{"id":613296,"date":"2023-03-01T13:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/01\/how-strategic-silence-helps-employees\/"},"modified":"2023-03-01T13:37:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T19:37:00","slug":"how-strategic-silence-helps-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/01\/how-strategic-silence-helps-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"How ‘Strategic Silence’ Helps Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \"A
\u00a0 How Strategic Silence Helps Employees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The highest-performing employees know when to speak and when to stay quiet, according to new research from Wharton\u0092s Michael Parke that looks at how employees engage in ‘strategic silence.’<\/em><\/p>\n

\n \"Knowledge@Wharton;\"
\n <\/figure>\n

Silence really is golden for employees who know how to wield it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent paper<\/a> led by Wharton management professor Michael Parke<\/a> reveals that some of the highest-performing employees intentionally withhold information, ideas, or concerns until the time is right to speak up. Their \u201cstrategic silence\u201d is often rewarded by managers who view their voices as more valuable to the organization and the task at hand.<\/p>\n

The scholars say their research findings challenge the predominant view that silence at work is inherently harmful.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t just engage in silence when they are afraid or when they think there\u2019s no point, which is what the literature had suggested and assumed,\u201d Parke said to Wharton Business Daily on SiriusXM<\/a>. \u201cThey actually do it for strategic reasons, for performance reasons, to make their voice come out and be received much better when it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paper, \u201cHow Strategic Silence Enables Employee Voice to Be Valued and Rewarded,\u201d was co-authored by Subrahmaniam Tangirala<\/a>, management professor at the University of Maryland\u2019s Robert H. Smith School of Business, and Apurva Sanaria<\/a> and Srinivas Ekkirala<\/a>, both organizational behavior and human resources management professors at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.<\/p>\n

Conducting a qualitative study and two field studies, the professors found that employees who use strategic silence most effectively consider three factors in deciding when and how to speak up: issue relevance, issue readiness, and target responsiveness. First, they determine whether speaking up would align with the goals of the recipient or the current situation (i.e., relevance). Second, they determine whether they are ready to talk or need to hold off until they collect more data, find a solution, or think through some other aspect of the problem or idea (i.e., readiness). Third, they wait until the recipient \u2014 usually a manager \u2014 is in the right cognitive (not too busy) or emotional state (not in a bad mood) to hear the message (i.e., responsiveness).<\/p>\n

When strategically silent employees finally present their case, it\u2019s not surprising to find their managers value it. That\u2019s because what they share is now perceived as deliberate, thoughtful, and well-timed. Ultimately, the study found these employees get higher performance evaluations and are rated more favorably by their managers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is not only team value for doing this, but individual value as well,\u201d Parke said.<\/p>\n

Reading the Room<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parke acknowledged that knowing when to speak can be complicated for employees trying to navigate the social and professional norms of their workplace, or even the mood of a mercurial boss. Nobody wants to be the person who hijacks a meeting by bringing up a half-baked idea or non sequitur, yet most managers don\u2019t want employees to stay mum on what could be a looming problem.<\/p>\n

Parke said building trust will enable more meaningful conversations, and he encouraged leaders to \u201ccheck in\u201d with their employees more frequently to establish open lines of communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf leaders in teams had more explicit conversations about the avenues for which people communicate different ideas and concerns and issues, they could navigate that in a much more efficient way. But I don\u2019t think that happens,\u201d he said, adding that employees often hold back because they are trying to \u201cread the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parke also warned managers to be careful about creating an environment where only expert voices are allowed. He said quality and expertise are correlated, but not perfectly. Experts\u2019 ideas should be challenged, and there should be room for healthy debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing to bring up is that even though we want high-quality voice, there has to be patience for low-quality voice,\u201d he said. \u201cBy people understanding why their voice is low quality, they can improve and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, Parke pointed out the limitations of their research \u2014 it focused on task-related strategic silence as opposed to silence on social issues, such as concerns related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). He noted that organizations must ensure that employees feel confident and free to discuss DEI without fear of backlash or retaliation.<\/p>\n

Does Strategic Silence Help the Firm?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scholars are still learning new things about workplace communication. Parke said he is studying the impact of what is known as faking voice, where someone offers a little bit of input without full feedback or disclosure, and voice leakage, where employees talk to each other about a problem rather than directly to the managers capable of addressing it.<\/p>\n

Parke said he and his colleagues want to take their study on strategic silence a step further to show the costs and benefits. If strategic silence is good for individual employees, is it also good for teams and organizations? Or does it delay solutions, costing a company more in the long run?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot to uncover and unpack in this area,\u201d Parke said. He hopes the insights gained from the research can be used to \u201cadvise leaders and employees on how to navigate these conversations effectively and efficiently, because voice is so critical to the success and the well-being of the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is reprinted with permission from Knowledge@Wharton<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Lloyd Grisby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 How Strategic Silence Helps Employees The highest-performing employees know when to speak and when to stay quiet, according to new research from Wharton\u0092s Michael Parke that looks at how employees engage in ‘strategic silence.’ Silence really is golden for employees who know how to wield it. A recent paper led by Wharton management professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":613297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,25429,24400],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-613296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-silence","9":"category-strategic"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}