I was never a huge Simon and Garfunkel fan but there are a few songs of theirs that really stood out for me as I was growing up.
One of them is The Sounds of Silence.
It’s a haunting vision of the future.
And it swirled in my head as I read an article by Chris Murman. Chris is a friend and colleague that I find incredibly thoughtful about his (and others) agile journeys. But the article I found was published in September 2017, so nearly a year ago. And unfortunately, I missed it.
The article is entitled – What Can You Do About Organizational Silence?
And it focuses on a common corporate cultural phenomenon where the following occurs:
Leaders drive most of the “thinking”
Alternate ideas are not brought up
Discussion and debate are not realized
Disagreement with the status quo is discouraged
Creative ideas aren’t even suggested
And where silence, connoting tacit agreement, is the norm.