The Sound of Silence

“Hello darkness, my old friend.”

Those opening words from Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence have been with us for more than half a century. It's a song I've heard countless times, yet its message seems just as relevant now as it was when it first appeared. We live in a world where everybody seems to have something to say, where opinions arrive before the question has finished being asked, and where conversations can go on for hours without anybody really listening. All that noise can make it surprisingly difficult to hear anything that matters.

I've spent much of my working life in rooms where some people seemed to have an answer for everything. I've usually been more inclined to sit back, listen and work out what I think before joining in. That doesn't mean I've had nothing to say. On some occasions, I've decided it was better to remain quiet. On others, I've said what I thought needed saying and discovered that people don't always welcome the message, particularly when it challenges something they've already decided.

There seems to be an assumption that the person who talks most has the most to contribute. In meetings, confidence can be mistaken for knowledge, speed for intelligence and an immediate answer for a considered one. The person who pauses may be thinking through the implications, weighing up the evidence or wondering whether the question itself makes sense. Meanwhile, somebody else has already supplied an answer and moved the discussion on.

There seems to be an assumption that the person who talks most has the most to contribute. In meetings, confidence can be mistaken for knowledge, speed for intelligence and an immediate answer for a considered one.

Anyone who works with data will recognise the danger. A question is asked, a number is produced, a chart appears in a presentation, and everyone feels that progress has been made. Yet the number may not measure what people think it measures, the chart may conceal as much as it reveals, and the original question may have been the wrong one. I've spent years teaching statistics and research methods, and one lesson keeps returning: getting an answer is often the easy part. Knowing what the answer actually tells you takes rather more thought.

Sometimes the most useful contribution is to point out that the evidence doesn't support the conclusion everyone seems keen to reach. That can be an unpopular intervention. People may have invested time, money and reputations in a particular course of action, and a question about its foundations can feel like an attack on the whole enterprise. Yet ignoring a weakness doesn't make it go away. It simply allows the consequences to develop without the benefit of having addressed it.

I suspect many of us have encountered the colleague who can turn almost any discussion into a demonstration of their own expertise. They have a view on every subject, an answer to every question and an explanation for every occasion on which events fail to match their predictions. There are others who know a great deal but aren't inclined to advertise it. The latter can be easy to underestimate, particularly in organisations that reward presentation more readily than substance.

For all the value of taking time to think, though, being quiet isn't always a choice made freely. Sometimes it comes from learning what happens when you disagree.

For all the value of taking time to think, though, being quiet isn't always a choice made freely. Sometimes it comes from learning what happens when you disagree.

I've known what it's like to challenge decisions and question accepted positions in an organisation. The response isn't always to examine the point being made. Attention can shift to the person making it, with questions about their attitude, motives or ability to work with others. The original concern gets lost while the individual who raised it becomes the subject of discussion.

It's a neat way of changing the subject without having to admit that you're doing so.

Over time, people notice the pattern. They remember who was labelled difficult, whose concerns were brushed aside and who found themselves paying a price for refusing to go along with things. The next time a questionable decision comes along, they may decide that keeping their thoughts to themselves is the sensible option. They have families to support, careers to consider and enough problems without volunteering for another.

I understand that calculation. Knowing something needs to be challenged doesn't mean you can be certain that challenging it will make any difference. There comes a point when you have to weigh the value of pursuing an issue against the consequences for yourself. That isn't necessarily cowardice or indifference. Sometimes it's a judgement made by someone who has learned how things work.

There comes a point when you have to weigh the value of pursuing an issue against the consequences for yourself. That isn't necessarily cowardice or indifference. Sometimes it's a judgement made by someone who has learned how things work.

The trouble begins when an organisation mistakes the resulting lack of opposition for agreement. Meetings become more harmonious, decisions pass with less scrutiny and reports can present a reassuring picture of progress. Senior managers may conclude that a policy is working because nobody is telling them otherwise. They might never realise that the people best placed to identify its shortcomings have decided that raising them is pointless.

An organisation can therefore become less informed at precisely the moment it becomes more confident. The information reaching those at the top has been filtered, not necessarily by deliberate deception, but by a succession of people deciding which details are safe to share. Difficult messages are softened, reservations are dropped and inconvenient facts are left out. By the time the account reaches the decision maker, it may bear only a passing resemblance to what people on the ground are seeing.

This is why I pay more attention to what happens when someone challenges a decision than to the promises made in a policy about openness. Anyone can say they welcome honest feedback. The real test comes when that feedback questions a senior person's judgement, threatens a cherished project or exposes a problem that has been ignored for too long. Does the organisation look at the evidence, or does it look for a way to deal with the person who brought it to light?

The answer tells us a great deal about its culture.

Confidentiality can play a part in this story, too, particularly when non disclosure agreements, or NDAs, enter the picture.

There are sound reasons for keeping some information private. Commercial agreements may contain sensitive details, personal information deserves protection, and there are circumstances in which everyone involved benefits from confidentiality. Nobody should assume that every agreement is designed to conceal wrongdoing.

But confidentiality and accountability are not the same thing. An agreement intended to protect sensitive information can also leave someone feeling unable to discuss what happened to them, even when their experience raises legitimate questions about an organisation's conduct. The line between protecting privacy and protecting a reputation deserves scrutiny.

confidentiality and accountability are not the same thing. An agreement intended to protect sensitive information can also leave someone feeling unable to discuss what happened to them, even when their experience raises legitimate questions about an organisation's conduct.

What exactly is being kept confidential? Is it information that could reasonably harm someone if disclosed, or is the organisation worried about how it might look if the account became public? Those are different concerns, even if the paperwork looks much the same.

For an individual, challenging an agreement can be daunting. Legal advice costs money, the wording may be difficult to interpret, and the organisation on the other side may have lawyers and resources that the individual simply doesn't possess. Someone who has already had a difficult experience at work may decide that the price of pursuing the matter is more than they can afford, financially or personally.

That doesn't mean every employee with a grievance is right. Memories differ, accounts can be incomplete, and an accusation is not proof. Nor does an NDA, by itself, establish that an organisation has behaved improperly. But the absence of public criticism proves very little, too, when the people involved may have good reason to stay silent.

What troubles me is the possibility that managing the story becomes more important than understanding what happened. If an organisation concentrates on preventing criticism from becoming public while neglecting the reasons for it, it may protect its immediate reputation without learning anything from the experience. Others within the organisation may draw their own conclusions and decide that discretion is the safest policy, even when they encounter a problem that needs to be addressed.

If an organisation concentrates on preventing criticism from becoming public while neglecting the reasons for it, it may protect its immediate reputation without learning anything from the experience.

We end up with a strange contradiction. Organisations publish statements about transparency, encourage staff to raise concerns and insist that they want an open culture. Yet when somebody brings forward a difficult truth, the response can reveal that openness has limits. People are welcome to speak, it seems, provided their words don't create too much inconvenience.

And so we return to Simon and Garfunkel.

The power of The Sound of Silence lies in the gap between the appearance of communication and the reality of being understood. Its world isn't short of words. People are surrounded by them, yet the connection that should make those words meaningful is missing. The song captures something that can happen anywhere, including the workplace: people talk, meetings take place, messages are exchanged, and still the thing that most needs to be heard goes unrecognised.

We often tell people to find their voice, as though the responsibility for communication rests entirely with the person who has something to say. But what use is finding your voice if nobody is prepared to listen? What encouragement is there in an invitation to be honest if honesty is rewarded with suspicion or punishment? And what does an organisation learn when the people who know its problems best decide that telling the truth is no longer worth the effort?

what does an organisation learn when the people who know its problems best decide that telling the truth is no longer worth the effort?

I've been the person who sat quietly and thought about what was being said. I've also been the person who challenged things and found that the response was not what I'd hoped for. Neither experience has convinced me that the loudest voice deserves the greatest attention. Sometimes the most important contribution is the one that takes a little longer to arrive. Sometimes the warning we most need is the one we'd rather not hear.

The saddest outcome is when people stop trying to make themselves understood, not because they have nothing to contribute, but because experience has taught them that their words won't change anything. The meetings continue, the presentations get delivered and the official story remains intact. Everyone can hear the conversation. What has disappeared is the willingness to listen.

Simon and Garfunkel gave that failure a name. We may fill our days with discussion, insist that our doors are open and congratulate ourselves on how well we communicate. But if we cannot hear what people are trying to tell us, if we silence the voices that challenge us and mistake the absence of disagreement for contentment, all that talking can leave us exactly where we started.

And that's the sound of silence.