by Eric
Time Silence is money
Over the past year or so I’ve come to the realization that sometimes the most important thing you can do in life is keep your mouth shut. Personally or professionally, employee or employer, it’s in your best interest to keep your cards to yourself.
Too often we feel the urge to share our opinion because we feel entitled to have one. True enough, in the free world it’s your right to have an opinion, but remember: The workplace is a dictatorship, not a democracy. Employees often miscalculate their place or even more dangerously, their relationship with the boss. Before you speak, put yourself on the receiving end of your comment. Without rationalizing, how did it make you feel? You can bet it’ll make them feel the same way. Now with your job on the line, is it worth sharing?
As the boss it’s just as important to keep things to yourself. You never know which employee is planning to jump ship and go to work for the competition. You may be frustrated about an employee and feel the need to share or probe one of your other pupils about them, but the chances are they’re closer with that employee in question than they are with you. And let’s not even touch the subject of new age litigation and harassment lawsuits. As the ‘dictator’, someone is always looking to cut you down and take you out. Putting on the poker face may just save your business.
It’s also good to keep it low key in your personal life too. How many times have you been excited about something, spilled your guts about it to all of your friends and family just to find out it was too good to be true? Right at that moment, the voice in your head says “I knew I should have kept quiet!”
Wouldn’t it have been better to just show up sporting that BMW a rich California girl on MySpace promised to send to you? The surprise would have been even bigger for them, and you wouldn’t risk looking like a jack ass in front of your peers when she turns out to be a toothless old man from Connecticut with not a pot to piss in.
This is something I’ve considered more often than not, both in my experiences wearing the shoes of an employee and employer.
As an employee, my only worry usually is that being too reserved about your personal life/thoughts puts you at a social (“Hey I really like to work with this guy”) disadvantage and makes you harder to identify with other people. Instead it take a good chunk of time, after I’ve learend the ins/outs and politics, before I start cracking jokes and talking about much outside work, weather, and the news.
I guess it just makes for a more gradual start when done in a moderate context. Stupid jokes, cocky commentary, and grapevine rumours are a different story – something I’d avoid altogether.
As an “employer” both in my agency and in volunteer orgs, fear of the employee moving to the competition isn’t as strong. Rather, I take this approach to make sure right from the get-go I can establish a certain presence (“Hey this guy’s no fool I’m dealing with”) and then build the rapport to a state where both I and the employee is comfortable breaking the “silence” per se.
Great commentary Satish, thank you.
You’re right on the money with establishing the proper presence by keeping quiet as the man in charge.
I welcome comments and suggestions from employees, however; some of them are so distasteful about it and it jeopardizes their position with the company. They overestimate their relationship with me and think that since we’ve become workplace ‘friends’ that it’s OK to trash talk and speak freely. Unfortunately you’re never able to speak 100% freely without risking your job.
As Trump would say, it’s not personal, it’s business.
thanks for the great information :)
Interesting topic. I see a lot of truth here. In my experience i see that keeping your good cards to yourself is a good thing. I’ve been burned couple of times since i showed them too early.
The thing is, if you show your cards( let these be your ideas, etc.) at a wrong moment, you’ll lose them and the jackpot. But if you play them right, that jackpot can be all yours to have.