Never said to your face, these hushed words are always whispered behind your back.

What is the professional and smart way to respond to rumors? 

Let’s assume you are talking with one of your coworkers and this person lowered his voice and said, “I’m not sure if you are aware but Eric is spreading a rumor that you often get drunk on the weekends.  Just thought you may want to know.”

At first you are incredulous that someone could be so blatantly bankrupt of ethics and then your incredulity quickly morphed into blind anger.  You searched for emotional pegs to hang the deep rage that only a victim can understand.  You stammered into stillness and then slowly sketched plans for revenge.

It happens every day. 

Sometimes the cauldron of this caustic contagion has been concocted with a pinch of remorse, envy, pay-back, infantile intelligence, competition or repressive potty-training.  Regardless of the cause, the final product is reprehensible.

So, what do you say and do when you hear a rumor about you that is not true?

Here are three responses that may be natural but totally unproductive. First, you can try to even this score by immediately searching out this miscreant and scream, “On the day you ever spread another rumor about me, you should also contact your next of kin.”  Second, you could start your own counter-insurgency complete with verbal IEDs intended to annihilate your foe.   Or, third, you could say nothing which would empower this ethically-challenged cretin to keep the whole gristmill of verbal garbage churning out its putrid prolix.

I am recommending the following two initiatives.

First, make an appointment to meet this person alone.  It is important you remove the “peanut gallery” environment where the two of you will end up playing to the stands.

Second, begin the conversation with “Eric, have you heard a rumor that I regularly abuse alcohol?”  Whatever response you get from Eric, you win.

Let’s assume Eric says what we are all expecting him to say at this moment, “No, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

You will then respond, “Well, I understand there is someone spreading a malicious rumor about me that is not true.  Not only is the rumor not true but it violates my personal ethics.  If you hear someone make a denigrating statement about me, please say to the person, ‘Before you say that to anyone else, don’t you think it would be a good idea to check with Cal to see if that is true?’”

Or what if Eric says, “Cal, I did tell someone last week that I thought you were drinking too much.”

The “win” for you is you can correct Eric.  You can declare you have never been drunk and there is no evidence otherwise.  This conversation will allow you to be in emotional control and provide a new venue for you and Eric to build a trusting relationship.

What will not work is for you to barge into Eric’s workplace and ask, “Have you been spreading a rumor that I get plastered on the weekends?”  What will Eric say?  You got it, “No I did not say that and you better apologize for making that accusation.” 

Undoubtedly, you will come back with, “I’m not apologizing for anything because I know you said it, you poor excuse for a human being.  You are nothing but…but…primeval sludge.”

Remember that once you accuse the rumor-monger of malfeasance, the dialogue between the two of you will quickly slide into “I know you did--No, I didn’t--Yes, you did--No, I didn’t.”

Now, you have other choices.

The innocent victim when spreading a rumor is the…truth.

A rumor is faux truth communicated by a coward.

Talking to a back is always safer than talking to a face.

I am always reading a book about “survivors.”  Their stories keep me going when I think I am teetering on the precipice of some calamity that requires extraordinary effort.

Leaf through the pages of Left for Dead (ISBN: 0-375-50404-4) by Dr. Beck Weathers.  Dr. Weathers was a member of the ill-fated 1996 attempt to summit Mt. Everest (read the companion book, Into Thin Air, by John Krakhauer).

Dr. Weathers, a pathologist from Dallas, Texas, did not make it to the summit of Mt. Everest because he scratched his right cornea with an icy glove and could not continue his assault on the mountain.

He was left at the bottom of Hillary’s Step, the final promontory at the base of the summit, by Rob Hall, the leader of the expedition.  Rob Hall was supposed to come back down from the summit and assist him to the next base camp.  Rob Hall never descended Mt. Everest.  He died along with eight other mountaineers.  Beck Weathers should have made the number of deceased to an even 10.

In some inexplicable moment in the middle of that frozen night, Dr. Weathers, after being left for dead, got up and proceeded to stumble down Everest to Base Camp Four where his amazed climbing companions gaped in awe as he fell through the roof of their tent.

If you are going through excruciating challenges right now or are trying to clarify what should be the priorities of your life, read this book.

New Free Article

When Your Staff Holds You Hostage is a new article I have just penned for leaders who have very competent staff people who also bring an acidic attitude to the workplace.  The premise of the article is when staff believe they are “essential,” they often parade their dysfunctional attitudes because “you wouldn’t dare get in my face over my attitude.”  The hostage-takers will remind the leader that if there is criticism of an attitude in the workplace, it could take longer than normal to get the job done the next time.  You know these people, right?

To download a copy of the article, go to my website at www.execenrichment.com and choose the Downloadable Resources option.   After filling out a brief form, you’ll see a list of current available articles.  Should you decide to print the article in an organizational newsletter or other publication, I ask that you give me credit for the article and send me a finished product of the publication.

Featured CD of the Month

If you are in any managerial position you may want to look at the following description of my 50-minute training CD, Skills to Find My Next Big Idea (From My Small Brain).

When your workplace just keeps repeating the same unprofitable mistakes or your professional future looks like a black hole…you need a BIG IDEA. This training program will teach you (1) how to play with new ideas, (2) how to look at the same thing everyone else sees and see something different, (3) how to temporarily suspend the need to be "right," (4) how to use a visual paradigm called "The Y Factor" to lead a group outside of your "box" and (5) how to sell a new idea to the person who controls the money.

To order a copy of the CD, go to my website at www.execenrichment.com and choose the Our Products option.

My iPod will call up a song in a nanosecond. My car will locate my present position on a dashboard GPS map in less than a second. My coffee machine will brew a cup in about 18 seconds. And I get very upset if my laptop cannot pop up my Desktop in 22 seconds.

Wow!  I should have tons of extra seconds left in my day!

Have you noticed that with all the time-saving devices hanging from our belts, all the drive-thru lanes we traverse and all the microwaves zapping our meals and drinks, we seem to have less time to live?

When I ask people to try a new recognition skill that will require about one additional minute per day the response is always the same, “With everything I have to get done before I leave at 8:00 p.m., there is no time to tell someone he did a good job today.”

I do not understand how we can continue to lop off minutes and hours from daily time-consuming tasks only to find out we have lost more time in the process.

What are we doing with all the extra time we have earned?  If my observations are correct, we have etched out more time to see a therapist to work on our fits of manic depression, shop for sleep aids because we do not have the patience to count sheep, and jump on a treadmill at some frenetic gymnasium where everyone is sweating and looking more like octogenarian Jack LaLanne every day.

Think about it.  If microelectronics was the panacea for our poverty of time, wouldn’t we all be more relaxed, healthy and looking like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?

My opinion is we have to decide what kind of a life we want to live and then make our time-saving devices kneel and knuckle to us.  In other words, turn off our cell phones, turn off the 146 channels on our cable televisions, turn off our telephones, turn off our internet connections, turn off our photo-quality printers and turn off our brains…and then slowly breathe.

You probably have heard…the agony goes on in the increasingly unfriendly skies.

Well, I have some statistics for you from the U.S. Department of Transportation in the August 2007 Air Travel Consumer Report.  These numbers may help you when booking your next flight.

On Time Performance:  The best airline was Southwest with 80.7% of flights on schedule and the worst were jetBlue and US Airways each tied at 68.8%.

Mishandled Bags:  The best airline was jetBlue with 5.34 bags mishandled for every 1,000 passengers and the worst was US Airways with 8.95 lost or erroneously sent somewhere other than where the owner landed.

Customer Complaints:  The best airline was Southwest with a hands-down statistic of just .25 for every 100,000 passengers.  The worst was (you may have guessed) US Airways with 3.15 complaints for every 100,000 air travelers.

Involuntarily Bumped Passengers:  The best was jetBlue with just .03 for 10,000 ticketed customers and the worst was Delta with 3.32 bumped and probably angry customers for every 10,000 of their friends who did get a seat.

I am suggesting you go to www.flightstats.com and see which of these carriers are consistently the winners and losers.  Duh, fly the winners!

So, there it is: the “skinny” on the skies. 

If you would like to personally meet with me during the month of October, here is my schedule.  Please call 800-373-4040 to set up an appointment.

This month let’s spend a few minutes reviewing the “principal parts” of a verb.  As you know, the verb is the action in the sentence.  There are four principal parts of all verbs: present, past, past participle and present participle.  Why would you need to review this?  The principal parts of a verb, if wrong, will create glaring grammatical errors your reader will recognize and remember the next time he/she decides to do business with you (i.e. your use of the English language can cost you in your profit and loss report!).

Most verbs form the past and past participle simply by adding d or ed to the present and then add ing to form the present participle.  There are exceptions to this rule and I have listed some of the more popular ones below.  Remember they are arranged (left to right) present, past, past participle and present participle.

eat—ate—eaten—eating

fly—flew—flown—flying

go—went—gone—going

hang (execution)—hanged—hanged—hanging

lie (recline)—lay—lain—lying

ring—rang—rung—ringing

set—set—set--setting

shrink—shrank—shrunk--shrinking

swing—swung—swung—swinging

teach—taught—taught--teaching

wear—wore—worn—wearing

If you think you know exactly where the address is of your new customer or client, think again.

When I started driving to an important pre-presentation meeting with a new client, I was sure I knew exactly where this address was located.  When I looked at the building and noticed the number next to the door did not match what was on my handwritten note, my intestinal track turned to ice water.

My tardiness cost me a contract.

Here is the new rule for your career:  when you have not personally been to a new address, leave so early you will have time to leisurely suck down a Vanilla Frappicino before entering the reception area 10 minutes early!

I need some wisdom here, Lord.  My brain does not have binoculars to see my future.

This new job offer will put more money in our bank account and…more anxiety at home.

I’m not sure how the kids will respond to Phoenix…to a new school…to new faces on the other side of the cafeteria table.

You know I have no choice…it was either move or…move out and then clean out my desk.

The pressure of taking care of everyone right now is crushing me and there are times when I want to run.  So, instead of running…I’m running to You.

While I am closing up boxes, open my eyes to see my life for what it is…and what it could be.

While I am calling to stop the utilities, newspaper and mail delivery give me the wisdom to begin…to live again.