This is an audio transcript of the Working It podcast episode: What can I do when my employees are afraid to speak up?
Margaret Heffernan
Anyone in a leadership position has to recognise that creating an environment in which there is a culture where bringing up difficult issues is not regarded as aggressive, subversive, difficult is absolutely fundamental to knowing what the heck is going on.
Michael Skapinker
People who show that they’re prepared to listen will encourage a speak-up culture. It’s really got to come from the top.
Margaret Heffernan
The one thing that characterises people who speak up about a problem, they tend to be the most loyal employees you can imagine. So they truly are worth listening to.
Isabel Berwick
Hello and welcome to Working It from the Financial Times. I’m Isabel Berwick.
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The American planemaker Boeing has been plagued by safety and quality control issues over the past few years, including two fatal crashes involving its jets. The company’s CEO, Dave Calhoun, announced last week he would leave at the end of this year, part of a management shake-up that will also see the company’s chairman leave his post. According to a report released in February by the Federal Aviation Administration, staff at Boeing were reluctant to speak up on safety issues within the company, in part because they feared retaliation. Boeing safety issues had catastrophic consequences. But there are many companies where employees feel unable to raise their concerns. That can have major implications for company culture, the bottom line, and ultimately, for executives. How common is it that employees feel unable to speak out? Why do they keep wider issues to themselves? And what can leaders and managers do to ensure workers can come to them with their concerns? To find out, I spoke to Michael Skapinker. Michael’s a contributing editor at the FT and a careers counsellor who often works with executives. I also spoke to Margaret Heffernan, an entrepreneur, former CEO and author of books including Wilful Blindness, which is about why people don’t speak up even when they know something is very wrong.
Margaret Heffernan
Hi, very nice to be talking to you and to Michael.
Isabel Berwick
And Michael Skapinker, welcome back.
Michael Skapinker
Thanks for having me on again, Isabel. Nice to be talking with Margaret.
Isabel Berwick
Let’s crack on, Michael. You wrote a column recently about Boeing’s struggles. Could you give us a quick rundown of the problems and their cost to the company?
Michael Skapinker
Well, the cost to Boeing has, of course, been enormous. In 2018, 2019, there were two crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft with 346 people dead. And then in January, one of Boeing’s planes suffered a blowout in mid-flight. One of its door panels blew out. Fortunately, no one was hurt. So the reputational damage to Boeing has been enormous. And as you pointed out, a Federal Aviation Administration report said that despite all of these incidents, employees at Boeing are still scared to speak up. And when I wrote this column about this, I was very, very struck by the vast majority of Financial Times commenters underneath saying, yeah, quite right. Don’t speak up at work. It’s not worth it. The company won’t listen, and you’ll lose your job, which I thought was a pretty gloomy assessment by our readers.
Isabel Berwick
Yes, it was. I was really struck by those comments, too. But, Margaret, I wanted to come to you because you’ve done extensive research on what you call wilful blindness. Could you explain that phenomenon in a workplace context and talk about why it happens?
Margaret Heffernan
Yeah, sure. I mean, we endlessly have the same narrative in business, which is, you know, something horrible goes wrong in a business. And at first everybody says, oh, nobody knew. And then it turns out that people knew. And then it turns out, wow, pretty much everybody knew, but nobody really said anything about it. And there are several things that go wrong. One is people immediately think, if I speak up, I’ll get punished. The second biggest reason is people think it’s futile. Well, I could speak up, but nothing’s going to happen. So why take the risk? And anyone in a leadership position has to recognise that creating an environment in which there is a culture where bringing up difficult issues is not regarded as aggressive, subversive, difficult, is absolutely fundamental to knowing what the heck is going on.
Isabel Berwick
Michael, do bosses actually want to know what’s going on? Because a lot of them get to the top, and then they surround themselves with yes people.
Michael Skapinker
Well, I think, you know, if you ask anybody, ask any boss, do you like to surround yourself with yes people and not hear what’s going on? They’ll all furiously deny and say, of course I want to hear what’s going on. I think the problem is we all want to be told we are doing well. We all want to be told we’re doing the right thing. And I think that’s the same with bosses. They have a lot at stake. They’re leading the company, and they don’t like to be told, look, what you’re doing is wrong. So however often they say, please tell us what’s happening. Actually, all of their body language, all of the way they behave, shows people they don’t really want to hear anything negative. So it requires real, real leadership from the top. A person who’s sufficiently confident to open up and say, look, tell me I’m doing things wrong because I need to know. It takes a lot to do that.
Isabel Berwick
Margaret, what do you think? Is there any way for employees to go to their bosses with these problems and not harm their own reputation?
Margaret Heffernan
You know, I teach this programme called Giving Voice to Values, which is specifically aimed at this problem. And it’s devised by a fabulous woman named Mary Gentile. And one of the things she’s encountered is the groups to whom she teaches it say, well, look, I’m really willing to learn how to do this and to put it into practice, but the bosses need to learn how to listen to. There’s a very famous story, of course, of Sherron Watkins, the so-called whistleblower at Enron, who went and told her boss, Ken Lay, that there were real problems in the accounting of the company. And the first thing he did when she left the room was pick up the phone to his lawyer to see if he could fire her. Now, if one can resist that defensiveness and appreciate the risk that truth-tellers are taking and listen, assuming goodwill, then the outcome can be different.
Isabel Berwick
So when you say assuming goodwill, you mean recognising that the people speaking up really care about the company.
Margaret Heffernan
The one thing that characterises people who speak up about a problem, they tend to be the most loyal employees you can imagine, and they speak up because they’re heartbroken at what they see as a fall in standards, or a failure to live up to their ideal of the company. So they truly are worth listening to. They may not have the whole picture. They may be wrong about some things, but they definitely should be listened to.
Isabel Berwick
Michael, whistleblowing or raising any sort of problem can cause friction. Is there anything employees can do to raise these issues, should we say more delicately?
Michael Skapinker
Actually, I don’t think it should be up to the employees. You know, you can’t expect people who are there to do a job, to also be highly skilled in knowing how to deal with difficult situations and how to speak to people who don’t want to hear them. And what I think we’ve got to start looking at is not having a speak-up environment, but having a listening environment. People at the top who are really trained to listen and to hear and to ask open questions, to go around and not say, can you tell me what I should be doing better? You know, can you tell me what I should do now? But saying, how can we make your job easier? What would make the customers happier with what we are doing? People who show that they’re prepared to listen will encourage a speak-up culture. It’s really got to come from the top. We can train people in how to speak up, but really, they’re not going to do it if they don’t think they’re going to be heard, and they’re not going to risk their jobs and their livelihoods. It’s really got to come from the top.
Isabel Berwick
And what about if you’re a manager caught in the middle? What tips do you have for balancing, you know, what people might be telling you from below with what you have to report above?
Michael Skapinker
I think if you’re at that position, you can be trained in how to speak up in how to say, look, I think this is going well and this is going well, but I’m really concerned about this, and I’m really worried about what’s going to happen. It’s about understanding perhaps the insecurities and the pressures of the people above you. So if you are just below the C-suite or just below the CEO to think, what is she or he thinking about? What are their real problems and trying to address it in that way and say, I know you’ve got this problem. I know you’re under pressure about this. What I’m hearing from people is we could handle it this way and try and do it in a way which is perhaps less threatening and more constructive. It’s all about encouraging people to listen to you, and it’s about you listening to the people who report to you.
Isabel Berwick
Margaret, do you get any sense that people are making progress on this?
Margaret Heffernan
I get a strong sense that people are more alert to the phenomenon of wilful blindness, and I have certainly mentored individuals who I would say are sort of mid-management level, who, the consequence of their speaking up is that they’ve been promoted because they’ve been acknowledged and recognised for the contribution that they’ve made. The vital thing companies need to do, at least internally, is talk about what happened, to celebrate the person who had this degree of integrity and courage, because that is absolutely the only way that people will start to believe that if they speak up, they won’t be shot down.
Isabel Berwick
And we’ve talked a lot about big companies and big scandals. But, Michael, for listeners who work in smaller companies, you know, what are the stakes there? I would imagine they’re higher.
Michael Skapinker
They are higher. I think one of the problems is if you’re a person who speaks up, one or two things can happen to you. Either the results for you can be very, very severe. You might lose your job or be denied promotion. But I think something that happens more often in smaller groups is the person who speaks up is regarded just oh well, you never agree with us. You know, they’re the eccentric. They’re the kind of outside of the kind of person who people might humour for a bit and then get on with things. One thing I think we shouldn’t underestimate is the power to conform in any group is very, very strong. It’s very uncomfortable to be on the outside of that. And like Margaret, I’ve spoken to a lot of whistleblowers, and what happens to them can sometimes literally drive them mad. This feeling that they alone can see what’s happening and no one else will listen. I think it requires extraordinary leadership to overcome that. And I think, as you say, Isabel, I don’t think smaller companies make it any easier.
Isabel Berwick
Margaret, what do you think?
Margaret Heffernan
It is really important to look at the other side of the coin. And I’ve seen this, you know, in my own companies. I’ve seen it in companies that I worked for. Going around the room trying to make a decision, everybody’s in agreement and one person says, I just don’t think so. And at that moment, everything can change because somebody has had the nerve to make a counterargument. And it’s amazing how then the whole mood changes, and now everybody’s against it. So it is crucial, I think, that both leaders, who set the culture, but also the workforce, appreciate how to be able to initiate a cordial conflict. I mean, absolutely, everything Michael says is true. People are driven mad by the cruelty with which they’re treated when they’re trying to do the right thing. But there is always this counter-narrative. It is much less dramatic. Nobody ever writes about it, but it absolutely does happen. Which means that those companies who use it as an excuse that it’s impossible are really just being lazy.
Isabel Berwick
That’s a very good point, Margaret, because there is another narrative we don’t hear about, which is all the times that things are avoided or people do speak up and get heard.
Margaret Heffernan
It’s not nearly as dramatic a story, but actually where problems are resolved and the story is written about how they got to be resolved, those are the places where you start to see a shift, where people start to think, OK, things can happen here. I’m not going to get my head shot off. I will try to raise this in a positive way. There is another side to this coin, which is that not speaking up isn’t just about major problems like Boeing not getting fixed. It’s also having companies that are absolutely jam-packed with ideas for improvements or new products, or better services that also don’t get voiced. I mean, I was running tech start-Ups when Netscape went public and Microsoft didn’t have a browser in development, right? You can’t tell me Microsoft had a whole company full of people who didn’t know about the web. So the suppression of open conversation doesn’t just mean that the problems in the company have time to get bigger. It also means that the great ideas in the company never see the light of day.
Isabel Berwick
Margaret Heffernan, thank you very much.
Margaret Heffernan
My pleasure.
Isabel Berwick
And Michael Skapinker, thanks so much.
Michael Skapinker
Thank you.
Isabel Berwick
Employees who speak up are so valuable to companies. Anyone can nod along to what their boss is saying, but it takes courage to disagree with someone who works above you. And as Margaret said, voicing a concern and putting yourself at risk is something people do because they care about an organisation. But let’s be honest, speaking up can harm your career prospects and it often alienates your colleagues. I think what Michael said was wise. Employees can only speak up when managers and leaders create an environment that makes them feel safe to do so.
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Thanks to Michael Skapinker and Margaret Heffernan. This episode of Working It was produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval and mixed by Simon Panayi. The executive producer was Manuela Saragosa. And Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. Thanks for listening.
