Listening to the unspoken: how to interpret a silent co-worker

So let me try some keys, starting from the importance of silence in conversation, from what we have to do, to open up sufficient space for others to express themselves. And also to let ourselves flow (in a reflexive sense): I normally use the distinction between being silent and being silent. Being silent means not saying anything, but if I am focused on myself, on my emotions and thoughts, on how to articulate a response, it is an egoic silence. To really leave space in conversation, we have to be silent; not only do I not speak, but I seek inner silence as emptiness, as space that can contain, if not the whole, at least in part the other in conversation.

Then there is, precisely, listening to the silence of others. And here perhaps the distinction between the two 'Latin verbs taceo and sileo - with the tendency to understand the first as the absence of speech, as opposed therefore to loqui, and the second as the simple absence of sound', as Antonio Prete writes in his 'Del Silenzio', can help us.

Tornando ai nostri colloqui, che interpretazione dare all’interlocutore che non parla? E non intendo “scena muta”, ma una somma minima di micro-comportamenti di ascolto attivo e apparente assenso, ma non supportati da nessun tipo di verbalizzazione particolare, o da poche cortesi parole di circostanza, prive di qualunque contenuto personale. In questi casi il silenzio viene vissuto dai manager come funzionale alla relazione, e raramente vedo chiedersi: ma il “collaboratore” che non mi dice niente di significativo, sta tacendo o sta facendo silenzio? Come distinguerli se fisicamente si palesano nello stesso modo? E son domande importanti, perché se sta facendo silenzio potrebbe servire lasciare spazio per pensieri, emozioni, o magari qualche suggestione / domanda per stimolare il pensiero stesso, o l’espressione delle emozioni. Ma se sta tacendo, c’è dietro una volontà che è pericoloso, dal punto di vista relazionale, non provare ad indagare. All’interno di un colloquio, in cui magari si st

While the proverb may be true in an equal relationship, one has to make a distinction in a hierarchically odd relationship such as that between a boss and a co-worker. And I am not just talking about command/control styles, but also in relational situations generally based on confrontation and dialogue. If, when possible critical points or difficulties emerge, they are not accepted but sent back to the sender without being investigated, it is difficult for a co-worker not to oppose a silence that is in fact silence. Borgna says "silence and silence cross the border into each other, and it is not easy to distinguish them except by immersing ourselves in our own interiority (...) but how can we recognise it in others?

He goes on with typical tools of his trade; I merely suggest, without any claim to universality, a couple of practical tools. The first, the use of keeping quiet in our turn. In the literal sense of keeping quiet, of resisting the temptation of our word, to give time for the other to emerge. To give you an idea, in reasoning about after-the-fact interviews with managers, I often start with a brutally quantitative observation: who spoke more, the manager or the employee? And how much more? I leave you to imagine the answer.

Alternatively, if the temptation to loquaciousness is irresistible, at least articulate it qualitatively in questions: have I tried to elaborate on any doubts, or have I answered them immediately, effectively silencing them? If I have answered, have I then taken care to ask explicitly what remains 'open' in the employee's doubts? Have I asked for a clear assent to what we are trying to share? Or have I checked what seems to the employee to be largely feasible, and what he thinks might be difficult? And if I have not done so, is it really for fear of fuelling doubts instead of allaying them, or because, deep down, 'if you don't want to know answers, better not to ask questions'?

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