Destructive Silence in the Workplace
- Krishna Sagar Rao [Ph.D] , M.B.A , M.P.M , D.A.Pr , D.Psy.
This silence is no gold
What I observed at one of the organizations , while I am working on a study and what I am also writing about in, ‘Emotional Assertiveness’ [ a book in the making ] is the tendency to silence our differences. I am talking about those times when we keep silent because we think it is the right thing to do and perhaps the only thing to do to preserve a relationship or get the task done. However that tendency undermines the very relationships that we are trying to preserve. And, it slows down the tasks we are trying to get done.
You can see an example of silencing in a Dilbert cartoon. Dilbert recognizes that a senior executive is making a poor decision. He asks his boss, "Shouldn’t we tell her?" The boss responds, "Yes, let’s end our careers by challenging a decision that won’t change. That’s a great idea." There is truth to that. There can be costs in speaking up. However there is another variable, which is the cost of staying silent. Nobody is taking that into account.
I can imagine few questions you could ask, if I explain Emotional Assertiveness.. so I am following the questioning format so that you could breath easy.. am asking questions & answering on your behalf… is it still called a monologue :-)
When does this silencing occur in organizations ?
People normally think of the case of the subordinate silencing their differences with the boss. However, frequently bosses too silence themselves in speaking to a subordinate. The boss feels uncomfortable and he doesn’t want to tell his subordinate anything negative so he just keeps quiet.
You also see the silencing phenomenon all the time in meetings. We all have had the experience of going to a meeting where we know there are issues but we sit around and don’t talk about those differences. We leave the meeting saying how proud we are that there is so much consensus, but behind closed doors we say, "What a waste of time. We didn’t deal with any of our issues."
Admittedly it looks like people are being foolish in keeping quiet. However, people tend to be pretty skilled at the subtleties of social interactions. I would think that they are making careful cost-benefit decisions in deciding whether or not to speak ?
I don’t think that is the case because people weigh too much on the short run and not enough on the long run. In the short run keeping silent does have a positive effect but most people don’t recognize the longer term costs of doing so.
What happened at the company you studied?
At one of the companies where I did a study the young founders brought in a seasoned CEO to help them grow the company. Often in this situation the two groups don’t get along but this company was different. There was this incredible enthusiasm to work together.
The new CEO was impressive, he had a strong background and the founders were very excited to work with him. He was also very excited to work with them as he recognized that he had the experience they lacked, while they had knowledge of technology and the market that he lacked. However as he began to uncover problems with the company and tell them to the founders, they would get upset, and he didn’t want to upset them. So he stopped telling the founders about the problems. Instead, he just hired several professional managers to help him deal with all the problems, providing no explanation to the founders as to why he needed to hire these people.
While the founders wondered and worried, they didn’t say anything. Nor did they say anything when the professional managers started changing the company’s culture. The founders hadn’t taken a day off in months but suddenly they had a vacation policy. And, they had billed thousands of rupees to their personal credit cards, but now they had a credit card policy. The founders didn’t like what was happening but still they didn’t say anything.
Because the CEO never explained and the founders didn’t ask, major changes were made without mutual understanding as to what was happening. When they all got together several months later to discuss the future direction of the company, no one dared share their differences. They had put in place a culture where the norm was to keep quiet. And they had undermined the trust in their relationship to the point that they didn’t feel comfortable expressing their differences.
They all knew that they didn’t agree. They knew that the founders wanted college students to be their target market and the CEO had decided that that was not feasible and instead he wanted to pursue faculty as their target market. But this was not discussed. Rather, any time they agreed they called it "vision" and continued to talk about it.
However, any time they disagreed, they called it "strategy," and dismissed it as something to be discussed on another day. At the end of the day, they congratulated themselves on their level of consensus. Yet, behind closed doors, they expressed great frustration that no one had expressed his true thoughts or feelings.
In the end, because of this silencing of difference, they never did discuss their differences about the future direction of the company, and their relationship unraveled.
It seems ridiculous that people would let the company fail rather than speak up?
Yes, but you see this all the time. Samsung went into the automotive industry because the CEO decided that would be a good thing to do. Everybody under him thought this was an absurd idea but he was a very strong willed guy and nobody spoke up. Less than a year and 13 billion dollars later the CEO found out that indeed, it was a ridiculous idea. He wondered why nobody had told him.
This is a very typical example of how, even where big amounts of money are involved, people do not feel comfortable expressing their views.
What can individuals do about this?
The first thing is that your goal should not be: "We are going to agree on everything". The goal needs to be: "We are going to mutually understand each other". That is a really important distinction. Sometimes people silence themselves and we don’t hear their views; in the other extreme everyone shares everything, nobody agrees on anything, and we get absolutely nowhere. Neither approach is helpful.
As an individual you need to seek to understand where others are coming from and seek to explain where you are coming from.
What if someone doesn’t have the skills to express themselves well? Some people may silence themselves because they don’t want to make a point badly?
Speaking up poorly may be no better than not speaking up at all. However you can learn these skills. If you just sit there and say, "I am no good at expressing my views" or "It is the other person’s fault" you are not helping solve the problem. If you say, "Well, he is the boss" then you are refusing to recognize that you have the power to change those relationships.
Do you have any tips for someone trying to get better at speaking up in a way that facilitates mutual understanding?
In my book, I devote a chapter to describing what it means to achieve mutual understanding and to a few overarching suggestions to keep in mind. However, there are a lot of good books that give how-to advice on conversations, such as Difficult Conversations by Douglas F. Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.
My focus is on helping people to recognize they need to have conversations they’ve previously thought were better not had. I'm concerned that people express the little things before they snow ball into really big things. If you start with the little things then you don't need to have great conversation skills.
The thought of having the courage to make a difference on the little things, which in the end makes a difference in the big things – Does it make you a tempered radical ?
The notion of being a tempered radical is a good way to think about what is involved in expressing one’s differences, especially in situations where one is challenging the accepted way of acting. Speaking up is really about the mindset that you have. It's asking how can I use these little things to make a difference.
It is just learning to push back against the norms that exist?
I don’t think of it as pushing back as much as it is about sharing what you think & feel and trying to understand what the others think & feel.
What can an organization do to get better at avoiding this self-silencing?
First of all you want to get your CEO to understand this and model it. There are a lot of examples of CEO’s who have decided that they care about this issue but undermine it with their own actions. I've seen company meetings where the CEO is so proud that they are creating an open forum, but they make it perfectly clear in the way they convey "Does anyone have any questions?" that you are not actually suppose to ask anything. Whether you are the HR person or the CEO you have to be aware of sending this type of message.
It is also very important to be aware of how you are treating those people who do speak up. There are a lot of examples where people who do speak up are punished. If you are going to create a culture where people are going to feel comfortable speaking up you need to be very aware of the behaviors that are getting rewarded and those that are getting punished.
Is finding the answers to organizational issues not by doing a study but by asking your people in the right way ?
Yes, I think there is a link. It's not precisely that your people know all the answers, but they know an awful lot that you should encourage them to share with you. By not opening the lines of communication we are undermining the organization. We are causing destruction. That is what I think is really new here.
Let me explain this point. We recognize that if we don’t speak up then there is a lost opportunity. However, beyond that there are serious additional costs. There is what I call the silent spiral; whereby, in silencing the differences you begin to feel negative emotions, next you start to feel disconnected in the relationship and then ultimately you are less likely to speak up at all. The more you are silent in a relationship the more difficult you make it for yourself to speak up in the future.
In conclusion, what do you think are the most important points people need to understand?
First, you must understand that silencing occurs because people think speaking up is not the right thing to do. They think silence is the way to preserve relationships and get the task done. It is not that people think they are doing something wrong. Yet this behavior turns out to be destructive.
Secondly, it is very important to recognize that the power to change this is within us. We tend to blame someone else for the problem and we don’t recognize our own power. There is almost no interaction where you are not part of the problem and can be part of the solution.
Emotional Assertiveness practiced in organizations as a macro communication policy can help organization unravel many mysteries of the past failures ( if any ) and save the future ones along with igniting the imagination and responsiveness of the players in the organization to feel that their contribution to organization is valued and validated.
*The author is the Corporate Strategist & CEO of Matrix Training & Consulting. You can reach him at : sagar@matrixnova.com
