Silence and management - part 7

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 7.

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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[1] Even fools seem smart when they are quiet. -Proverbs 17:28

Silence and management - part 5

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 5.

4.    Why people choose silence

This is not a typical empirical paper, so I will not publish any statistics how silent people are in different situations. I have not measured the level of silence in meeting rooms with technical instruments, or I have not counted how many words are said in the auditorium when CEO has introduced her/his new strategy agenda. On the other as a breathing (and sometimes thinking) person I have experienced, wondered, listened and encountered different levels of silence in numerous organizational occasions.

 

 In fact, it might be interesting as such, to do some clever measurements about silence in organizational context. Without being too serious at this point, one might for instance measure how the level of silence develops during strategy process. Perhaps it might possible to draw some silence profiles, so that in a successful strategy process the silence profile follows certain pattern and in those strategy processes which are not so successful the silence profile might follow different kind of pattern.

Certainly this discussion about silence profiles is very tentative by its nature and it has more a thought provoking role than anything grander. However, what we are talking here is not a joke of any kind. I would propose that any competent leader is very keen to follow how silence (thus in the way the silence profile) develops in her/his organization. S/he will not use technical apparatus for the measurement, but I am sure that s/he uses all his perception and thinking capability to understand what is happening in her/his organization.

But why people choose silence, let us tackle that conundrum.

4.1 Silence - the whole picture

Therefore what I try to do next is that I suggest a whole picture of a silence in organizations. I am fully aware that “whole” is insurmountable word, impossible to achieve. In addition I do not try to present any kind of fixed or well established total picture of silence. What I try to do is outline a very preliminary taxonomy which would capture this phenomenon as well as I am able to do at the moment. It would be a sheer pleasure if someone would use this taxonomy and develop it further or changed in completely.

The point in presenting this taxonomy is to try to understand why people may choose silence in different situations in different organizations. What is also important here is try to understand how silence could be approached from the managerial perspective. Here this perspective means a desire to improve the possibility for an organization to succeed. It is proposed here that those managerial actions which lower the level of silence are such interventions which create new potential for an organization to thrive.

The suggestion for whole picture of silence in organization includes four main areas which are all discussed in the next blog posts.

 

Silence and management - part 4

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 4.

3.    Silence vs darkness

 

Let us still deepen our understanding of silence by taking a one new and particularly intriguing perspective on silence.  As we noticed in the previous chapter silence is related but not restricted to our hearing ability and thus to our ears?  Partly silence means that we do not hear anything but silence also means many other things. This is really intriguing. Wikipedia opens its silence entry with the following lines:

Silence is the lack of audible sound or presence of sounds of very low intensity. By analogy, the word silence can also refer to any absence of communication, including in media other than speech.  Silence is also used as total communication, in reference to non verbal communication and spiritual connection. Silence also refers to no sounds uttered by anybody in a room or area

One way to deepen our understanding about silence is to ask that are silence and darkness comparable concepts. One might think so, because the other refers to hearing and the other to seeing.  One might think that silence prevails when you do not hear anything, and darkness prevails when you do not see anything. You might think that these concepts are sisters or brothers on the semantic[1] sense, but they seem to be very different. In particular the connotations which relate these words are surprisingly different.

Please test this by yourself: silence vs. darkness. Please stop for a while to reflect these two words. How they are similar? How they are different? What would you propose?

One answer in my mind is that for some reason silence appears to be both very positive concept (happy, joyful, awe, refers to deep wisdom etc.) and word which brings with it very negative connotations (sad, even bad because the lack of caring, fear, etc.).

On the other hand the connotations which relate to darkness appear to be predominantly fearsome, sad and even evil.  Again I turned to internet and searched for pictures which were related to darkness. In one picture there was a following evocative sentence which appears to capture the message which was present in numerous pictures:

                      “It's not the darkness we are afraid of,

                       it's what lays within the Dark we fear!”

It actually seemed that one major line of approaching darkness in numerous pictures was that there is something dangerous in the darkness and our heroes go there for us and fight the fight for us.[2] The message seems to be that the fight would be too difficult to us hence we need a hero who is capable to face that foe and win our battle for us.

What can we learn from this discussion when we turn our attention to silence in an organization? At least one message is clear, we must not be too quick to think that silence is always a negative thing, just an item in liabilities. Perhaps there is more in silence, also when examined in organizational context. At least tentatively we must keep open the possibility that sometimes silence may also be - surprise, surprise - a success factor.

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[1] And again Wikipedia helps: Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós)^[1][2] is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotation.

And internet help to find explanation for denotation: Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition."¨ For example, if you look up the word snake in a dictionary, you will discover that one of its denotative meanings is "any of numerous scaly, legless, sometimes venomous reptiles, a long, tapering, cylindrical body and found in most tropical and temperate regions."  Connotation, on the other hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word. The connotative meanings of a word exist together with the denotative meanings. The connotations for the word snake could include evil or danger.

 

[2] One very tentative thought why silence and darkness bring with them so different connotations. Let us think how language has developed in connection with human development. Let us think a hunter in the forest. Could it be that for her/him darkness was a negative thing, a predator could be close. And could it be that silence was a good thing, a one sign of safety.

Silence and management - part 3

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 3.

 

2.  What is silence - three perspectives on silence

This text as a whole is about silence and in particular about silence in organizations. However I feel that it is valuable to say something more general about silence before we go deep into organizational sphere. My hope is that this general discussion on its part helps us to see more about our specific topic ie., silence in the organizational context.

At the same time this discussion on its part relate to the general idea that it is important to try to examine whole and real people in organizations.  In addition the research should not neglect anything what relates to being a human in organizations. This means because real, complex and manifold emotions and experiences are part of being human and these phenomena are also important research topics in business studies. This kind of comment may sound odd, but perhaps the history of business disciplines has focused rather heavily on technical and rational side of organizational life. Sometimes it may have been difficult to find real people on the pages business literature, or in consulting discussion and also style of discourse within organizations themselves have been permeated with rather technical tone, like let us make strategy and let us implement it and that's it.

So what is silence how is it experienced? Clearly a vast topic and I will approach this subject with a help a very specific and limited empirical material. However, I strongly feel that there is something valuable here - at least the following will confirm that silence appears to be a very strong, very important and deeply emotional phenomenon to us.

The empirical material used here are numerous pictures in internet. I have looked for pictures which people have connected to silence. On that basis I have come to interpretation that in general people seem to approach silence from a three perspectives. Certainly my point here is not present this interpretation as a anything fixed or permanent, it is here more a heuristic[1] tool which helps us to deepen our study of silence. The perspectives are as follows:

 

2.1  Impressive nature makes us silent

 

Quite often people seemed to connect silence to magnificent and marvelous pictures about lakes, mountains, trees or some other beautiful sights or to some awesome elements of nature. Apparently the point was that often nature is so impressive that it silences us. Apparently the silencing happens here in a very good and positive way - we are silenced in front of beauty, tranquility or something else which is so stupenduos and tremendous that it fills us with awe, enthrall and eventually respectful silence.

It seems that it is a far cry to try to connect this kind of approach to silence with any discussion about silence in organizations. Clearly these are different worlds, that world of nature and the world of organizations. Yet, it is interesting to try to think that in organizational context can we think that people would choose silence because they have encountered something so fabulous. Perhaps, this can happen, it is thinkable that the organization operates in a way which creates awe, also organization may have possessions like buildings, factories or so on with create silence because they are so overwhelming.

The other thing is that when, for instance, customer service  reaches extraordinary performance  would organizations prefer that silence would be the result? Probably not. For instance, in case an organization provides astonishing service, the goal would not be silence, but a hope that a very satisfied customer would tell to others. Also for instance the magnificent head quarter buildings are built to create awe, but not silence. Apparently it is hoped that people talk about those landmarks as much as possible and that discussion is hoped to strengthen the brand.

 

2.2  Silence which relates to crimes and wrong doings

 

 

 

These pictures about silence are sometimes very tough to look. They certainly open a

touching and poignant perspective to silence. These pictures tell that there is an array of

wrong doings which have may have happened and which may continue to happen at least

partly because of silence.[2] Sometimes there seem to be wrong doings which are used in

order to create silence.

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Unfortunately it is possible to see that this perspective on silence can relate also to organization life in various forms. The special term in organizational context is “whistle blowing”.   It means that that there is something wrong happening within some organization and perhaps that thing is somehow silently accepted.  And then someone, the whistle blower, breaks the silence. We can anticipate how difficult those situations must be to everyone involved. Certainly these phenomena around whistle blowing would deserve more research in the future. For instance, it would be valuable to examine the scope of whistle blowing. Should we use that concept only in relation to possible crimes or could whistle blowing also refer to all or to some unsatisfactory operation which is for some reason silently accepted.

 

2.3  Silence which relates to internal wisdom

 

There may not be that many actual pictures which relate to this perspective, but there are numerous   quotations which proclaim this message in various forms.[3] Wikipedia entry sums up succinctly how some major religions approach silence from this perspective:

"Silence" in spirituality is often a metaphor for inner stillness. A silent mind, freed from the onslaught of thoughts and thought patterns, is both a goal and an important step in spiritual development. Such "inner silence" is not about the absence of sound; instead, it is understood to bring one in contact with the divine, the ultimate reality, or one's own true self, one's divine nature.  Many religious traditions imply the importance of being quiet and still in mind and spirit for transformative and integral spiritual growth to occur. In Christianity, there is the silence of contemplative prayer such as centering prayer and Christian meditation; in Islam, there are the wisdom writings of the Sufis who insist on the importance of finding silence within. In Buddhism, the descriptions of silence and allowing the mind to become silent are implied as a feature of spiritual enlightenment. In Hinduism, including the teachings of Advaita Vedanta and the many paths of yoga, teachers insist on the importance of silence, Mauna, for inner growth.

 It may be difficult to connect this perspective on silence to the organizational life. Yet, perhaps proponents of self-leadership might suggest that:  “this is it”, meaning that the key element in leadership is self -knowledge and what we are discussing here relates to the highest form of self- understanding which is basis of true leadership.

Also some people might suggest that when we examine on communication more deeply we become aware that in order to hear (understand what the other tries to say) we need some place (silence) in our own mind.

…to be continued

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[1] It is simply beautiful how Wikipedia entry defines heuristic, I have to add it here: Heuristic (pron.: /hjʉˈrɪstɨk/; or /hyoo-ris-tik/; Greek: "Εὑρίσκω", "find" or "discover") refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution; mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, or common sense.

 

[2] This quote is well known. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

[3] For instance the following quotes: "Silence is an empty space, space is the home of the awakened mind." - Buddha;  “Silence is a true friend who never betrays”. Confucius; “ Silence is a source of great strength.” Lao Tzu

  

Silence and management - part 2

 

1.2 The level of silence as a success factor in organizations

The loudly touted wisdom in business world today advocates that in order to do good work everybody should share all kinds of things to their colleagues and networks and in general everybody should work in a transparent way.  It has been proposed that this kind of action would help the whole organization to grow to its full potential.

We can apprehend how beneficial it would be if people would actively and openly think, plan and act together. This sounds both understandable and acceptable, because organizations are networks of people and in case people decide to choose silence (often, sometimes, in some special situations) and do not communicate at the level where they could the result will be that the whole organization may not work as well as it would be able to do. Certainly, there is always happening something important or people get new valuable insights and in case the information does not flow from people to people something valuable is missed. Sometimes that may an idea which could help to improve operations, sometimes we could offer something new/more to customer if just knew what someone in our organizations has seen, sometimes it is something else. Also what is important in general is the open dialogue where people create new understanding about everything important which relates to successful operations and development, that dialogue does not reach its full potential if a lot of silence prevails.

 

 

Hence, it makes sense to propose that a very important success factor for any organization is that key experts (often this means everybody) in any organization would share their ideas and observations with others.[1]  Apparently the basic idea would be that the more the better, ie. ever increasing sharing and transparency would be help the organization to thrive always better.

So, here we have one clear recipe for success, so let’s do it. This should be a pretty straightforward assignment, surely people should be happy to share and operate in a transparent way.  Sharing should be particularly easy assignment nowadays when there are technical solutions for open and sharing mode on action. As we know there exist excellent technological tools which can be used for sharing valuable insights from one to many and many people do the sharing in their private life as Facebook and other systems clearly demonstrate.

Yet, in real life in organizations people often seem to choose silence?  Why people choose silence?  Why this happens when we all know that voice would be an asset and silence like an element in liabilities, why we still may choose silence?  Do we have the freedom to choose either silence or sharing in real organizational life or what we are facing here? Let us deepen our understanding about silence. It appears to be a most intriguing element in human life.

...to be continued

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[1] But as always, also different views have been expressed. “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” Publilius Syrus Roman Writer (~100 BC)

 

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE - LINKED INEXTRICABLY TO EACH OTHER

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

LINKED INEXTRICABLY TO EACH OTHER

It is very common to encounter  the following wisdom: live the present moment, what has been has been and no one knows what will happen in the future. There is a lot wisdom in this idea, albeit it may be impossible for us as human beings to obey that wisdom in our life. In fact, it might be even awfull if we would only live in the present moment - no memories, no future; or what an earth that wisdom might actually mean. The wisdom of living in the present moment can also be challenged on the ground that past, present and future link inextricably to each other. It may be that past, present and future are more the same phenomenon than separate entities.

As a person who has studied accounting and T accounts I shy away of proceeding into very deep philosophical discussion about time and life (and probably the philosophy on its part shy away from me). However, I try say something about the concepts of past, present and future and how those concepts relate to the organizational life. This is very, very fascinating.

Let us start by exploring how those concepts are inextricably linked. I would propose that no organization knows exactly how good it is, where it is and what it can achieve. Instead people within organization tell stories and through those stories these matters are somehow settled, not in very exhaustive and straighforward way but at least to some extend. This also tells why stories are extremely important. Through stories we understand who we are, what we have echieved and what we may be able to do in the future.

Hence to some extend our action is based on stories, through stories we have created an understanding what we have done, where we are now and what we can try in the future. We create an conception what avenues and goals are within our reach.

At the same time the above said reveals the inextricable linkage between past, present and future. In order to know where we are now at the present moment we have to examine and interpret our past and also look in the future. The present situation has different taste if we think that future is bleak or full of extremely promising opportunities. And when we look to the future our understanding of our past and present will affect what we consider possible to try and achieve in the future.

Could it be that our stories about our past and present could for example hinder us to see some avenues to proceed? Certainly. On the basis of our understanding what we have been able to do in the past we may not even consider some options which at least in principle could be within our reach. What we may give up because of our stories? What we do not even see because our stories do not sensitise us to look that kind of opportunities? What new possibilities we might detect if we changed our stories?

Stories are powerfull tools in organizational life. So, will you tell the same old story in your next meeting? In case you decide to modify your story, do you think that you are still true to yourself? Good stories are not lies, they do not lead us to troubled waters, instead they help us to succeed in the future. And in case you have not been that active in storytelling front should you reconsider your position. Your stories could be worth of gold.

How to make more money - should it be the topic in Universities

How to make more money

- should it be the topic in Universities

Do not worry this is not about the big QE (quantitative easing). Instead I will ask how any organization could make more money and in particular how this topic could be approached. Also I will focus this blog so that the role of the University is central. That will mean that I will reflect how Univiersities have approached the question of making more money.


It is interesting to notice that Universities have a very special approach to the world. For instance it can be claimed that selling is a topic which has not been that interesting from the University's point of view, whereas marketing is seen as more appropriate realm for research and teaching. Similarly it might sound a bit odd if someone's major topic in the University would be "money making", whereas, for inctance accounting and other business disciplines are highly appreciated.

What is wrong in: making more money? Why it has failed to receive a prestigious position as a disciple? It is nevertheless an issue which extremely important in our world. Any organization (also probably any country or network of countries) which wish to exist has to make more money than what it uses (at least in the long or on the very, very long run).

So there must be something seriously wrong in "making more money". And there actually is something which must be discussed immediately. Namely no organization is likely to get more money just because it wants more or because it needs more. There must be something which justifies it's request to get more. Organization must produce something which is considered valuable and when organization wish to get more money it must produce something even more valuable and/or use less resources in preparing it's offering.

Does this mean that here we have a simple and all-encompassing answer to the question that why making more money is not a central discipline in Universities? As such the burning wish to get more money is empty idea, so there would be nothing to study? I am not certain that we can brush this question aside so easily. This is because unavoidably the issue of money is part of everything. There is the money side in every action and in every inaction.

Why then the making money is somehow a silent partner in everything? For instance, when we talk about marketing, strategy, leadership or any other discipline there is always the money side, and it is very important element when we estimate whether something make sense or not. An improved strategy is something which helps the organization to make more money in the future. And it is most important to understand as clearly as possible how that particular improved strategy really can to increasy positive money flow in the future. It can be claimed that also leadership is about money, or at least that there is also the money side which is present here as it is in everything. For instance, it is hard to imagine that for example improved coaching capability would mean that organisation has set its course for loosing more money? On the other hand it would be most interesting to study and understand how some changes in leadership thinking and style in any organization affects to the capability of that particular organization to make money. What are the complex reciprocal prosesses which lead in to some results?

So should it be that whenever something is discussed, researhed or lectured also the money side should be on display as clearly as possible. This is because the money side is so crucially important and it is the real element in this world. New fancy things, theories and systems can be developed and organizations may become interested in adopting and using them, but is it wise to use them, what are the consequences? How the money side will develop when something is done, that could be the central research topic for the University.

Hence, Universities in particular should be astute in discussing and even in finding out what is the money side of actions taken in organizations? So whenever something is discussed, be it a theoretical framework or some business case, that discussion should include examinination from the the perspective of money.

So what could be more scientific than an elaborate discussion about money?

Above a view which caught my attention when I was writing this blog.  So, some food for thought with a joking angle: In case balance sheet is in this condition, which side is assets and which is liabilities?