May 2023
Making sense of the Great Unheard
Questions, notes and commentaries from the GameShift pop-up around The Great Unheard – Understanding voice and silence in organisations 17th May 2023
The following piece weaves together some public summaries, private feedback and questions and commentaries from the ‘chat’ during the pop-up. Also included are some responses to the questions by the two of us.
And we can’t help but provide details of where to buy the book and the 25% discount available from entering the code TGUW25!:
You can also see the recording of the pop-up event here:
Rather than write a traditional blog about this event, we have provided a set of reflections from different sources, including texts sent to John H and reflections on comments made in the chat.
A private text to John with insights that stood out to the sender
These were five comments which caught the sender’s attention/summarised their thinking:
- “Find someone you can be clumsy with”
- “Busyness is the opium of organisations”
- “Lots of times we interpret rather than understand – interpreting creates a barrier between you and another”
- “Silence is never neutral”
- “The sense we make of silence is our projection”
Questions from the event chat box, commentary and responses (Our responses in italics)
How can we encourage leaders to walk into the space of discomfort you described on charged issues? And how can we inquire into the meaning of silence without removing agency of holding silence?
Some thoughts from JOHN:
- It is a mindset thing. Often requiring people with power/in a high-status position to own their relative authority and weight of voice – when the popular discourse is that the organisational world is flat and hierarchy can be disappeared (it can’t)
- It’s a homework and rehearsal thing. On most contentious issues there is good material out there, so ignorance is rarely a choice. And talking about things people are not used to talking about needs practice, so finding a trusted colleague/friend to rehearse personal understanding with is important
- It’s a ‘not the usual suspects’ thing. Getting used to talking with people outside the usual suspects, the ‘go to’ people. And as one Chief Constable put it to me: “You’ve got to have the little conversations before you can have the big ones”. You need to have some relational connection to engage with people on contentious issues
- It’s a ‘tell Alan not an ask Alan’ thing. Most organisations position their leaders to broadcast at people, not to prepare their leaders to listen – and listen not to respond, but to understand (and in due time to come back with actions etc, but not to feel the need for trivial, knee jerk actions e.g. Announcing a ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy
Some thoughts from MARK:
- Sometimes, the challenges that we face feel so enormous and daunting that we turn our backs on them and busy ourselves with the quotidian. At the risk of sounding glib, it is within the gift of each and every one of us to choose to turn up differently, so as to be exemplary in the face of those challenges and to behave prefiguratively, by which I mean that the means by which we seek to reach a goal are intimately related to and impactful on that goal.
- To this end, we need to embrace our: criticality, by looking askance at all around us that is corporately familiar; reflexivity, by acknowledging and inhabiting our agency and immersion in the context on which we are seeking to reflect; and ethical self, by focusing on our values and their actualisation in our practice, as opposed to vague values bandied about outside of our experience of being a human subject.
- Crucially, we then need to move from a focus on individualism – a neoliberal conceit that seriously distorts our subjecthood in all social settings, including the workplace, of course – and find ways to connect with others trying to be different in familiar spaces, so that we can begin to take a collective perspective on all of this.
- The challenge of not being seen to undermine someone choosing silence at a given time is one that has to be managed in the moment. It requires us all to recognise that the silence is not merely an absence of speech.
- Instead, both voice and silence are delicately and complicatedly interwoven, so reading a conversation means being attuned to both means of communicating. Instead of looking to “intervene” in a specific circumstance to entice (or, in the case of someone with power acting in this fashion, compel) someone to speak, we need instead to step away from the formulaic communication that exists in most corporate settings, so as to work hard to create the widest possible range of dialogic spaces wherein people can start to feel comfortable to speak in the knowledge that people will listen to hear, hear to understand, and understand so as to open the rich opportunity for meaningful conversation.
Do you have any tips to help manage the expectations of employees that you can do more than listen? It’s often the reason that managers don’t want to open up the floor.
Some thoughts from JOHN:
- This is often a big shift in culture, where the cult of the leader/follower has set up something horribly close to a parent/child dynamic.
- ‘More than listening’… being really heard (rather than talked at or surveyed) by leaders is often a novel experience, and is in itself a major positive experience
- Let go of the need to have an answer… why managers don’t want to ‘open up to the floor’ might well be to do with the fantasy they hold that they need to have the answer to everything… and that trusting the wisdom the crowd is somehow a dereliction of duty
- Stop thinking of conversations as one-off set-piece events… when people raise an issue or something problematic in public this is the start of an ongoing public conversation… and maybe that is what stops many managers engaging with people, the fear that actually there will be work that needs to be done as a result (which an over-streamlined, corporate setting has squeezed out the possibility for)
Some thoughts from MARK:
- A lot of the time in corporate life, we allow ourselves to be defined by the position that we occupy, which in turn effaces our humanity – and the choices open to us as a human agent.
- Oftentimes, that position offers an illusion of agency, wherein the holder of that office is deemed – by virtue of where they are and what authority is delegated to them – to be able to do things. (I recall early in my management career being challenged by a member of staff as the organisation went through change that I was sitting on the fence in terms of failing to act on behalf of the workforce. The truth was, there was no fence, merely a void wherein I was denied any means by which to act.)
- The leader/manager position is wrapped in a fiction that there is a degree of potency in the role, that the world is amenable to that person making decisions, taking action, and seeing the manifestation of anticipated outcomes. Complexity science in a managerial context – as so ably explored by people like Ralph Stacey and Patricia Shaw – challenges this fabulous notion, so a modern leader/manager needs to embrace this, publicly acknowledge it, and reveal the uncertainty and unknowability of the world.
- We need to start on a journey – and help others to join us on this excursion – that sloughs off that fiction of boundless agency in the world – and thereby allow ourselves to own the limitations that exist. To that end, we are mirroring the important concept of habitus that is found in the work of Pierre Bourdieu. This seeks to address the supposed tension between structure and agency, where a focus on the former suggests that we are tightly constrained by circumstances in which we find ourselves, while a concentration on the latter intimates a boundlessness in terms of our free will.
- An honest assessment in light of this thinking compares our subjectivity to the business of being the player of a team game: we are bounded by the rules, which have to be observed; but we have the capacity to play the game (within those parameters) largely in any fashion that we choose.
- The leader/manager needs to embrace this interpretation in a very public and noticeable way.
I like the piece about the surveys, and who determines what the questions are…. I’m interested in who determines the topics/themes of the ‘conversation.’ And in terms of Deborah Tannen’s (the sociolinguist) studies into power and language, who determines when the topic is changed. Such a phrase as ‘anyway,’ or’ at least’ following someone’s statement can really silence someone
What Mark currently describes feels v similar to our GameShift Hangouts – monthly gatherings w little or no agenda. Hugely valuable interactions.
I wonder. Are organisations capable of hearing the unheard really? Mostly they’re a place where the Divine Right of Kings still applies. Since we set such store by strong organisational cultures and strong organisational stories, don’t we just recruit people who fit, promote people who really fit, and fire people who speak up “wrongly”? Maybe the best way to speak up is to leave or set up a new organisation? Maybe that’s a way of speaking differently?
Some thoughts from MARK:
- This is a powerful reminder to us that, whilst the modalities of power might adjust, it is still power that undergirds corporate life. It is for this reason that I cavil about the constant corporate invitations to speak, which suggests that there has been some fundamental alteration in the nature of power, and the fact that there is very little listening (let alone hearing) going on. The power sits in this context unchanged; there are merely some superficial adjustments overlaid on it.
I’m curious about the energy it takes to hold the perspective of “others” – thinking about your Twitter person (who Mark had decided not to ‘Block’). So often, the Block instinct comes because that other perspective feels toxic or eye-rollingly hard to sit with. You can’t dialogue alone, and if someone else is broadcasting/ monologuing, it can feel tedious, frustrating and lonely…. the energy it requires to hear and sit with stuff can, at times, feel too much…. (not blocking people etc) is important – and I find it draining – it fires my anxiety at worst.
Some thoughts from MARK:
- The difficulty with contemporary discussion – especially where it is conducted via social media platforms – is how quickly it become entrenched. So many postings are declarative, not seeking to extend an invitation to dialogue but merely looking to be provocative. There is a sense that, while it looks as though a conversation is taking place between two positions, it is very often the case that each contribution is speaking merely to the audience who agree with us and with whom we agree.
- It is more difficult for this positional anti-dialogue to exist in the real world as opposed to its virtual manifestations. I find social media can trigger my anxiety, because it is full of people shouting their opinions as opposed to advancing them so as to test them in a conversational space.
- However, acknowledging this – and reinforcing the notion that we need to attend to our own mental well-being, of course – I remain wedded to the notion that – as a human being – I urgently want to know about the opinions of others…and to actually understand what human experiences have led them to that position.
You talked about power at the start, and I’d like to hear more about how leaders (and others) can reclaim some of their power to centre their work on purpose/values in the face of anxious (greedy?) shareholders, and private equity who want their returns – values are secondary at best… thus leaders themselves can become voiceless
Some thoughts from MARK:
- As I tried to suggest in an earlier response, the decision to be different in the world is one that is available to us all (although, to return again to the notion of habitus, there are inevitably social constraints that create limits to that).
- In this regard, I am extremely persuaded by the existentialism of Sartre, which reminds us that life from beginning to end is about choice; that we can end up acting in bad faith by seeking to ignore those choices; and that the choices that we make moment by moment in our lives defines us as a person…and defines others from the perspective of collective humanity.
- This elegant solution in no way makes this sort of endeavour easy. We still have to make our choices…and some of those will be negatively impactful on us. It takes us to the notion of parrhesia that appears in the later work of Michel Foucault, namely that we accept that we must speak truth to power even as so doing has the potential to see us killed in light of that act.
- It is essential to acknowledge the voicelessness of many leaders, so it is refreshing to see it stated here. It reminds us of the work of Barry Oshry, which asserts that we find ourselves in a range of systemic relationships between top, middle, and bottom – and underscores the fact that, while the CEO is invariably seen as a “top”, they are simultaneously a middle and sometimes a bottom. But this underscores all the more strongly why people need to step back into their agency rather than to reside in the brittle carapace of their formal position.
Love the idea of accompanying – reflexive thinking partner in the everyday whirl 💜
Some thoughts from MARK:
- I experience some difficulty with the ideas of “coaching” and “mentoring” because they are practices that insert themselves into the foundational notion of human beings coming together to speak with one another and to hear each other. Their formality is invested with a power dynamic, as well, regardless of how well one tries to approach it, such as by seeking to start from a Rogerian position of unconditional positive regard. And there distort the potential for exchange by importing models to which the conversations are expected to adhere. (The posting on LinkedIn recently of a document supposedly offering “200 killer coaching questions” underscored for me the artificiality of some practice in this regard.)
- In light of this, I think that coming alongside someone as a thinking partner, seeking to engage in dialogue in the ways in which John and I outline in the book, is an important gift to offer and an authentic way to invite people to speak so as to listen to hear, hear to understand, and understand so as to converse at as deep a level as possible.
What I was wondering is whether you have any thoughts on the extent to which peer pressure prevents people from speaking up; and whether onscreen meetings encourage silence?
Some thoughts from JOHN:
- Peer pressure is an overwhelming force… it is for most of us so much better to belong to a group, however toxic, than become an outcast. And this also touches on the nature of organisations and the extent to which they exist to serve the interests of the dominant group (which is not always those who are nominally ‘in charge’) – rather than the espoused primary task of making things, serving customers, patients etc
- Do on-screen meetings simply reflect existing social practices and norms… this might be part of the answer, but features such as the universal mute button are powerful and other on line qualities seem to have the ethos of the panopticon and its capacity for universal supervision. I have one grim story where in a zoom meeting the senior leader held forth while his number two called people out who were judged not to be showing sufficient attention (cameras of course had to be on). More positively, I was working with the head of an autism network who was able to use the online setting to manage how visible he was, managing for himself the social overload of the meeting
Some thoughts from MARK:
- The regimes of silence that can potentially arise out of the collective are no less oppressive than the expectations of voice derived from the positions of those far above us in the corporate hierarchy. We explore this in some detail in the book, looking at how membership of a group can oftentimes involve a choice to be silent, which can be interpreted of course as being silenced by the undergirding that defines that group.
- Yet those groups also require that occasionally a member says something that runs counter to that group’s foundations. In doing so, they find themselves driven to the boundary of that collective – which serves to reassert that boundary, so as to enhance the silencing cohesion required to retain its integrity as a social entity.
- Being alert to this process and watching out for it allows us to attend to – and potentially challenge – local regimes of silence that can quite easily feel as oppressive as those top-down stipulations around voice that emanate from the senior leadership cadres in corporate life.
There’s a some cool stuff about exploring the discomfort with leaders – Stepping out of comfort zone means to be discomforted… ok.. so… how is that for you? And REALLY acknowledge the challenge to your emotional, physical and spiritual self… agree, John – practice spaces are so helpful – the interplay between safe (comfortable) and unsafe, discomforting means you can really learn and stretch. That’s where I see coaching, Action Learning etc spaces become so vital….
This feels v important to me – we often blindly ‘anoint’ people in hierarchical senior positions as ‘leaders’ – the term is handed out with too little thought about what it means.
Some thoughts from MARK:
- That transition from a focus on managers to an obsession now with leaders seems to me to be largely an ideological shift. The inexactitude that haunts the conceptualisation of “leadership” allows for people to project a range of things onto it. We have argued that increasingly we are confronted by a leadership distance, wherein those in senior positions are so far away from the business of the business that they have in effect floated free of any meaningful tethers that kept them grounded in practice.
- Instead, they find themselves in a space where they are pursuing a range of epiphenomenal issues, such as concerning themselves with ethereal concepts such as vision, mission, values, strategy, and so on – none of which can be said to have an impact on the people who work in the company to get things done. Indeed, it seems moot as to whether these pursuits have any impact in the firm whatsoever.
As a voice and personal impact coach with GameShift, I am fascinated and challenged by how people’s voices can be encouraged or silenced by the ‘other in the room.’ ‘A look can silence a voice’ A look can also silence a room. How we show up physically and behaviourally (body language, voice tone, eye contact, etc) makes a huge difference, both as ‘listener’ as well as for the speaker. Part of moving out of our comfort zone is exploring our impact on others, and discovering effective behavioural and linguistic choices to ensure we invite others to speak, and also are truly heard. And how we can ensure our very presence can encourage others to speak.
Some thoughts from MARK:
- An erstwhile CEO of our acquaintance tells the story of being in a morning meeting where someone was presenting a paper. At one point, they recount, they involuntarily raised their eyebrow. By the afternoon, the company was rife with rumours that the CEO had rejected the paper and torn into the person presenting it.
- There is a psychodynamic element to this which also needs to be taken into account. When he was annoyed, my late father would retreat into a silence that could be felt around the house. The tension that he was carrying in such circumstances was tangible; his jaw muscles would tighten and his eyes would become set in a steely gaze. This withdrawal was intensely impactful – and affected me in my working life. When an extremely taciturn, thoughtful and somewhat affectless senior leader joined the organisation in which I worked, I was literally filled with dread on each occasion that I had to go and meet him.
How to stay open-hearted, and present while part of you experiences the other as a threat (no matter how irrational this is). Breathing helps!
I imagine most us on this call inherently rate stepping into discomfort and the various ways we enable/disable this. Its part and parcel of our work and the paradigm we swim around in 🏊🏽 But its feels SO different to others and I know for some of my uber-stretched, frazzled clients they’re thinking “I’ve got enough discomfort going on in my role/life…how can I create space for any more?! “Its counter-intuitive…
It’s a reminder how important it is that leaders have a space to not be OK, to find themselves accepted as they are, in the mess, so they can find their balance and then provide it to others. It takes courage to stand still in the face of opposition and not get knocked over.
I’ve been practicing doing less for years – with mixed results!! I find it hugely challenging to go with this flow, particularly financially. I feel that people on lower incomes are particularly vulnerable to the pressures of keeping silent. (Implied) threats against speaking out when you need to meet financial commitments, weighs heavy.
Some thoughts from MARK:
- We are all of us constrained by the dull compulsion of the economic. But it is absolutely right to acknowledge the presence of precariousness in the workplace – and how that impacts the ability for people to speak up.
Agree with John… slowing down, time to digest… breathing regulates the nervous system, allowing us to become truly resource ourselves. I have a hunch it also invites self-discovery and vulnerability? Makes me think of Keats ‘Negative capability: ‘being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without irritable reaching after fact or reason.’ Not easy. Hugely powerful
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends”… “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
