The Silence Trap

I coached a senior director who was frustrated that people didn’t seem to listen to him in leadership meetings.

It wasn’t a communication problem. In every meeting, he’d listen carefully, process the information, formulate a response. But by the time he’d cleared his own internal bar for whether it was worth saying, the moment had passed.

His silence felt like thoughtfulness to him. To everyone else, it looked like he had nothing to add.

I asked him: when someone else in a meeting isn’t saying anything, what do you think about them?

“I don’t really think about them.”

The bar for contributing is much lower than the bar you’ve set for yourself. Everyone else is just saying things. You’re waiting to say the perfect thing.

What did you almost say in your last meeting but didn’t?