The cost of silence at work

A version of this article originally appeared in Quartz’s Leadership newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest leadership news and insights straight to your inbox.

You’ve probably seen or participated in this dance before: One partner in an effort to be “chill” or easy to get along with rarely complains or makes specific requests of their partner.

But periodically, the second partner expresses concerns or pain points within the relationship. It could be as significant as buying property or a vehicle without involving the other in the decision, or as seemingly minor as leaving a dirty dish by the sink.

I’ve been working with married or otherwise partnered individuals and couples as a relationship coach for several years. This is as common a scenario as you’ll find among long-term partners.

The partner who speaks up is frustrated because their concerns go unaddressed; seem to fall on deaf ears; or are met with a defensive response that implies their “complaining” is the real problem. I’m not so bad! I’m way better than my father was, and way better than other guys I know!

The “chill” partner is frustrated because it feels like nothing they give is ever good enough. Everyone else seems to like them, but their spouse is always picking out some flaw, they think, while they go out of their way to not ask for much or “complain” about them.

In short: One person expresses needs, and feels hurt because those needs go unmet. The other doesn’t express needs in an effort to be easy to get along with, and feels hurt because their non-communicated needs also go unmet.

Everyone resents it, and before you know it, two people who used to love each other and get along famously are now uprooting their lives to untangle themselves from one another in one of the most stressful and painful life changes they will ever experience.

This exact dynamic quietly results in burnout, conflict, and underperformance at work.

Lack of trust is the root cause; silence is the symptom

“Most organizations treat unexpressed needs as an individual communication failure (‘just speak up!’) when it's actually a cultural failure, said Chris Mefford, CEO of Culture Force, a leadership development and consulting firm. “The environment hasn’t been built to make that kind of honesty safe or rewarded.”

Mefford, a former executive at Dave Ramsey’s organization, and his Culture Force co-founder Kyle Buckett, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, co-authored the book Leadership is Overrated. In the book, they make the case that you don’t fix organizations by fixing leaders, but rather addressing the form of leadership itself.

“You can’t train people to communicate their needs better in a culture that punishes or ignores those needs,” Mefford said. “And the cost is staggering. Only about 20% of the world's workers are actually engaged, and the U.S. loses up to $605 billion in productivity annually because of it. The biggest driver? The boss. This isn't a soft skills problem, it's an economic one rooted in broken culture.”

Not unlike marriages and romantic partnerships, sometimes what’s needed to change work culture for the better is the removal of ambiguity.

“First things first, leaders need to clearly and explicitly tell their employees that they want them to express what they need,” said David Joles, COO of PURCOR Pest Solutions. “Sometimes all it takes is for leaders to speak about this in an outward way for employees to know for certain that it’s okay to do. 

“Beyond that, it’s also valuable for leaders to regularly talk to their employees individually and ask them directly if there is anything they need. Often a little bit of prying, in a healthy and non-pressuring way, is what it takes for employees to open up. Over time, as it becomes more and more clear to employees that they can express their needs with positive results, they’ll naturally become more comfortable doing so on their own.”

Employees (and relationship partners!) often fear that “needing something” will be treated as a weakness or an otherwise negative, rather than as useful information for  higher-ups (or spouses).

“Because of this, leaders can’t simply encourage people to speak up about what they need,” said Hanna Miller, a leadership consultant, and founder of Ringmaster Consulting. “Effective need expression is a skill: it requires language, practice, and trust.”

Expressing and responding to workplace needs translates to operational clarity, Miller said.

“When leaders invest time in building shared language and consistently respond to expressed needs with action rather than judgment, trust follows,” Miller said. “People take the risk of being honest because they believe their leaders actually want that information. That’s what encouraging need expression looks like in practice.”

Barbara Robinson, marketing manager at WeatherSolve Structures, spends her work time translating needs between groups of people who speak different professional languages, she said, including engineering teams, sales, and international clients.

“Last quarter we almost lost a $300K contract because our lead engineer couldn't tell me why he needed two additional weeks to do structural calculations, and I couldn't tell the client why the delay was important for their safety standards,” Robinson said. “That breakdown taught me that people's expression of their needs determines whether projects succeed or fall apart.”

How to ask for what you need at work

“In my experience, the quickest way to receive a no is to say ‘I need this because it would be better for me,’” Robinson said. “Instead, link your request to something your manager cares about. 

“When I needed to hire a second copywriter last year, I didn't tell my CEO that I was overwhelmed. I showed him that our content output had declined 35% over the course of six months and we were missing deadlines on three client campaigns. Then I came armed with salary ranges, productivity projections and a 90-day plan to onboard. Managers hear complaints throughout the day. What gets their attention is when you bring solutions.”

Mefford concurred. Unlike our interpersonal relationships, at work we should make need requests operational, not emotional, he said.

“Lead with the outcome: ‘I want to deliver excellent work on this, and to do that I need X $TWTR,’” Mefford said. “That frames your need as alignment with what leadership already wants: results. But none of it works without culture underneath it. 

“Early in my career, promises were broken so often I felt embarrassed for caring. Then I spent almost a decade at the Dave Ramsey organization where trust was a mentality, not a transaction. Nobody wanted to leave. The difference wasn't perks. It was daily acts of care that made expressing a need feel normal, not brave. That's the goal: a culture where telling your boss what you need is as unremarkable as updating a project status. That's the goal. You want to build a culture where telling your boss what you need to do your best work is as unremarkable as updating a project status. Not heroic. Not vulnerable. Just Tuesday.”