I recently read this HBR article by David Maxfield, on How a Culture of Silence Eats Away at Your Company. No surprise, there were some shocking statistics in the article such as:' 90% of nurses don’t speak up to a physician even when they know a patient’s safety is at risk. .... 93% of people say their organization is at risk of an accident waiting to happen because people are either unwilling or unable to speak up." or that the costs of these silences was so high ' The average person estimated the cost of silence at $7,500, and 20% of our sample estimated the cost of avoiding a difficult conversation to be more than $50,000. " While these numbers are shocking, this syndrome is decades old. I see this as a solid leadership problem. As the article suggests, there are ways to overcome this problem. However, the solutions are not instinctive, and really need to be learned and practiced. Individuals and teams need to learn how to cr...
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