Silence is golden…
Silence is golden - or is it?
Make sure you listen to the quiet members of your team - find out why…
I am pretty intolerant of noise - I like peaceful settings and quiet walks. But in the workplace, silence can be dangerous.
I once worked for a boss who headed up a big division across many locations. He used to hold monthly all staff calls. As his management team, we would spend an inordinate amount of time each month preparing slides, having pre-meetings to decide what he would say (and - yes he was the only person that ever spoke). Then the call would take place, he’d talk for an hour and then ask if there were any questions.
The response was a deafening silence. He would ask his management team to stay on the call so he could debrief. The message was always the same :
‘That went really well - there were no questions, so everyone is happy’
I did once risk mentioning that maybe we could check if there were any follow-on questions that people were uncomfortable to raise in an open forum. He did not agree - so the calls went on month after month. Staff attrition continued to rise, morale continued to drop and I for one moved on to work for a leader who had a great deal more emotional intelligence.
As you can probably guess, the reason people didn’t speak out were many and various, but (having spoken to my team) there were five main reasons that I picked up:
Fear of being made to look stupid in a public setting
A feeling that ‘the management’ didn’t value their views
Not worth the effort - nothing ever changes round here
Tried it before and their ideas were knocked down
Easier to have a quiet life and get back to work
The job of the leader is never easy, but it’s a lot easier if their people are open and honest about how they feel about what’s going on. But as the five points above illustrate, the leader needs to create the environment for people to be open and honest - they must know that their views are valued and that there is no such thing as a stupid question.
Even if you are lucky enough to have team members who will speak up, here are a few pointers that might help:
Make time to have conversations with your team members and be genuinely curious. Show that you want to listen and hear what your people are telling you.
Have an adult-to-adult conversation - rather explain to your team why something might not work than dismiss or ignore their suggestions.
Seek out and talk to the quiet members of the team. What are they really thinking, are they OK. Ask them open questions and encourage them to share what’s on their mind.
Be brave and show humility - explain that you need their help for the whole team to be successful.
I’ve always been a fan of telling it how it is to senior leaders - sometimes that’s played out well, and sometimes it hasn’t. But I always think that if it was ‘my business’ and my team had some great ideas or some real concerns, I’d want to know - then I can take action.
It takes courage on the part of the leader to hear what their people really think - there might be a few painful home-truths lurking in the silence, or you may be under-utilising real talent in the team.
If you are ever faced with a wall of silence - reflect on what might be going on in people’s heads and take the time to ask a few open questions to find out. You might be surprised what you learn and you’ll almost certainly engender more trust and dialogue in the future.
As always, if you want to learn a bit more about how to get the best out of yourself and your team, do get in touch: [email protected]
