Richard Branson leads a life abstaining from one of its greatest pleasures: gossip.
The billionaire co-founder of Virgin Group spoke with LinkedIn’s Daniel Roth regarding his habits he believes led to his success.
“Everything comes back to people, people, people,” he said. “Are you good with people? Are you good at drawing out the best in people?”
The soft skill requires honing to be truly effective. Branson pointed out that it’s not just about listening and writing down what someone says when they speak, but also following up on said notes.
In his quest to connect with others, Branson strives to avoid speaking poorly of others. It all stems from his childhood. The entrepreneur explained that his parents would send him to the mirror if he ever spoke ill of anybody. Imparting a more literal lesson, Branson’s mother and father would “say how badly it reflected” on him to talk that way.
Now, Branson views this all as “very good advice.” But some experts might beg to differ.
Gossip can backfire, especially in the workplace where rumors could weaken trust and create a more paranoid culture. But most gossip isn’t all that commonly disparaging. Bracketing gossip into positive, negative, and neutral, researchers in a study published in 2019 found neutral gossip is the most common form of communication—and, if done well, it can be a tool towards getting ahead in the workplace and fostering connections.
A separate study published in 2023 examined the ties towards gossip and resource sharing, finding “strong significant, context-relevant effects of gossip on participant willingness to transfer benefits, mediated by gossip’s effects on reputation.”
It’s evolutionary, after all. Such talk is a natural cycle that sustains itself, based on a desire to cooperate, learn about others’ reputations, as well as safeguard one’s own — finds researchers from Stanford and the University of Maryland.
“People become more concerned about affiliating with people who have good reputations (and will cooperate) and avoiding people who defect,” Michele Gelfand, one such researcher, wrote to the Stanford Daily.
Talking smack also is a potential avenue towards getting ahead in a culture where you’re at the bottom of the food chain. “When we’re already feeling disempowered, or there’s not equity in our sense of power, this is a way we might go capture it,” Dr. Scott Lyons told Fortune’s Alexa Mikhail, explaining that it’s a “strategy to bring people close in without feeling the vulnerability of intimacy.”
While Gelfand estimates that people spend an hour a day gossiping, she can count Branson out of the equation. “If I ever hear anybody gossiping, I will walk away because it’s just not good,” he said, explaining that he thinks “most people are thoroughly decent and life is much better if you look for that decency.”
