Speaking Up

Just when should we expect people to speak up about a problem at work?

We know that having an "open door" policy doesn't work. Many an executive, manager, and supervisor sits behind a desk, stares out an open door, and hears nothing. "Open door" only works if the leader walks through the door and finds out what's happening in the rest of the workplace.

We know that telling people to "Speak up if you're uncomfortable about anything that has been said or done" misses part of the picture: that people often are afraid of being ostracized or retaliated against if they do speak up. Besides, such ground rules are remedial. Once the problem is reported, the offensive behavior has already happened. In some cases, that is way too late for management to initiate any meaningful correction.

To focus on the act of speaking up is to miss the target. The real issue is trust. If trust is present, the odds of people being candid will increase enormously. If it isn't present, all of the policies and declarations about open doors won't make a bit of difference.

Trust, however, carries responsibilities on both sides. Management should act to build trust but so too must employees. People who refuse to use credible procedures for reporting problems are not building trust because they are pushing conflict underground. People who don't confront co-workers about significant problems are also failing to contribute to trust.

There are clear exceptions. For example, in harassment cases and matters of the "Clyde has a gun in his desk" variety, the employee may feel uncomfortable with direct confrontation and the matter should be reported through the appropriate channels.

The ideal, trustworthy, workplace, however, is one in which people do speak up about problems and where, if there is a problem with a co-worker, the employee with the problem first goes to the co-worker and says, "We need to talk about something." If the two of them cannot work out a solution, then the problem can be bounced up the ladder. Although there will be situations in which such direct communication may not be feasible, it is the goal of any open workplace and an important component of one is which trust flourishes.