporate reputations and caused company share prices to fall. The most precious asset a company has is its brand value and reputation. Corporate reputations accounted for 35.3% of total capitalization of the world’s top 15 stock market indices, representing $16.77 trillion in shareholder value, according to a report for the 12 months to 31 March 2019. Often a corporate reputation will exceed in value the tangible assets of a firm, especially big public companies. For instance, the reputation capital of some top companies is more than half of their market value, including Apple, Disney, Alphabet (parent company of Google), ExxonMobil, Unilever and Shell.

Other impacts can include:

• Loss of sales
• Loss of customers
• Loss of credit rating
• Cash flow problems
• Vulnerability to predatory and opportunist takeover.
• Loss or delay of the capability to market new products or services under the brand name (brand development/brand extension)
• Increase in public relations, advertising costs, and legal fees to counter negative rumor and recover market share.

Read my article on the crucial importance of stakeholders in countering false rumors.

False external rumors spread much faster on social media than truthful rumors

The advent of social media has transformed the speed and nature of rumors. As humorist Douglas Adams (1952-2001), author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy said, “Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” Rumors spread extremely fast in social networks. The news, especially bad news, in a rumor can spread to a broad audience very quickly.

Social media rumors can create havoc in business. For instance, false rumors can affect share prices, eg a false tweet in 2016 claiming Barack Obama was injured in an explosion caused $130 billion in stock value to be wiped out on US stock exchanges.

Groundbreaking research on Twitter rumors

In a famous 2018 project, US researchers showed how false rumors spread on Twitter, by analyzing a dataset of Twitter rumor ‘cascades’ recorded from 2006 to 2017. They examined 126,000 rumors tweeted by about 3 million people more than 4.5 million times. They found that false news stories were 70% more likely than true stories to be retweeted. The research team found that it took truthful rumors about 6 times as long as falsehoods to reach 1,500 people, as shown in Figure 2F below. Untrue stories also had more staying power, carrying onto to more ‘cascades,’ or unbroken retweet chains. Reporting the findings, Maggie Fox from NBC News, interviewed Sinan Aral, who headed the research team. He said:

“Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information,” [as in Figure 1F below.]

The researchers checked for bots and found they were not spreading most of the falsehoods. It was mainly ‘real people’ – ordinary people. Those with many followers were not often the source of some of the most popular untrue viral posts, Fox reported.

“We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it,” said Aral.

Above left, Figure 2F: Graph of the number of minutes it took for true and false rumor cascades to reach unique [separate] Twitter users in the period 2006-2017. The green line represents true rumors, and the red line represents false rumors.

Above right, Figure 1F: Diagram [histogram] of the total number of rumor cascades in the data across the 7 most frequent topical categories, 2006-2017.

Note: A rumor cascade begins on Twitter when a user makes a claim about a topic in a tweet, which could include written text, photos, or links to articles online. When others spread the rumor by retweeting it in an unbroken retweet chain, it is called a cascade. The researchers sampled all rumor cascades investigated by six independent fact-checking organizations (snopes.com, politifact.com, factcheck.org, truthorfiction.com, hoax-slayer.com, and urban legends.about.com) by analyzing the title, body, and verdict (true, false, or mixed) of each rumor investigation reported on their websites and automatically collecting the cascades corresponding to those rumors on Twitter. It would be interesting to read any similar research undertaken for Facebook posts and text messages.

Propaganda and disinformation campaigns

The sources of false rumors aren’t discussed in the above Twitter research, and also are not the subject of this article. Some countries use social media to engage in propaganda and disinformation campaigns – mainly against the United States. Russia and China have been actively doing this, seizing on the problems caused in the US coronavirus responses. The New York Times reported on this in an article on 28 March 2020, updated on 10 April 2020, “As Virus Spreads, China and Russia See Openings for Disinformation: The two powers amplify discredited conspiracy theories and sow division as they look to undermine the United States.”

Another NYT article on 13-14 April 2020 discussed “Putin’s Long War Against American Science,” reporting: “Analysts say that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has played a principal role in the spread of false information as part of his wider effort to discredit the West and destroy his enemies from within. [Useful reality checks!]

Effective ways to tackle external rumors

Below are some lessons, suggestions and prompts, learned the hard way, by companies that got it wrong. These are largely based on a 2014 article by Andrew Hiles:

Be prepared

• Create a bank of goodwill by acting transparently, ethically, and socially responsibly. Seek and strengthen the perceptions of your organization by opinion influencers, analysts, and the media. The strength of your brand and reputation is the front line of your defence.
• Who would like to see you fall? Why? What can you do to eliminate these reasons or to create a soft landing?
• Carefully analyze your products, their contents, as well as their packaging and promotion. What could be misinterpreted and lead to adverse rumors?

Plan for the worst and hope for the best

• Identify your partners, allies, and adversaries. How could they cause you problems? Choose your suppliers carefully. For example, check your suppliers for evidence of sweatshops, child labor, unethical practices.
• Consider security: what hacking, internal emails, mail or trash-can contents could set off the rumor machine? What is kept on laptops or USB memory sticks that could be lost or stolen? Control them.
• Develop or review your crisis management and product recall plans to allow for possible rumor management problems.
• Develop a rumor management plan that includes social media.
• Actively monitor social media for adverse mentions of your company as well as monitoring the traditional media.
• Don’t just hear; listen! Face the issues. See a rumor from the perspective of your customers. Remember the Ford Explore/Firestone issues in 2000–01 when Ford vehicles fitted with Firestone tyres were crashing. Ford insisted that it was a tyre issue. Wrong. It was a Ford issue—they fitted the tyres.

Respond as soon as possible

• Act quickly. A fire doubles in size every few minutes, and it’s easier to extinguish a match than an inferno. Know the deadlines for local, national, and international trade and general press, radio, and television and prepare appropriate material in time for each news cycle. And remember, social media never sleep. A few clicks, and another million people can hear the rumor.
• Expect heavy traffic on your website. Drop images, videos, Flash, that consume bandwidth. Plan for possible upscaling—traffic could increase on your website, Facebook, and Twitter outlets by 1,000%. Minimize inbound traffic by using self-help and voice mail—and update information regularly and frequently.
• The appropriate manager should confirm true rumors or true parts of rumors to staff as soon as possible. Otherwise the rumor will grow exponentially and very fast.
• Another option, requiring professional judgment on the part of management and communicators, is merely to ignore the rumor and allow it to be overtaken by events.
• Experience in the workplace showed that a punitive approach doesn’t work, ie to search for and/or seek to punish people who started or spread the rumor.

Get on and stay on message

• Pull your advertising on any products or services that are at risk from the rumor (at least until you have a response plan). Advertise other services or products instead.
• Your spokesperson should stay calm, collected, and logical in the event of a rumor, no matter how outrageous it may be. Emotional outbursts give the impression of bluster and lack of control. BP CEO Tony Hayward’s remark at the time of the BP Deepwater Horizon’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 was a classic example. He said he wanted “to get my life back.” Fisherman Mike Frenette’s riposte was fatal. He said: “I want mine back, too. He’s ruined it.” Hayward resigned shortly after.
• Choose a credible spokesperson to represent you. A PR person or the CEO is not as trusted as doctors, technical and academic experts, or employees whom the rumor target can identify with as being ‘someone like me.’
• Try to avoid reinforcing minor rumors by repeating them in order to deny them.
• Silence is not always golden—it might be interpreted as proof of guilt. Avoid “No comment” responses. Rumors thrive on uncertainty. Remember, at least some of the rumor circulators may be trying to establish the truth by circulating it for verification or rebuttal within a peer group.
• On the other hand, there may be times when ignoring a rumor—taking the moral high ground—may be appropriate, especially if the rumor is trivial.
• Pre-empt potential rumors and rebut the current rumor by publishing explanations and facts that undermine its credibility. A strong, vivid rebuttal may change public perception and actually improve a company’s image. Sometimes it can be effective to take a high-profile stand, publishing a strong rebuttal that’s supported by facts. Examples are the Coca-Cola website and President Barack Obama’s Fight the Smears website. Both listed false rumors, with explanations and rebuttals.
• The soccer saying “Play the man as well as the ball” holds true. Take the battle to the enemy. Attack may be a good defense. But think hard before trying to undermine accepted authorities, especially if they are respected and independent.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate. Counter the rumors with explanations and facts. Spread a tsunami of good news stories about the company. It takes three positives to overcome one negative. Consider all stakeholders, including employees and regulators.
• Use video where practicable: it has greater impact than statements.
• Make sure the entire organization is on-message: communications to customers, suppliers, employees, the public, and the media have to be consistent.
• Communicate acceptable priorities: life, health, and environmental concerns need addressing before issues of profitability and supply.

Minimize scope for error and misunderstanding

• Treble-check all facts.
• Do not speculate.
• Consider cultural differences and their impact on how your advertising, packaging, and marketing slogans may be interpreted. Avoid unintentional offense and address those differences.
• In interviews, make sure that the nonverbal language matches the words. More is communicated nonverbally than verbally, and inconsistency is easy to spot. Be positive and confident—but not arrogant. Avoid negative implications. Remember that humor may be inappropriate or misinterpreted.
• Identify and actively target the likely audience(s) for the rumor.
• Don’t deny the truth. It might take time, but the truth will always out. The earlier denial will come back to haunt the firm.

Protect your market and share value

• Act to protect your share price: prepare and deliver statements to stock exchanges if your share price has been affected noticeably. Public companies are obliged legally to report matters affecting their share price to their stock exchange.

Accept responsibility

• If at fault, don’t play down the impact of problems—these may be a serious matter to the customer. Avoid arrogance. Show humility and repentance. Show care, empathy, and compassion.
• Avoid the blame game. It might be a problem with your suppliers, but as far as the customer is concerned, if they buy from you, it’s up to you to accept responsibility. You can sue the suppliers later.
• Never, ever, ever, lie to the media.

Make amends

• If at fault, make restitution—quickly. Take prompt action to remedy a product or service defect, like Kryptonite. Simply changing the product packaging may help. In 1992 Snapple, a US beverage manufacturer, was rumored to support the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) because the picture of a ship on the Snapple label was said to be a slave ship and the “K” on the label was said to indicate support for the KKK. Snapple redesigned its label to make it clear that the ship showed the Boston Tea Party and the “K” stood for “kosher pareve” (food without meat or dairy ingredients). In 1998 Wall’s ice cream changed its logo when it was claimed that the original, when read upside down, was defamatory to Muslims.

Call in the cavalry

• Let someone else defend you. Refer to respected, independent experts to refute the rumors. Toyota chose NASA.

Get it out, get it over, move on

• If there is bad news, get it out – all of it. Rumors will persist like a chronic illness if bad news drips out. And try to publish it at a time when more important news is making the headlines.

Be cautious about lawsuits

• Think carefully before taking legal action, especially if it is against a little guy and your firm is a big guy. The media love “David and Goliath” stories. Besides, legal action is expensive, time-consuming, distracting for senior management, and can create a steady, debilitating drip of news stories that repeat the rumor as the case drags on – maybe for many years – through judicial processes that may include repeated appeals.

Sources that don’t have links

• Nofel, Peter J., “Cultivating the office Grapevine,” Modern office Technology, Vol. 30 (September, 1985), 117.
• Simmons, Donald S., “The Nature of the Organizational Grapevine,” Supervisory Management, November, (1985), p. 39.