Dear Critical Skills,
Yesterday I had a conversation with my corporate and public affairs team of ten about critical conversations. While examining our Communication Styles Under Stress, eight out of ten of my team realized that they resort to silence in stressful situations. Is the lack of an even distribution of silence/violence in the team a major concern for us?Or, now that we know each other's style of communicating under stress, can we recognize the signs and make the environment safe? Can you give us some guidance on this?Signature,
In Silence
Dear In Silence,
So you are in charge of a team that goes completely silent under stress. What does that mean? What needs to be done? Let me share some of my thoughts and perspectives on this issue.
The Your Communication Style Under Stress test is a self-reported questionnaire ( click here for the questionnaire), available at successprogramme.com under the "Resources" tab in the "Mini-Surveys" section. The test is free of charge. When you find yourself in a critical conversation, it determines whether you are prone to silence or violence.
Silence is when people keep their ideas and thoughts to themselves. This includes "spinning" or "watering down" their ideas so as not to reveal them fully. Sometimes it means not sharing anything and withdrawing.
Violence is an attempt to force others to do something through attempts to control, disrespect or harsh, verbal attacks.
The cost of silence is enormous. When the meeting becomes stressful and team members become withdrawn, don't fully defend their ideas, or trivialize issues, problems cannot be solved, progress is too slow, and innovation and creativity become almost impossible.
I recommend that you try to get your team to adopt dialog as a working principle. The goal is for meaning to flow freely, uninfluenced by defensiveness, anxiety or political calculations. The goal is to be open, honest and 100 percent respectful in all your communications, to be helpful and not hurt. This perseverance can help people develop a whole new way of looking at communication.
"The way to overcome the silence is to open up people's views and
to make it safe for them to express their ideas."
Common Purpose is created when team members decide and are encouraged to use dialog in their communication with each other. This is one of the basic conditions for safety. Another fundamental condition of security is fulfilled when team members respect each other: Mutual Respect.
CRITICAL CONVERSATIONS TRAINING
When you see disrespect between team members, immediately bring it to the attention of the team and the individual in question. For example, if Bill disrespected Jill, say, "Before we go on to talk about the budget, I want to talk about what just happened."
Then describe what actually happened. "Bill, you expressed your opinion, but when Jill disagreed you called her a coward."
Compare what is happening now with what you expected to happen. "We had decided as a team to respect each other." Explain your opinion about Bill's comment. "I think what you said crossed the line."
Finally, invite Bill to share his view. "Bill, how do you see this situation?"
By confronting disrespect immediately, you create a new norm in your team to talk about it and not tolerate it. This can quickly discipline a team and increase mutual respect.
An important way to encourage quiet members of the team to participate is to invite them to participate. Ask them individually for their views and ideas. Here are a few examples:
"Linus, do you think there's a problem with this deadline?"
"Sasha, we haven't heard your opinion on this; could you please share it?"
"Phil, you rolled your eyes when Mary said she didn't have enough staff on hand. Don't you agree?"
By inviting team members to participate, you create an expectation of participation and reduce the likelihood of team members hiding. You are creating a new team norm and breaking the usual silence.
While helping team members overcome silence by engaging in dialog, I would also recommend developing the team's skills through trainings or by starting a book club.
It takes a lot of effort to move a team from patterns of silence to active dialog, but rest assured, the focus and discipline will pay off.
Sincerely,
Ron McMillan