Gauri Chhabra
It all started during our childhood. The fear of speaking the truth…When I was a kid, at time I wanted to yell and scream and break free and say” Enough is enough” when made to study, or when forced to go to bed when my mind was fresh as a daisy. But a tiny voice in me whispered, “just tow in line and do what you are told to do”.
It was not only at home, the same show of conformity was in school too. We were ina race to impress the teacher. So when our heart wanted to play in the garden, we were busy solving Mathematics theorems or reading language. It has not left me. It has followed me to the corporate room. When my hear tugs and says,”the idea is too ubiquitous, it is not going to work, I suddenly find myself saying,” Brilliant! Let us work towards it and I am sure we would leave our competitors behind…” Does it seem familiar?
I have a name for this cocktail of deference, conformity and passive aggression that chokes people and teams. I call it violent politeness.
I have witnessed it countless times. After some discussion, often labeled “brainstorming,” a group will go along with the most innocuous suggestion and follow it halfheartedly, keeping itself busy to avoid admitting what everyone knows: it is not going to work.When I probe junior managers about this dynamic, they usually explain that their caution reflects their uncertain status. It feels too risky to raise misgivings, especially if one cannot offer an alternative course of action. It might make them look clueless or disruptive to their boss or colleagues.
Early in my career, I was sympathetic to that analysis. I knew it all too well, the fear of being myself at work-or more precisely, the uncertainty about which self to be.
I thought, and advised reassuringly, that things would improve with time. As young managers became established, they would have more latitude to put their mark on the roles they took-and so would I. It would be easier to find and speak with our own voice.
It took me many years to realize that I was offering a wishful lie. Time does not summon courage. It only morphs the fear of speaking truth to power into the fear of speaking truth in power. Once I began working with senior executives, I found those hesitations all still there, only stronger in the face of increased visibility and pressure.
But, believe me, your work will become a burden, bottled up inside you if you do not speak up. Here are a few tips on how to:
Overcoming the risk
Owning one’s defiance feels risky at every stage. Speaking up feels even more exposing and consequential, spontaneity more unfamiliar, when we’ve spent much of our careers learning to modulate our silence-and being rewarded for it.This is why violent politeness often gets stronger as you climb up the C-suite. As a personal habit, you may often justify it with the wish not to embarrass others. As a group norm, you may reinforce it by endorsing constructive cultures that denigrate dissent as a lesser form of participation than enthusiasm.Violent politeness is such an ingrained custom that we keep making excuses. The result- we come back home frustrated at not having the courage to say what we wanted to.
Try this. Look back in your life. Whenever you spoke your heart out and said what you wanted to say, you were able to forge close relationships and felt lighter. When you were scared of losing your job and lost it later… you could not save it for a long time by just keeping quiet. You might have postponed your exit but not avoided it altogether.
So, once you know this, try to work freely not where tension is glossed over but where it can be aired and worked through safely enough.
Silence can lead to suspicion:
Perhaps because the price of speaking up – being ignored, judged, labeled a poor team player is paid immediately and by those who speak first. The price of silence, on the other hand, is exacted later and paid by the group-when the bubble of false harmony bursts, relationships crumble or projects fail.If you keep censoring yourselves in order not to appear vulnerable, beware, do not overdo it.You may be misunderstood. Silence is easy to fill with suspicions and assumptions about what others do not know about you.
Speak up before it’s too late
At times you might want to speak up but you keep postponing it, feeling that time will make you more open, as if time alone did anything more than harden tentativeness into superficiality. And in the meantime, violent politeness would corrode collaboration, problem solving and decision-making. You cast it carelessly, this stone that kills two birds you claim to cherish-your voice and your relationships. And when you have done it long enough that you have lost hope to speak or hear the truth, to truly care and be cared for, your heart says…
It’s lonely at the top
Of course it is, and not just there. It’s lonely everywhere. Relationships are brittle.
So, speak up before it is too late…
Make the right choice:
You always have a choice. There are two roads that diverge…
One- you can speak when you want to. Of course, be careful about the language you use, but when your heart says something, just speak up- whether it is about the project plan not going to work or the business idea being ubiquitous- say it.
Second-Pretending to agree when you don’t. Nodding your head in unison at the dumbest idea- the race is to identify the meeting’s chairperson and say yes to whatever he says. It pays handsomely in the short run.
It is for you to make the right choice. In case you choose the former, you might lose your job but save your dignity and have a circle of friends who care and bosses who would recognize your worth and share their profits with you.
If you take the latter option and decide to wait till youclimb up the ladder. But how? Lonely, is the most common answer. Violent politeness would keep you stuck in the very place they want leaders to be-carrying the glory if things go well and the blame if they don’t. Stressed out, alone, and handsomely rewarded for it.
Just be yourself
There is one thing you should carry with you to work- your own self. Remember, it is the most important thing. You were what your employers liked when they hired you. Do not dissipate the ‘you’ in you. It is a tiny step that takes a lot of courage. The courage to take your work seriously. The courage to be both vulnerable and generous-and to stop outsourcing shame to those who can’t afford to hide.
‘The top,’ in that way, is no different than anywhere else.
We need good friends to thrive and be ourselves. Real friends, that is. The kinds who would rather be brutally honest than outwardly polite.
So, stop hiding in plain view and just be your own self at work…
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