How do You Get Your Employees to Speak Up?
The Impact of Fear on Employee Communication
Fight, Flight, Freeze…For Real?
Interpersonal fear directly impacts the way people speak and communicate.
Fear shows up in all sorts of ways in workplace communication.
It can look like sarcasm.
It can look like too many ‘ums’, or like that person who never speaks up.
It can look like someone saying ‘yes’ when they need to say ‘no’, or like speaking to the data just fine but wanting to throw up when asked to publicly brainstorm.
Fear is sometimes that general sense that everyone else is somehow smarter, better or has a more positive outlook than you…and that if you speak up, they’ll all realize it, too, so you keep your mouth shut.
Fear of speaking up can be difficult to notice because the symptom is often mistaken for the root problem.
“The free exchange of concerns or questions is routinely hindered by interpersonal fear far more often than most managers realize. This kind of fear cannot be directly seen.” Amy Edmonson, The Fearless Organization
Reducing fear and improving Engagement
Where Psychological Safety Meets Communication
Create a culture of info sharing.
So, how do you help your team members feel safe to speak up?
While it’s up to management to set the tone and direction of the organization, the truth is that culture cannot simply be imposed from the top-down, nor can it be built from the bottom-up.
Culture is created from the inside-out and the outside-in by…
- Investing in developing your individual team members’ emotional resilience.
- Ensuring they have the tools to let their voices out.
- Infusing them with effective communication skills and norms.
Emotionally resilient and communicative individuals create psychologically safe teams. Psychological safe teams allow individuals to become even more resilient and communicative.
A feedback loop is created.
“As long as employees remain silent, companies will lose money on flawed projects, innovations that never happen, and subpar customer service.”
Karin Hurt + David Dye, Courageous Cultures
Ready to Help Your Team Build that Loop?
Training and Team Building Events
Our Workshops Do Just That.
Our interactive and experiential workshops teach team members how to manage their internal fears and communicate effectively. They will feel more confident and collaborative in any situation.
These workshops make a great post-COVID return-to-work integration event, a fun and educational offsite, or simply a nice way to build skills while breaking up the everyday flow of work life. They pack in a lot of personal and group transformation, all while having a lot of fun, too!
Workshops are built around three main pillars:
1. Voice + Speech
Vocal techniques for a strong sound and fluid speech.
Develop clarity, power, control, and stamina to sound confident and emotive.
Understand how the voice works and craft an authentic sound.
2. Self-Confidence
Mindset work and strategies for deeper emotional intelligence and self-trust.
Cultivate presence and have permission to take up space.
Release limiting beliefs and replace old habits with confident new behaviors.
3. Communication Skills
Tools and skills for sharing information and building influence.
Clearly communicate and present ideas in any situation.
Foster relationships and collaboration to move the agenda forward.
Measurable Impact
strategic benefits across your entire organization
Can Soft Skills Really Be Measured?
They can absolutely be measured!
The impact of increased psychological safety and communication will be seen across your entire org. In addition to the facts and stats you see here, areas in which you will see measurable improvements include:
Individual Level:
- Resilience
- Contribution
- Engagement
- Purpose
- Loyalty
Team Level:
- Productive disagreements
- Information sharing
- Collaboration
- Belonging
- Trust
Project Level:
- Planning
- Agility
- Creep
- Innovation
- Quality
Organization
- ROI
- Efficiency
- Growth
- Stability
- Speed
What are the Options?
Our Workshops Menu
- In-person
- 3 - 4 hours
- Participant workbook and practice plan
- 30-minute leader prep call
- 30-minute leader debrief call (opt)
- 30-min discovery call for participants
- In-person
- 7 - 8 hours
- Foundations + additional custom topics
- Pre-workshop participant survey
- Participant workbook and practice plan
- 30-minute leader prep call
- 30-minute leader debrief call (opt)
- 30-minute 30-day leader follow up call (opt)
- 30-min discovery call for participants
- "Why Won't My Voice Come Out? Getting Out of Your Own Way to Speak with Impact."
- Online
- Participant workbook
- 30-min discovery call for participants
