The headlines reveal that this epidemic of silence cuts across virtually every aspect of our lives. For instance, on the morning of January 13, 1982, a jumbo jet crashed into a bridge connecting Virginia to Washington. All but 5 of the 79 people on board died. Later, investigators learned that the copilot was concerned about the ice building up on the wings, mentioned it, was ignored, and then didn’t bring it up again for fear of being too forceful with a pilot. Seventy-four people died from a single case of silence.[5]
Or how about the granddaddy of all flight debacles? The space shuttle Challenger broke into pieces in front of a horrified nation because, as we later learned, several engineers were concerned that the O-rings might malfunction but they didn’t say anything because nobody pushed back honestly with the bosses.[6]
And why? Because with certain people and circumstances you just don’t bring up infractions. Not with a boss. Not with a pilot. Not with a doctor. Not with a colleague or relative. Oh yes, and not with someone cutting in line.
So what would it take to change the mental math that is so frequently working against us? Is it possible to turn the cost-benefit analysis around and return accountability to a woefully silent world?
To answer this, let’s return to our first study — the one where subjects believed that speaking up to a line cutter wasn’t worth the risk. What if we taught people standing in line a script for dealing with a line cutter? If we showed them a successful interaction, would they change their math enough to now stand up to someone who cuts in front of them?
To find out, we added a twist to our research design. For our second round of line cutting, we cut in front of a research colleague who was queuing up at the movie theater just like everyone else. Rather than remain silent (as was the established norm), our colleague was instructed to abruptly say, “Hey buddy, get to the end of the line like everyone else!” The offender (also from our research team) then apologized and scurried to the end of the line.
And now for the fun part. We waited a few minutes and then cut in front of the person standing directly behind our rather forceful colleague. Would the subject we cut in front of now speak up, maybe even using the same script he or she had observed? The script had worked. The line cutter had gone to the end of the line without causing a fuss. The mental math had to be somewhat different.
But apparently not enough different. Nobody who observed the abrupt model said a word when confronted by a line cutter. Subjects explained that they didn’t want to act like the jerk whom they had observed bluntly dealing with the line cutter. That was part of the reason most people remained silent in the first place. They had no desire to behave like a thug, nor did they want to risk the ugly confrontation that might follow a blunt verbal attack. They already knew how to be abrasive. Teaching them another abrasive script changed neither their mental math nor their behavior.
In fact, most people who routinely revert to silence do so as a result of similar calculations. They have been let down, left holding the bag, or otherwise treated poorly until they eventually tire of others disappointing them. Then, one day the problem reemerges, and they blow a gasket. They trade silence for their favorite form of verbal violence by raising their voice at their relative, or barking at a coworker, or perhaps acting far too smug with their boss. And then bad things happen.
Maybe you’ve experienced the same phenomenon. Someone repeatedly violates an expectation, and you play nice for several weeks until one day you can take it no longer, and so you launch a verbal attack on the offending party. The tongue-lashing seems to be going well until you notice that everyone in the surrounding area is staring at you, not the guy who kept breaking commitments. You’ve become the bad person in this scene. How did that ever happen?
Learning from your mistake, your mental math changes to a predictable and unpromising formula. You conclude that it’s better to remain mum than look the fool. It’ll be a cold day in you know where before you speak up again.
Here’s the takeaway. Most of us have been disappointed or treated poorly by others and have experienced both ineffective options — (1) perpetuating the problem by saying nothing and (2) speaking up and creating a new problem. As a result, we feel trapped between two bad alternatives. We would like to say something — but not something abrasive or rude that could lead to an altercation.
With this in mind, we started our third research trial with a new technique. This time we modeled an effective option to the people in the queue. We cut in front of a colleague who had been instructed to give a direct, but civil, response to the line cutter. He was to politely state: “I’m sorry; perhaps you’re unaware. We’ve been standing in line for over 30 minutes.” (Note the civil tone and assumption of innocence.) The line cutter then apologized and scurried to the end of the line.
Once again, we let a few minutes pass before we cut in front of a person who had observed the staged interaction and waited to see how our research subjects would react. Given the better choice of words and delivery, would the research subjects’ mental math change to the point where they finally spoke up? Or would they still remain silent? After all, silence still costs nothing more than a few additional moments in line.
Not only did more than 80 percent of the research subjects who observed the polite interaction break from tradition and say something to the line cutter, but they used the exact same words they had heard: “I’m sorry, perhaps you’re unaware …”
It was amazing! Provide individuals who have been disappointed or poorly treated with something to say and a way to say it that leads to the result they want, and their mental math changes. Better yet, their behavior changes. People now believe it’s in their best interest to step up to violated promises, broken commitments, and bad behavior. And they do.
It took us a while, but we had finally uncovered a method for getting people to step up to a problem and hold the other person accountable. However, let’s not get too excited. After all, our research had been done with a rather trivial problem where merely pointing out the infraction in a civil manner appeared to work, and so people gave it a try. When it came to holding others accountable, we had only learned to walk.
But what if the crucial conversation involved a more serious and complicated infraction? Could you get people to hold others accountable for their actions when a single civil sentence might not be enough to solve the problem? Could we advance from walking to running?
We were soon to find out. Fresh off our line-cutting success, we received a phone call from a midwestern plant manager who worked in a large manufacturing organization that, according to him, had lost any semblance of accountability.
“You’d have to kill a person to get fired around here,” the plant manager said.
“A really popular person,” the HR director added with a smirk.
This was going to be a challenge. We were confident that people can learn accountability skills (under the proper circumstances), but what if you point out a broken commitment and the other person isn’t motivated to do the correct thing, or she doesn’t know what to do, or she brings up another issue, or she gets upset that you’re even talking about the problem in the first place? How do you hold others accountable when the conversation becomes fluid and complicated?
5
Deborah Tannen, “How to Give Orders Like a Man,” New York Times Magazine (August 28, 1994): 201–204.
6
Richard P. Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think? (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), 214–215.