Marc Haine stops a supervisor from trash-talking an employee in a boardroom meeting. Speaking badly about someone behind their back changes how you treat them face-to-face. Respectful workplaces require behavior-focused feedback, not personal attacks.
We were in the back room. We were in a management boardroom and one of the supervisors came in and started talking badly about one particular employee. And I had to stop that whole process because one of the things that I find that we do is yes, we want to vent about stuff that piss us off and so on. But when we start talking derogatorily about— I think I just made up a word— about employees behind the scenes, I can't help but it's going to manifest itself in how we deal with the employee face-to-face. Is that a fair assessment?
I believe, yeah, I believe that speaking that way about an employee to anyone else is a violation of any decent culture, right? Any decent work culture should have some focus on respect and camaraderie, that sort of thing. We do need to discuss employee feedback. But there's a difference between making objective observations And saying that person's an a-hole or that person's an idiot, right? And so, it's really focusing on the behavior.
