Career progress and performance is an important area in life and through my experience in striving to improve my performance I’ve learned to find many ways to perform well in my career.  It’s not been without its share of hard work though!  And as a manager, I also have insight and perspective from the other side of expectations and performance improvements and so these career tips come from that mix of experience and from my own study and practice in my career.  Please comment below if you have related experience or any experience/stories where you have used this tip!

Run From Gossip

This tip is unfortunately well known but rarely practiced.  It’s about gossip in the workplace, the dangers of it and why you should run away from gossip whenever you detect it. I’ve written an article called, How to Free Yourself From Gossip which is a great article to refer to if you need help on implementing this tip which is basically to avoid gossip and run away from it whenever you can in the workplace.  Gossip destroys relationships, it creates unhealthy conflict, bitterness and even resentment.  There is no value in it and usually it is much more destructive than people ever know.  If you want to make your working life easier and keep more friends, you can do this by staying out of gossip and not participating in it and even staying away from it altogether.

The most important steps for this career tip and to know when to run from gossip are outlined here. First learn to recognize gossip.  Listen specifically for it and use the basic rule that you should never be talking about someone else without them attending unless it is a discussion about how to help them.  Most other conversations about a person not listening is gossip, this the easier way to recognize it.  Second, excuse yourself from any gossip by simply saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk about John unless he is here as well, so please excuse me.”  Finally, learn what people tend to gossip, when they do and simply stay away from it, excuse yourself consistently from gossip and keep your distance from it as often as you can.

Running away from gossip is a smart thing to do in your career and an important skill to learn.