Some of my readers have been wondering if I’m ok because I’m posting less lately. I’ve been very well actually, and making new friends. The bad news is that I’ve found myself gossiping more than usual with this new found circle.

With every social group, it takes time to ascertain where the boundaries lie – what each person will and will not say or do. With my tried and tested friends, we know when our sharing of news is crossing over into hurtful gossip and we automatically stop and change the subject. With this new group, things are more fluid and the line has been crossed, often by myself, more often than I’d like. How do we prune the grapevine by cutting out the bad gossip and keeping the good?

“Good gossip is just what’s going on. Bad gossip is stuff that is salacious, mean, and bitchy; the kind most people really enjoy.”

- Liz Smith

photo credit: Quasic

Defining good and bad gossip

Humans being social creatures, it is near impossible to cut out gossip completely. We do want to know what’s going on with the people we know, and so we talk about them. It would also be slightly depressing to think that the people we know didn’t talk about us at all – surely we matter enough for them to mention sometimes?

So talking about others is part of the human condition, and therefore I find it hard to follow some advice that says don’t talk about other people at all. I mean, we could discuss philosophical ideologies all the time but it strikes me as a cold sort of existence.

It’s much more useful to define our boundary between good and bad gossip. For me, the difference lies in both the intention and the consequence. Good gossip should come with both well-meaning intentions and beneficial consequences for all. Bad gossip is when either the intention or the consequence, or both, are not good. Here’s a simple illustration.

Examples of good gossip could be:

• Parents talking about a difficult child and how to help him
• Spreading word about a project a colleague did well
• Warning a friend about someone’s suspicious behaviour in order to protect her from that person

Pruning the bad gossip

Once gossip crosses over into the ‘bad’ categories, what can we do? Tempting as it is to hear the juicy stories, most of us know in our hearts that we are compromising ourselves by letting the gossip continue. Most people adopt one of the following strategies:

1. Remain silent: This is probably the easiest method. It allows you to continue listening to the gossip without actively participating in it. The problem is you may be condoning the behaviour by being part of it.
2. Speak up: Objecting to the gossip forces others to recognise what they are doing and decide what to do. This requires more courage as you have to stand up to your pals and may come across as a self-righteous person.
3. Change the subject: Safer and easier than speaking up against the gossip. The downside is that you may find yourself having to change the subject many times during the conversation.
4. Walk away: Giving a reason to excuse yourself is a subtle way of sending a message that this activity is not acceptable to you. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a subtle message.
5. Change friends: Drastic is this is, sometimes we have to accept that we are not strong enough to handle bad gossip, and the best thing we can do is avoid the gossip-mongers.

Socrates’s Test of Three

I can’t remember where I first read this story and so am sorry that I can’t attribute the source. But it is the wisest way I’ve heard of managing gossip.

One day an acquaintance ran up to Socrates and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”

“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me, I’d like you to pass the Test of Three. The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man replied, “actually I just heard about it.”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second test, the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”

“No, on the contrary…”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued, “You may still pass though, because there is a third test – the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really…”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither True not Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?”

The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more. This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

photo credit: bencrowe

The healthy grapevine – good gossip only

Our grapevine keeps us connected to the community we live in. Good gossip – true, good and useful news – has a role in our lives. But bad gossip is a cancer that has to be cut away before it gets out of control and harms us.

It’s not always easy to draw and maintain this fine line, but I’m going to try and hope you will too!

I spent years learning how to encourage instead of put down. For a while my mantra was “Praise, Not Perfect.” At first, it was hard to find the right words, apart from a vague “well done”. Slowly, I learnt how to find words that encouraged the other person without sounding hollow or forced.

photo credit: alessandraelle

How to encourage the SMART way

While trying to figure out how to give meaningful encouragement, I realised that the acronym “SMART”, used for goal-setting, was quite useful. Here’s how to apply the SMART approach to encourage others.

S – Specific

While any praise feels good, there is a greater impact when the person knows what exactly he did well. Consider the difference between being vague and being specific in the following examples:

Vague: “You did well on that project.”
Specific: “You chose a really catchy name for that project. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

Vague: “Your teacher says you’re a good student.”
Specific: “Your teacher says she’s very happy that you always hand in your work on time.”

Vague: “I’m so glad I’m married to you.”
Specific: “I’m so proud to be your wife because you open the door for me every time, even after 10 years of marriage.”

M – Measurable

Even if the person knows what exactly he did well, he may not realise why this is so important to you. Letting him know the impact on you in measurable terms will make your praise meaningful.

“You chose a really catchy name for that project. I can’t get it out of my mind. I’ll be sure to remember it next time I need inspiration for my own projects.“

“Your teacher says she’s very happy that you always hand in your work on time. This saves her the trouble of having to remind you and gives her ample time to go through your assignments in detail.“

“I’m so proud to be your wife because you open the door for me every time, even after 10 years of marriage. When my friends see this and give me envious looks, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.“

A – Action

When you praise a person’s character, he may get a warm fuzzy feeling but there’s not much he can do after that. When you praise an action instead, he has the option of choosing to repeat that action. How much more practical, therefore, to encourage a “what” rather than a “who”.

Who: “You are a valuable employee.”
What: “You chose a catchy name for that project.”

Who: “You are such a good student.”
What: “You hand in your work on time.”

Who: “You are the world’s best husband.”
What: “You are the best for opening doors for me.”

R – Relevant

We sometimes give encouragement that seems to go nowhere. I’m often guilty of this, raving about a friend’s new shoes when I know her current goal is to make more friends. Relevant encouragement is more helpful to that person by nudging her in the direction she wants to go rather than distracting her from it.

Goal: Get a promotion at work.

Irrelevant: “You chose a really catchy name for that project. You should consider a career in advertising.”
Relevant: “You chose a really catchy name for that project. I bet the bosses will pay attention when you present it at next week’s meeting.”

Goal: Improve grades in school.

Irrelevant: “It’s great that you hand in your work on time because it gives you more time to play once the work is done.”
Relevant: “It’s great that you hand in your work on time because planning ahead allows you time to plan and produce quality work which can get better results.”

Goal: Spending more time with your spouse

Irrelevant: “When you open doors for me, I feel like the luckiest woman in the world because my friends all envy me.”
Relevant: “When you open doors for me, it makes me proud to be with you and I miss you even more when you’re not around.”

T – Timely

Books on dog training say that the best time to give a dog a biscuit is when it has just done something you want it to do. If you give the biscuit later, it won’t connect the reward to the action and you would have failed in reinforcing the behaviour you want. Children seem to know this – they ask for their promised reward as soon as they’ve performed the deed.

The best time to give encouragement for an action is when the person is still experiencing emotion connected to the action. Your timely encouragement can add to that emotion and stimulate the formation of synapses in the mind, reinforcing the person’s memory of and motivation to repeat the action.

Emotions from an action can last from a few seconds to a few days. The best time to offer encouragement is within minutes of the person performing the action. If this is not possible, anything within the next few days still has a chance of having an impact. Waiting a week is probably too long, though you know what they say – better late than never.

How to be a SMART encourager

Those of us not naturally gifted at encouragement will simply have to practise. I started by just thinking encouraging thoughts about others, because I couldn’t say the words without tripping over them. Eventually it became easier to offer meaningful encouragement, though obviously I’m still working on it.

And if you can’t figure out how to give encouragement the SMART way, just relax. A “well done” is better than nothing, and even a smile can make a person’s day.

I recently returned from Thailand, where I think they have the most gracious greeting etiquette of all the countries I’ve been to. This got me thinking about how we greet each other, and whether it’s time to retire the traditional handshake.

The Handshake

The origin of the handshake is debatable. By some accounts, it dates back to the times of the gods, when power and authority was handed over from a deity to a human, or from human to human. Others claim the handshake was a show of goodwill in feuding societies, when the open clasp was evidence that the hand concealed no weapons.

With the current H1N1 flu pandemic, I’m wondering whether the developed world will eventually ditch the handshake. Physical contact increases the risk of spreading unwanted bacteria and viruses. Here are two alternative forms of greeting that don’t require physical contact.

photo credit: el7bara

The Thai Wai

The Thai greeting, as demonstrated by good ol’ Ronald McDonald, is to put your hands together in front of your chest, fingers pointing upwards as if in prayer, and then bow your head slightly over the hands.

The Thai Wai is usually used to show respect. It is most often initiated by younger people to greet older people, or by anyone to greet a monk. You don’t always have to return this greeting, especially if you are socially ‘higher up’ than the person greeting you, for example a bellboy or child.

photo credit: jetalone

The Japanese Bow

Another form of greeting that requires no physical contact is the Japanese bow. With your hands at your side if you are male, and on your thighs with fingers touching if you are female, bow from the waist. Unlike the Thai Wai, courtesy requires that you always return a bow.

Donald Trump wrote in one of his books that this was his preferred form of greeting, because he disliked the handshake and the physical contact it requires.

photo credit: w00kie

The cheek kiss

For those who value physical contact, cheek kissing is an intimate form of greeting commonly used in Europe and other parts of the world, but seldom in Asia. Kissing can be confusing because there are so many variations.

In Latin America, you can kiss everybody (though men don’t kiss men), while in North America kissing is reserved for family and close friends. The number of kisses exchanged varies from one to four. Then there is the kiss itself – lips to cheek, or cheek to cheek with lips kissing the air. And should you kiss quietly or noisily? I take the easy way out and just follow the other person’s lead when it comes to kissing in greeting.

photo credit: David Boyle in DC

And one more…

Finally, if you don’t like any of the above forms of greeting, feel free to pick up some ideas from man’s best friend… :)

photo credit: Invisible Hour