Think about how silence is used or abused. It is a powerful communication tool.
Silence may be used as a weapon or as a tool. It is our responsibility to consciously choose how to use it in each of our engagements.
“Don’t Ignore Silence Cause It Has A Sound. When It Starts Speaking, Its Louder Than Thousand Volcanoes….” ― Muhammad Imran Hasan
The 2020 theme of identity continues with my exploration. Knowing who we are, our footing, in every interaction offers increased awareness of how to listen.
In the Kickass Koach podcast episode dropped October 19th, I share a few angles on the power of silence including how my parents would remind me how golden it could be when I overwhelmed them with my chatter and how recently I experienced feeling silenced.
For the newsletter, I focus on how each of us often silences our self to avoid being vulnerable. This may be more common for women who are frequently criticized for expressing openly. Women are often accused of being the “explainers”. Often this is used to silence them.
Finally, in this post I dig more deeply into the power of silence by examining when it is golden, threatening, limiting or even deafening.
Listening to the Silence – it is Golden
Silence is golden in so many ways. I recall learning to use it as a negotiating ploy. When we lay out our case and patiently wait for a response, the silence, while difficult to hold, forces the other side to speak. This technique can be manipulative. It can be very useful when used responsibly.
Silence becomes golden when the absence of distracting noise disappears. Just this morning, I opened a tab in my browser to listen to the news before toggling back to work on responding to e-mail messages. A particularly confusing message was beginning to annoy me when I suddenly realized I couldn’t think over the loud voices on the news. I quickly paused the news and went back to my work and in the silence I could hear myself think. This made comprehension, process and responding far easier. It reminded me that we often fail to appreciate silence until it is a rare occurrence. Still there are times when a bit of jazz in the background can help me think more clearly. In other words, this is complex.
Listening to the Silence – a Weapon
How could silence be a weapon? Forced silence is a way of eliminating important voices. Much like solitary confinement, it can be crazy-making.
My father wasn’t much of a talker. I always admired him for his ability to listen. I remember how he would listen to me for hours when we did a project together. It continually amazed me how he would ask a question or make a comment to tie a bow around my feeling or desired solution.
In the years since he died, my mother agreed with my observation. She saw my experiences in her own. One day she told me about how hard it was to live with a man who valued silence as extremely as he did. It was interesting to hear how much she wished he had shared or verbalized his thoughts more openly. While rare, she did talk about how sometimes it felt like he used silence as a weapon. Not sharing what he intended to do, left her wondering and anxious.
My mother’s admission moved me to thinking about workplaces where leaders hoard information. Seeing information as power, employees were often left unsure and anxious much as my mother was. During this pandemic I have worked with leaders who have come to realize that performance will improve, the more employees feel their employers are open and transparent.
Citizens see this in their relationships with governments too. Currently a few provincial premiers in Canada are feeling the heat for declaring they’re transparency while requiring advisors to sign NDAs. In Alberta an employee on the public health advisory team leaked a recording of private meetings to demonstrate how non-transparent the premier’s office has been. Silence, when we are all feeing under threat, proves disastrous. Not simply when committed by the Trump Administration in the USA.
Listening to the Silence that Limits and Holds Small
I grew up in a weird culture. My parents were part of the most liberal sect of this Christian Faith. Women had been mainly subjugated, as in many Christina religious traditions. In the more orthodox versions, women sat in church separated from men by a curtain, they wore head coverings and specific kinds of dresses (never pants) and they were silenced. In other words, they were not allowed to speak in certain contexts.
When I was in University I spent a lot of time with a guy who was a member of one of the more orthodox congregations just north of Waterloo. He invited me to join him one Sunday for services. upon arrival he showed me into a room just off from the sanctuary. People were sitting in a circle and discussing theology. More than anything, I was curious. I knew most of the traditions in theory but hadn’t experienced many.
I’m not a shy person. Something was being discussed and I offered an insight. On that day, my willingness to speak up and out was NOT appreciated. My speaking offended and hence silenced all the men who were “free” to speak. My friend leaned over and whispered to me that women were not permitted to speak in this forum. While he could have told me that prior to taking a seat, I realized, soon there after, that our relationship and this moment were intended as acts of rebellion. That day, and other less dramatic moments in my life, have revealed to me the power of limiting voices as a way to hold certain people’s value small.
Life is one big Experiment
While most liberally minded people value free speech and thought for everyone, we must never take it for granted. Life is an experimentation of pushing boundaries to test them. allowing or welcoming the voices of many and still valuing the benefits of silent contemplation is a constant exploration. How we recognize the value of the individual and the community is influenced by our life experience, preferences and engagement with our fellow humans. Perhaps we benefit from exploring each of these perspectives. In doing so we shift how we see the world and each other – one experience to the next .
Continuous learning and fresh insights are the goal of the experimental approach. What will the evidence teach us? Moreover, this approach is generative in addition to being iterative. With an experimental collaborative approach, we may find progress is faster and we go further. In collaboration we can crack this, but only together with a willingness to learn and honour the data and the stories will we arrive where we seek to go.
We may be capable of more closely monitoring and learning from our choices and decisions and build capacity to adjust our actions to meet the current situation. Then, we may influence how things unfold. There’s a difference between wanting something and making something happen. With the mindset necessary to perform under pressure we’re able to influence results more deeply. This mindset that relies on clarity, curiosity and a resilient spirit we accept no excuses, only meaningful results. Furthermore, it’s essential we learn to evaluate the risk of any action, removing the very human emotions that cloud our judgment.
Walk with me.
Together let’s examine options consciously and authentically to make choices that move us strategically toward where we want to be. Where may client wants to go is my paramount focus. Strategy is a about choices. Execution on these choices requires masterful performance. Furthermore, a well-developed process allows us to enjoy the journey far more fully
Be part of the journey in 2020.
Start by subscribing to my mailing list . Subscribers receive:
- My interactive exercise to begin reducing the impacts of stress and feelings of overwhelm will be sent.
- My newsletter with the related podcast episode will be sent weekly.
- Special offers will be available to subscribers monthly including: a random offer of a complimentary one hour coaching conversation, access to roundtable engagements and group coaching on identity and related subjects, as well as information on an initiative on which I’m collaborating: #FeMasCon.
Breaking Silence – Our Impact (BYI) Banked
The System
The Bank Your Impact (BYI) System is about both developing and embedding self-awareness. Furthermore, the benefits of expanded resilience, connections built on understanding the impact of belonging and an ability to bolster a professional and authentic presence are foundational. Perhaps more than the other two, developing a foundational resilience is critical to with standing that which moves us into burnout.
The current system incorporates 1:1 coaching, roundtable conversations; eventually I’ll add a neuro-social learning experience (currently only available in organizational contracts but will be added to the system for individual engagement in 2021). My approach is based on the ICF (International Coaching Federation) standards. I’m meeting you (my clients) where you are, both as the coaching agreement begins, and in the moment that exists at the time of each conversation. Progress or growth is not a straight line. The ICA model is the framework for every conversation: Issue/Insight, Choice/Commitment, Action/Accountability. Over the past year I’ve been tightening the model to meet the needs of my clients.
Holding space to support my clients in:
- Developing meaningful insights
- Expanding/deepening perspective on those insights
- Building/designing a practice to try on new ways of being/seeing OR experiment for discovery
- Assessing progress, becoming agile in transfer of learning and application before developing additional insights
An organic experience
The experience is tailored around what you bring to each conversation, in my experience, there are common themes that arise including: self-awareness, mindfulness, mindset, communication, connections, and attitude. Self-awareness stands alone but is also a foundational theme. I have registered upwards of 40 sub-concepts that fit under each of these categories. Furthermore, I bring tools, skills and techniques to respond and guide our work together, informed by positive psychology, neuroscience, and management/leadership research.
Walk With Me, to Where You Want to Be
In all my blog posts in 2019, you will find this section outlines what brought me to this area of focus: supporting people in the early to middle part of their career as a #performance #coach.
Feel like you’re living someone else’s destiny?
If that’s working for you, great. If it isn’t or it starts to be a problem, reach out. I welcome a conversation.
Willing to do the work to find more meaning?
With the skills to unpack the emotions and barriers and triggers and mindset challenges with the skills in my BYI system, participants begin to see the impact in their career and finally begin to discover what matters most to them. The bonus: they begin to see a path to get there. Join me… My system is intended to be meaningful, relevant, accessible and affordable. With that in mind, there are many ways to engage with me. Below are TWO ways to start, without spending a dime.
Walk with Me!
- BOOK a complimentary exploratory 1:1 conversation 20-30 minutes.
- SUBSCRIBE to my mailing list. You’ll receive an interactive exercise that you may use to reduce and manage stress or feelings of overwhelm. PLUS each week you’ll receive my podcast and reflections in your inbox AND you’ll be invited to monthly webinars and roundtable conversations.
In closing, I love bringing learning experiences to workplaces that are interested in raising their performance and encouraging their people.
- Book me to speak at your conference or to a group in your organization. My workshops on building resilience, improving workplace outcomes through relationships, and increasing performance are big hits! In 2020 I’ve added a few workshops on gender engagement – how, by knocking off the boxes that limit us by gender we all find our capacity expands.