08/29/2017

The Catastrophic Effect of Silence at Work

Four key concepts for transforming a culture of silence into a culture of dialogue

I used to think that the higher you rose in an organization, the more competent you became at dealing with people. Then I actually began working in organizations. I finally surrendered this naïve assumption when I began coaching a CEO who had two direct reports he hadn’t spoken to in two years. He thought they were insubordinate and incompetent. But rather than address his concerns, he organized around them. He marginalized the employees as much as he could and assigned those he trusted to check up on everything they did. He stood in front of thousands of his employees and admonished them to build a culture of accountability—all the while excusing his hypocrisy by claiming his own performance concerns were “politically complicated.”

Thirty years of experience and research has taught me that there is no relationship between organizational title and interpersonal competence. It has also taught me that the costs of silence are both calculable and catastrophic.

Consider our study in health care where we found that 90 percent of nurses don’t speak up to a physician even when they know a patient’s safety is at risk. We’ve also studied workplace safety. We found that 93 percent of people say their organization is at risk of an accident waiting to happen because people are either unwilling or unable to speak up.

Please click here to read the complete article from Training.