As an interactive speaker and teacher, I begin to fret about those who are not speaking up. Time and time again, my internal voice tells me things like:
“They’ve checked out.”
“They don’t like the topic.”
“They don’t like me.”
“They are not ‘getting’ it.”
Invariably, this happens: Sometime afterwards (and it may be immediately or several months later), one of the “quiet ones” approaches me with a deep insight or a compelling question about the topic. You see, I thought quiet meant unengaged. Quiet actually meant very engaged mentally and not so much verbally. Quiet meant taking the information in more deeply. It meant thinking before speaking or acting.
Because of its nature, silence and quiet and reflection tend to be less valued in our loud, busy, outwardly focused culture. Recently, Roberta Matuson shared her thoughts in a Fast Company article on 5 reasons quietness buoys productivity.
Perhaps our challenge as leaders is not to challenge the quiet ones to speak up but to encourage the outspoken ones to learn from the quiet ones. To listen, to absorb, to think, to ponder and then finally to speak or act.
I’m interested to know…..as a leader, what do you do to encourage silence, quiet, reflection and deeper thought?
One Response
Hello Kris,
Well written and right on the conclusion. My personnel practice is to allow a short amount of time to pass and then to engage in private with the quiet ones. From this I learn whether they were among the disengaged or engaged, proceeding accordingly from there.
Tom Klos