Concept from Chapter 8: The Grapevine

I always thought of the grapevine as being negative. I kind of related it to the game of telephone where messages get lost and changed along the way. I found the part about the grapevine particularly interesting because it changed my outlook a little bit. The book said that the grapevine was actually a positive thing and made the company healthy. Maybe it relates to talking by the water cooler, where people divulge information in a less formal setting. I think that the grapevine can be both good and bad. I am a manager so I can see some of the downsides. Sometimes when the employees talk with each other they get themselves fired up about things that are relatively small in the long run. They also don't have all the information to make an educated decision sometimes. Therefore rumors are started and some employees become unhappy. On the other side, it is good to have informal channels that employees are allowed to communicate through. It makes the work environment more social and not as uptight.