Most organizations are hampered by “organizational silence” which is a potentially dangerous phenomenon and a huge barrier in the workplace. Organization silence is when employees fail to speak up regarding issues when they acknowledge something is wrong. Although many things factor into this “silence” it is often employees aren’t honest when asked there opinion in fear of consequence and also managers may factor out the negative feedback, not seeing it as creditable. If managers aren’t listening to there employees and considering each opinion creditable; why would an employee voice his or her concerns?
If you are not listening to your employees, you are turning on the entire system. The employees are in the trenches and have a better understanding of the pros and cons of an organization than the management. When you filter out negative opinions and stop trying to making the system work better, you will ultimately be headed in the wrong direction. If you get to many people in one organization that are all thinking alike you will end up with “group think” and we have seen how that turns out.
So ultimately it is the responsibility of management to convey an open door policy when it comes to positive or negative suggestions. At my company, we have a “suggestion box” and a monetary award is given for a suggestion that the company ends up implementing. If you suggestion isn’t implemented you receive a letter stating acknowledging your idea and encouraging continued support. It takes work and it isn’t easy, our system can be improved upon and it continues to get better. The employees need to be honest and speak up while the management needs to make the environment safe open to constructive criticism in order to constantly shape the system.
