6 costs to an organization that doesn’t encourage employee input

By Tom Green

Are your employees consistently telling you everything you need to hear? Or are they instead telling you what they think you want to hear?

Silence is expensive. Creating a culture where your employees can share their opinions, feedback and ideas can boost revenue and help reduce staff turnover. Otherwise, the following problems may arise:

1. People are fearful of raising issues, even when they think the group is missing an important point.
2. Project teams default to seeing things the same way — what they expect to see, not everything that’s possible.
3. Stories and points of view become operating facts when told often enough, and employees do not take the time to question underlying assumptions.
4. Leaders do not welcome new information that threatens the status quo. They discourage employees from speaking up and looking at new facts.
5. Employees become passive and choose not to do anything rather than make a mistake.
6. Individuals hold offline mini-meetings, rumoring and criticizing, after the meeting.

See more in Green’s Round the Table article “When silence isn’t golden”