Organizational Silence – Manifestation of Our Deepest Fears

Organizational silence, when an organization develops, or encourages, behaviors where employees, managers, and CEOs develop a case of tight lips in controversial situations results from deep insecurities that all human beings possess. Whether it be fear of looking unintelligent, or being rebuked by a colleague or boss, or losing grasp on one’s power, or fear of validating something one’s equals may consider lesser, all work in concert to produce an environment where people will not raise their voices when necessary. Morrison and Milliken state that organizational silence results from “top managers’ fear of receiving negative feedback from subordinates” and from managements’ view that “employees are self-interested and untrustworthy”. On the opposite hand employees fear retribution from their bosses, and past experiences also lead the employee to believe that their advice would be ignored by their superiors. Therefore silence is perpetuated and reinforced on both sides of the coin.
Organizational silence is not just prevalent in the business world but we grow up learning to keep silent as all of societies’ visible, and underlying, caste structures reinforce these same silence starting in grade school. Think of the bully picking on the nerd as you walked home from school. Or maybe you were the bully or the nerd. Anyway, fear of the bully causes you to walk right by pretending that you didn’t notice the hazing, and fear of the tattle-tale label causes you to stay silent when you get home and your mother asks you how your day was. Bullies, most would agree act from insecurity and fear, and maybe that bully down deep really wants someone to say something to them about their behavior because they crave attention or need help correcting a deeper problem. So really we are taught to “mind our own business” at a very young age, and this mindset pervades our work environment. Meaning that if we are doing well in our position we fear rocking the boat, cause unfortunately sometimes when a boat rocks we fall out. But is it really that bad to fall out of a boat? Not if you know how to swim.
Therefore begins the cure for organizational silence, which the authors state lies in managers not “shooting the messenger”, and employees having the courage to “rock the boat”. It helps one to feel comfortable rocking the boat if they have worked on their balance, are wearing a life-vest, and have of course fallen out of the boat on at least one previous occasion. The best way to show someone that falling out of the boat is no big deal, is to of course jump out yourself first. When I used to guide kayaking trips on Catalina Island we had groups of students from Los Angeles whose ideas of adventure were a new video game. So when we would go out kayaking in the ocean obviously for safety reasons we had to teach them how to self-rescue in case they happened to fall out, therefore at the start of every lesson, no matter how cold the water was one of the leaders would go overboard on purpose to show that it wasn’t a big deal, and that it was easy to get back in. So it is on managers to speak first, and maybe it would be most effective at breaking silence if they contradicted their own superiors in front of their subordinates. For example if a new policy directive came down that the manager thought certain aspect of were ineffective, he should first consult his own boss on those specific aspects, but then when relaying the new directive perhaps that manager should confide in his subordinates the aspects that he thinks aren’t effective and then in turn ask his team what they thought were ineffective. That way everyone’s opinion can be expressed and subordinates know that their manager was willing to risk their position to live on the edge of chaos and without external sanctions.
Through ignoring or removal of those external sanctions and not fearing actions without a net, we can learn to let go of our fears of speaking up. I’ll wager that those who read this and think that they would have said something if they saw the bully hazing the nerd in grade school, or possibly did say something in that context, have better communicative relationships with their bosses and subordinates today than those who did not comment. They have a long-time pattern of breaking organizational silence therefore must pass on how they learned to do so and teach others to overcome those fears as well. Organizations should seek out those individuals and learn from their communication skills regardless of their root. Also our society has moved in a positive direction concerning silence in situations, so hopefully as we continue to evolve into better people both in our personal lives and professional, lessons learned in grade school will be positive influences on our future behaviors.