Typically people say that there is too much emails, meetings, information and everything in organizations. This blog suggests that there is also a lot of silence in organizations. Sometimes silence is fear based. You find more below:
4.3 Fear based reasons
When you
ask that why people choose silence in organizations one answer which you get
quite often is: fear. This is the answer
which has emerged in numerous personal discussions in different contexts. I
also made a Linkedin poll where I offered two options that why people choose
silence. The first option was fear and the other was that speaking does not
seem to provide results. The poll got 9
answers which came from all over the world, therefore the result is not based
on anything larger, but nevertheless the result was indicative - a fear was a clear
winner with 8 votes (feels somewhat awkward to write that fear was a winner,
but in this polling context it was).
Apparently
fear is one of those words which you seem to know with certainty, but when you
try to define it you may notice that as a concept the fear is very, very
elusive. Defining fear is not at all simple task. Therefore let us look first
how Wikipedia defines fear and after that we will examine different ways of
approaching fear in organizational context:
Wikipedia
starts its fear entry as follows:
Fear is an emotion induced by a perceived threat which causes entities to quickly pull away from it and usually hide. It is a basic survival
mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. In short, fear is the ability to
recognize danger leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it (also known
as the fight-or-flight
response) but in extreme
cases of fear (horror and
terror) a freeze or
paralysis response is possible.
In organizational
context fear which leads to silence is a phenomenon of its own. In this text I
will approach that specific phenomenon from two angles:
1)
Fear
which relates to you
2)
Fear
which relates to others
Clearly this
discussion is tentative and thought provoking by its nature. The point here is to
suggest that because a silence is a very important organizational factor which
may play a crucial role in determining whether the organization succeeds or not,
we must pause to examine that what actually causes silence. One explanation is
certainly fear, perhaps that fear is based on real things or perhaps mainly
imagined, however fear must be one factor which relates to silence in
organizations.
Therefore understanding
the roots of fear, and through that understanding being able to reduce silence
and increasing communication can be seen a most important managerial task for
every executive. But what actually is fear in organizational context, how it
can be approached and discussed? The
purpose here is to find new openings which might give new ideas for executives and
for each of us how to tackle these issues in our working environment.
4.3.1.
Fears
which relates to you (or to me, or to any individual personally)
4.3.1.1. Fear of
making fool of yourself
Certainly there might
be situations where you choose silence because you are afraid that you would
make fool of yourself.[1]
Perhaps you may feel that you do not know enough of the topic under discussion.
Or perhaps you may feel (know,
anticipate) that your position in your organization is such that in those
discursive practices which prevail in your organization your effort to
participate would only result in difficult and somehow embarrassing consequences.
Apparently
silence is a very different thing in different cultures and reasons for silence
are also very different. Examining these cultural issues which relate to
silence would be a most intriguing research topic in itself. However, generally speaking the point here is
that each individual has her/his own un avoidable responsibility to participate
and share. That is part of work - working is sharing, working well means
sharing wisely. On the other hand it is necessary to emphasize that each
organization should develop the rules of communication and participating
culture to a direction where joining and sharing would be as rewarding as
possible.
Also here we have
a special challenge for each executive. We may think in our time in this modern
society people would feel very free to participate. However, it may be that in
organizations there are still a lot hidden rules and discursive practices which
hinder participation. Sometimes executives may even think that in these days
they even need to emphasize their role and take strong positions in meetings
and in different discussion forums. However, this is one place where wise discernment
is really needed. Each executive should carefully consider how they on their
own part could create an atmosphere where genuine - let it be stressed: genuine
- participation will happen as much as possible.
4.3.1.2 Fear of getting more tasks
Age old truth in
army is that movement reveals. Unfortunately something similar may be true in
organizational life. Consequently, there seems to be a tendency that a person
who opens her/his mouth about something also gets that task on her/his task
list. There, let us check in every organization that sharing is as rewarding as
possible. If sharing means problems, there is something which must be changed.
Also more
generally speaking it may not be always rewarding to try new things. There is
always a risk to fail, suggesting new, trying something different means that
someone breaks the silence and puts her-/himself to the front. Perhaps
organization could develop an attitude where trying new things would be
appreciated and also mistakes could be tolerated and viewed as learning
possibility.
4.3.1.3 Fear of
becoming labeled “difficult”
Some of the
issues which relate to silence in organizations are very difficult to
understand. Also some of these issues are such which we wish not connect to
wise adult professionals and to professional organizations. Hence these kinds
of topics are easily such which are not discussed (publicly). However, often that
is exactly what would be needed - open and honest discussion could be way to
improve things.
For instance, there
appears to be a lot situations where people are asked to comment freely but for
some reason everybody seem to know (rightly or wrongly) that comments would not
be candidly welcomed. These kinds of awkward moments relate in particular to
many change processes and also to many other situations in our organizations. Let
us imagine that the managers have created something new, perhaps they have
already started to implement it and then there is a session where people are
asked to express their opinion freely.
Quite often these
situations are loaded with a lot of tension. Most people are thinking all the
time that will happen to me in this change process. This whole setting begs
silence with a very load voice. I would assume that in these situations many will
think that saying something is easily interpreted that this particular person
is resisting the change and s/he might become labeled “difficult”. No one wants
to be labeled difficult when there is a lot of uncertainty in the air. No
wonder that silence prevails.
The point for
managerial perspective is that planning and orchestrating a change process is
demanding task. Poorly conceived situations may create unwanted silence and
once silence has appeared it may be difficult to push it away.
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