Are You Hearing Your Team’s Best ideas?

If you’re a leader who encourages people to speak up and contribute ideas, you may assume no one will remain silent when they have an idea you haven’t thought of, or spot a problem you haven’t noticed. That assumption seems reasonable, but research suggests that people are motivated to speak up only if they believe their contribution will have an impact on the organization, and that they will not be punished for their comment. By contrast, people fail to signal a problem or idea to the boss when they think there will be negative repercussions for doing so—like getting shunned or fired.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review Michael Parke, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, offers strategies for managing both the “voice” and “silence” aspects of employee contributions.

To solicit voice:

• Explicitly encourage people to bring up ideas.
• Consider those ideas.
• Follow up and let people know what became of their ideas—not every idea will reach fruition but those who voiced them want to know attention was paid.

 
To manage silence:

• Monitor how you and others react to new ideas and opinions, especially when they involve raising problems.
• Protect people who offer ideas that fail.
• Frame and reframe questions in different ways to evoke new responses…e.g. “What should we do?” instead of “What could we do?”
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Have you ever assumed that people who don’t speak up are purposely holding back? Have you found ways to successfully bring in more voices? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

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