In a 'noisy' world, have we lost our understanding of what silence means to us? Dr David Cliff explores its psychosocial benefits and its contribution to how organisations function.
The sound of silence is not just a Simon & Garfunkel classic, but an actual experience for those who can develop their mindfulness and focus.
Adopting silence seems to be a dying practice these days. It’s decline stems from growing the egocentrism that goes with a postmodern culture focusing on, “I” rather than, “us”. It often manifests itself in an increasing inability to listen to people, whilst transmitting one’s own thoughts as to how we all should interpret the universe. In a leadership context such egocentrism can result in cults, wooden political ideologies and political reaction, such as far right politics and MAGA, (assuming America ever was great)! It lacks the virtue of humility.
Global capitalism has had a strong influence on this, as it seeks to define our needs to make necessities out of luxuries and ensure that we buy and consume as much as possible. Elites get richer, by these processes, whilst most other people are told about their freedoms, whilst simultaneously spending hours on helplines listening to low quality muzac or on waiting lists, often falsely convinced that they have real choices and influence. An increasing sense of righteous entitlement reinforces this from unregulated social media commentary where one can have a rant with little consequence. The consequent babble of rhetoric we are constantly exposed to feeds into the sensory overload people seem to increasingly complain of.
Paradoxically, people seem to fear silence as a sort of ‘auditory void’ wherein the quietude our true feelings emerge. I frequently observe amongst my clients’ that silence focuses them on re-working or letting go of many things that they normally hold dear. So many of us live lives of distraction wherein it’s very hard to stay still, to fall silent, to reflect, to learn and effect real change.
A failure to practice silence means that many simply do not listen, neither to their deepest thoughts, nor the experience of others. They do not review where their drives are taking them and whether their efforts will truly produce the results desired. They do not hear what customers, stakeholders, community members really have to say. Instead, they often rush into communication with ‘mindsets’, oh so keen to transmit and promote, yet open only to receive what our confirmation bias allows them to hear. Biases that want to hear, that they are okay and what they do is fine. They then want to bring people along to further confirm the “OK-ness” of their position. But so many people are not OK with what is on offer, the very thing the Tory government recently paid dearly for.
For many people, their first experience of true silence is one of real discomfort as, away from distraction and adopted ideology, emergent, unaddressed emotions often surface and we can start a challenging process of questioning ourselves and perhaps, starting to hear others.
That’s what I like about Gedanken clients, they very quickly get the value of silence. They get the value of listening to themselves and that sometimes we need coaching and leadership development, not just for strategy development, goals or specific skills acquisition, but the need to master the craft of humanity. That includes the ability to really listen with human, not market driven interest, to reflect, to consider values and to learn and to embrace uncertainties. By developing ourselves as a resource to navigate these uncertainties, rather than trying to cope by defining everything in ways that create certainty, we start the co-creation of more viable versions of reality for ourselves and others to better coexist in.
Myriad books have been penned about the subject of silence, encompassing philosophy, religion, spirituality, neuropsychology, the list goes on. Silence is the true precursor to the understanding of both self and others. Despite this so many overlook the value silence as a place to just ‘be’ and listen to both our ‘inner’ selves and to others. We perhaps have two ears and one mouth for a reason!
www.gedanken.co.uk