Managing technical professionals: Speaking freely

Providing an atmosphere, to our employees to speak freely, is an important job of the manager and leader of an organization. Though this sounds obvious, and most of us might think that we are open to feedback and that our employees come to us and tell us things, it is highly likely that there are at least a few people in the organization who will not question decisions and make suggestions for a variety of reasons: They may not feel like they know the manager and therefore don’t feel comfortable speaking-up, they may fear the consequences of speaking up—fear of demotion, fear of losing their job-, they may not think their feedback would make a difference, they might think their feedback will offend the leader and that their comment would be perceived as disrespectful, they might think that their feedback is so silly that might look like a fool in front of a group of people. Whatever the reasons might be, understanding them is the first step in trying to address them, knowing full well that getting everyone in the organization to be able to speak freely is in many cases a futile effort. This, however, should not stop us from making the effort because in organizations where employees are able to freely voice their opinions retention levels and the performance of the organization are better.