A question-less Q&A section of a design review session or a PRD discussion is a red flag for a team that is expected to accomplish great things. In the short term, while running fast and building features rapidly, nothing seems problematic, such quietness may easily go unnoticed. Yet, over time, an unquestioning team is likely to pose problems. Your role as a team leader if you’re one while dealing with many things, is also to pay attention to the way people convey their ideas and feedback and to the environment in which they choose to stay silent. Since enabling people to do what they do is your primary objective, you should be on the lookout all the time to keep the pulse on the fire of dialogue and let it burn constantly.

As a founder, you need to face rather ugly truths from time to time. As your company scales, your role evolves, and you stop doing certain things yourself and start delegating. Easier said than done, you hand over the power of making decisions to others, mostly to the people of your choosing. The things that are expected from you change, you drift away from the everyday work of your “product”, and you need to cede decision power to those you picked to take your solutions further, sometimes in a different direction than you envisioned. At this intersection, there are subtle underlying motives at play that may affect your trajectory. If you’re after a successful run, you pick professionals with a strong sense of ownership, who stand up against you when you’re wrong for the sake of your product. This only happens if you have created a culture where discussion is always welcome and even your suggestions or ideas can be challenged. Those who you grant your powers to take your product will build a better product collectively if there is an open podium where everything can be discussed.

However, silence is the ultimate success killer. When silence gets hold of the rooms, there are mostly two main reasons. One, silence is the expectation. Two, silence is the end result.

Silence as an expectation. Some founders and organisations built in a way that almost mandates utter silence, where the founding team is so convinced of its ideas and simply expects everyone to just execute them. This kind of thinking naturally brings silence to discussions, and it is well appreciated, even rewarded. If founders are really, really good at what they do, there might be a chance of success. But, this rarely happens, and mostly the amount of good ideas that a founding team carry with them has a hard limit. But, starting with an expectation of silence and recruiting a team according to such an expectation defines the underlying culture, permeating every aspect of the business. It gets to be an undeniable component of an organisation. “Once silent, always silent” becomes the motto. And it proves that it’s quite hard to overturn it when you need people to speak and own their ideas.

Silence as a result. Though some founders and organisations portray that dialectic is wanted from the outset and open discussion is one of the pillars that they value the most, they brutally choose, sometimes deliberately and sometimes unknowingly, to crush every idea due to a lack of empathy. This is more pernicious because leaders may easily miss the root causes of the resulting silence. Ego may easily turn talented people deaf to ideas and it gets quite hard for team leaders to pinpoint the root cause and resolve the issue if this is the case. Many organisations operate quite differently than how they describe their work culture, some do this to create a talent magnet while others have no chance of changing the DNA of their founding teams and established culture.

If expected, there is no panacea for silence. But when it’s a result of certain behaviours, if you can catch cues and sense that there is a mood change and people start to speak less and less, there may be a couple of things that can be done.

Give even the most off-topic ideas airtime. For some, it’s hard to do. For others, it may be quite boring to listen to awful ideas. Yet, from your townhall meetings to 5 min catch-up calls, at every level, you can paint a picture which subtly hints that every idea deserves to be heard. You push to fix the culture, bit by bit, to make everyone feel comfortable speaking their mind.

Show their contributions implemented. This is harder to do, but more effective when done. Proving to people that their ideas may well be employed if they’re good enough gives the ultimate boost. Not just letting the ideas flow, but reminding your team that their ideas are now put in place after a while will only make you a better manager. No matter its origin, every good idea has its place. People seeing this, seeing their ideas turning into action will do their best, sometimes at the expense of objecting to you, to do something great. And this is the best thing that could happen.

Prove sharing ideas and open communication is the key. The airtime of interactions any one of us gets with each other radically diminishes as organisations scale up. Therefore, you cannot singlehandedly show that ideas matter all by yourself. If you’re after a cultural shift, it’s a good idea to devise rituals around different aspects of your organisation, where open dialogue is the key theme, which would power up your efforts, driving everyone to better understand how ideas, not individuals or titles are valued.

It all starts with noticing. Actually, well before that, it starts with knowing beforehand and constructing a culture accordingly. Yet, once noticed, if noticed, which is a hard thing to do, do not let silence be the norm, becoming a defining element of the interactions that take place in your team, in your organisation. Silence may be sought in life sometimes, but not while you’re building a product.