Silence Isn't a Mindset Problem. It's a Structural One.

"We need people to speak up more."

This is one of the most common requests I hear from those who run organizations and manage people. They want more candor, earlier warnings, and honest feedback. When they do not get it, (which happens quite often, as you can imagine), the diagnosis is usually the same: people are hesitant, disengaged, resistant to change, etc.

That seems reasonable to assume. Unfortunately, that diagnosis is almost always wrong.

Why? Because odds are the issue is not a problem that lies at the individual level. Rather, it is an issue that is embedded in the structure of the organization.

For example: when someone notices a risk, a flawed decision, or an emerging problem, they likely do a quick calculation. Not consciously, mind you. But through experience, they have learned to subconsciously ask themselves: "What actually happens when I raise concerns?". Are they thanked? Or are they quietly sidelined? Does speaking up create friction with a manager? Does it carry reputational cost? Those consequences are immediate and personal.

But that is on individual basis. I said the issue is structural! Well, in fact it is: just multiply the effect for every employee who has gone through this experience. Multiply it for every employee who learns through others how "things happen around here", and what to not say or do. Multiply it for every unspoken message sent when people leave the organization or get fired: what story did their departure tell up that point? All of that to say, silence has a compounding effect over time. It also has delayed repercussions over time.

When speaking up leads to negative consequences, fewer people do it. When fewer concerns are raised, more problems like missed targets, quality failures, execution gaps go unaddressed. When those problems eventually surface after a delay in time (days, weeks, months, years even), the organizational response is almost always the same: tighten control, increase oversight, reduce tolerance for mistakes. Which makes speaking up feel even riskier, and thus the loop closes.

The irony here should not be lost. The system is creating more of that it claims to not want. The cost of silence is more problems, which thus fuels more behavior that increases the likelihood of problems to go unreported or delayed in finding. Guess what happens to the problem rate? It goes up! The law of unintended consequences in action.

I do not think most people set out to build a culture of silence. Management and executives genuinely want transparency, as that is how information flows faster and more accurately. Additionally, people want to do good work and remain open about challenges and struggles. In a system where both these actions can happen safely, you are far morel likely to see a free flow of exchange in information and identify problems faster.

But the system many people are operating inside makes this process quite difficult. What is actually safe to do (and not) do usually is left unspoken. What the organization says it wants and what they actually want end up being quite different. In that respect, the organization ends up punishing the exact behavior it says it wants!

So how do you begin to work on this kind of challenge? In short: ask better questions.

Most organizational culture work starts with the wrong questions. One such example is: "How do we get people to speak up more?" 

The attempts to then it answer it look something like communication campaigns, values workshops, and town hall invitations for candid feedback. Of. course, none of it moves the needle.

But why is this? Most people try to solve the problem at hand without truly understanding what the problem is. The assumption was people not speaking up enough was the core problem. But that is a symptom, not a root cause problem. It does not get to deeper patterns of behavior, nor does it touch on the keys to issues like the mindsets and mental models that drive behavior.

The better question to start with is this: What actually happens to people when they tell the truth?

If the answer to that question is anything less than "nothing happens", then you likely have a structural challenge with how information flows in your organization.

Most people are not going to put themselves at risk of threat or embarrassment at work. Avoiding this risk usually looks like silence, diversions of attention (think long drawn out & elaborate explanations with no clear or intended answers in them), and displacement of responsibility (blaming others, claiming the responsibility does not lie with them, etc.). The more engrained these behavioral patterns are, the less likely people will be to speak up about it when those in authority (management, supervisors, executives, etc.) are in the room.

Thus, the need for building and rebuilding trust and psychological safety is imperative to making progress on these kinds of challenges. Your organization may have someone or a group of people that are capable of providing the holding environment to build trust and psychological safety. If so, you should work with them on how to do this. Let them guide you on how to build and repair the relationships with others in the organization, which will help build the prerequisite conditions to start having more honest conversations around how things really work in the organization.

If that is not an option, then bringing in skilled practitioners may be necessary. Those practitioners can help you objectively diagnose what is really going on underneath the surface of the challenge. They can also help you build and repair trust and psychological safety through skilled facilitation work, creating strong holding environments for change to occur.

At Well•Led, we take a unique approach to this process. We offer a robust diagnosis process, using Systems Mapping to better understand your challenge from a bird's eye view. Systems Mapping also serves to surface the underlying dynamics of your challenge, where patterns of behavior are best explained by the underlying assumptions and mental models at play in your organization.

Interested in learning more? Contact us at info@wellledstrategies.com, or book a call with us here.