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  • 2021
  • Article

Reflections: Voice and Silence in Workplace Conversations

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Tijs Besieux
We highlight conversations at work as an arena of change. Drawing on and extending the psychological safety literature, we offer a new framework to distinguish between productive and unproductive forms of both voice and silence. The framework’s four... View Details
Keywords: Conversation; Silence; Voice; Psychological Safety; Interpersonal Communication; Quality; Management Practices and Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation
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  • 2013
  • Article

The Strategic Fitness Process: A Collaborative Action Research Method for Developing Organizational Prototypes and Dynamic Capabilities

By: Michael Beer
Organizations underperform and sometimes fail because their leaders are unable to learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP)... View Details
Keywords: Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategic Planning; Organizational Design
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  • Article

Reflections: Toward a Normative and Actionable Theory of Planned Organizational Change and Development

By: Michael Beer
A normative and actionable theory of planned organizational change and development is proposed based on fifty years of engagement by the author as a scholar-consultant. Five principles are central features of the theory and practice proposed: 1) Organizations are... View Details
Keywords: Consultant; Process; Systems; Silence; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Leadership; Learning; Management Teams
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  • 2009
  • Article

Silenced by Fear: The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Fear at Work

By: Jennifer Kish Gephart, James R. Detert, Linda K. Trevino and Amy C. Edmondson
In every organization, individual members have the potential to speak up about important issues, but a growing body of research suggests that they often remain silent instead, out of fear of negative personal and professional consequences. In this chapter, we draw on... View Details
Keywords: Organizations; Working Conditions; Research; Emotions; Employees; Motivation and Incentives; Theory; Behavior
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  • August 2016
  • Case

CSI Ingenieros

By: Jay Lorsch and Emily McTague
CSI's business unit managers gathered around the downstairs conference room for the company's weekly meeting to discuss project bids. Cristina WaldAshley Hartman, who was in charge of finding projects for the engineering firm to work on, read through several she had... View Details
Keywords: Corporate Governance; Board; Board Committees; Board Dynamics; Organization; Organization Alignment; Dynamic Capabilities; Organization Design; Organizational Prototyping; Organizational Silence; Organizational Learning; Organization Behavior; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Manufacturing Industry; South America; Uruguay
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  • 25 Feb 2013
  • Working Paper Summaries

Fostering Organizational Learning: The Impact of Work Design on Workarounds, Errors, and Speaking Up About Internal Supply Chain Problems

Keywords: by Anita L. Tucker
  • 18 Sep 2013
  • Research & Ideas

Excerpt: Manufacturing Morals

tomorrow's corporate and organizational leaders, according to Associate Professor Michel Anteby. In this book excerpt from Anteby's Manufacturing Morals: The Values of Silence in Business School Education,... View Details
Keywords: Education
  • 2020
  • Book

Fit to Compete: Why Honest Conversations About Your Company's Capabilities Are the Key to a Winning Strategy

By: Michael Beer
Is Silence Killing Your Strategy?
In his thirty years of working in corporations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer has witnessed firsthand how organizational silence derails strategic objectives. When employees can't speak truth to power, senior... View Details
Keywords: Honesty; Communication; Organizational Culture; Trust; Strategy; Performance Effectiveness
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    Fit to Compete

    Is Silence Killing Your Strategy? In his thirty years of working in corporations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Beer has witnessed firsthand how organizational silence derails strategic objectives. When employees can't speak truth to power, senior... View Details
    • 04 Aug 2009
    • First Look

    First Look: August 4

    games with complete information. Silenced by Fear: The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Fear at Work Authors:Jennifer Kish Gephart, James R. Detert, Linda K. Trevino, and Amy C. Edmondson Publication:Research in View Details
    Keywords: Martha Lagace
    • 01 Oct 2007
    • Research & Ideas

    Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making

    explained, is that such issues are deemed too threatening to organizational harmony or to individuals' career advancement. As a result, the validity of a principal U.S. rationale for the Vietnam War, the "domino theory," was... View Details
    Keywords: by Garry Emmons
    • March 2018 (Revised March 2019)
    • Case

    Gender and Free Speech at Google (A)

    By: Nien-hê Hsieh, Martha J. Crawford and Sarah Mehta
    In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” which posited that innate biological... View Details
    Keywords: Free Speech; Representation; Diversity; Gender; Race; Human Resources; Employees; Employee Relationship Management; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Labor; Employment; Lawsuits and Litigation; Organizational Culture; Technology Industry; United States; California
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    • 2005
    • Working Paper

    Silent Saboteurs: How Implicit Theories of Voice Inhibit the Upward Flow of Knowledge in Organizations

    By: James R. Detert and Amy C. Edmondson
    This article examines, in a series of three studies, how people working in organizational hierarchies wrestle with the challenge of upward voice. We first undertook in-depth exploratory research in a knowledge-intensive multinational corporation in which employee input... View Details
    Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Working Conditions; Knowledge Management; Attitudes; Organizational Culture
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    • 28 May 2013
    • First Look

    First Look: May 28

    learn the unvarnished truth from relevant stakeholders about how the design and behavior of the organization is misaligned with its goals and strategy. The Strategic Fitness Process (SFP) was designed to enable leaders to overcome View Details
    Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
    • 13 Feb 2020
    • Book

    Open Your Organization to Honest Conversations

    says Beer, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus. “So there’s this organizational silence, where no one feels comfortable speaking truth to power.” Avoiding a cynical organization This View Details
    Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman
    • 30 Sep 2019
    • Book

    6 Steps to Building a Better Workplace for Black Employees

    companies, and, more often than not, business leaders remain silent on the issue. That cloak of silence from the top tends to enfold all employees. Ellis Cose, an author of several books about race and public policy, writes that young... View Details
    Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman
    • 10 Aug 2009
    • Research & Ideas

    High Commitment, High Performance Management

    values, strategy, and priorities sufficiently and often in person. And equally important, organizational silence prevails about barriers to effectiveness, commitment, and performance. This barrier makes the... View Details
    Keywords: by Martha Lagace
    • 17 Jan 2011
    • Research & Ideas

    Being the Boss

    thing is happening, can I get it to you tomorrow?" And he can read you in person. Another tip is that when you're working virtually, silence does not indicate agreement. So you have to actively inquire more than you would with a... View Details
    Keywords: by Carmen Nobel
    • 26 Mar 2020
    • Research & Ideas

    7 Leadership Principles for Managing in the Time of Coronavirus

    in which to communicate decisions and priorities, but also have rapid communication to the entire body of constituents—not delays over hours or days or, even worse, weeks. Silence is absolutely the worst possible thing that you allow to... View Details
    Keywords: by John A. Quelch; Health
    • 01 Dec 2019
    • News

    Remix

    silence with her. Dixon kept thinking that “Jenny is out there, and Jenny is black. Every day that goes by [and] I’m silent, Jenny and these other women are twisting in the wind,” Dixon says. “That was weighing on me.” On December 13,... View Details
    Keywords: Jen McFarland Flint; photographed by Chris Sorensen; #MeToo; DefJam; Arts, Entertainment