Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I was once told that “silence is agreement” and that “everyone who has a brain knows that.” I disagree. Silence is silence. If you want to know what is behind silence, ask.

It was 20 years ago. I had sat through some meeting on some forgotten topic where I rolled my eyes quietly at the, what I strongly believed, nonsense that was proposed and adopted. A week later, I presented a different idea in another meeting. It was as if I had fill-in-the-blank-with-something-horrid. I was pulled aside and firmly told:

You were in the meeting. You didn’t say anything, and silence is agreement.

What? Silence is agreement? Yes. Everyone knew that. I knew that, I was silent, I agreed and turned coat on everyone there. I should be ashamed.

Well, no one had told me that rule. Besides, that rule didn’t make any sense. How could silence be agreement? Silently nodding yes could be agreement, but silently sitting still? Agreement?

I recently read something about meetings and working through conflict. The advice was,

Treat silence as disagreement.

The idea is that if someone sits silently in a meeting, stop and ask them what they think about the topic of discussion. Ask them specifically if they agree or disagree or something else (there is always something else). No assumptions; no unwritten rules.

Here, now, I will write a Rule:

Silence is silence.

If you want to know what is behind silence, ask.