Organizational silence and its costs

Speak freely. Jevon MacDonald on organizational silence and its costs.

[Seb’s Open Research]

Key graf:

Organizational communications are at the mercy of corporate culture. The more top-down our methods (newsletters, presidents reports, corporate newspapers) of communicating and directing, the more we formalize (by implication) our less structured interpersonal communications. Even the validity of our consensus building exercises comes in to question when we realize that our corporate culture may be fostering silence within the hierarchy.

Very thought provoking piece. One of the frustrating aspects of organizational silence is how easy it is to provoke even when senior executives are desperately in need of more open communication and would welcome it if they got it. What they tend not to see is how they contribute to silence instead of voice. It’s hard in the midst of all the more obvious pressures they face.