Be Quiet! The Insight Professional's Guide to Silence

We’ve been thinking about silence this week at STRAT7 Incite .

Knowing how to shut up and listen is one of the first things any good qual researcher – any good researcher full-stop, really – has to learn. And it applies to working with clients and colleagues too. It makes space for the views of other, and for proper critical reflection on your own ideas.

And it sounds like such a simple thing to do.

But look at the list of famous proponents of silence …

• Clarence Thomas – silent on the US Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas went a full 10 years without asking a single question as one of nine Justices on the US Supreme Court
• John D. Rockefeller – famously quiet in meetings, advocate of listening over speaking to learn and understand
• Mark Zuckerburg – reputedly a very good listener and praised widely for his introverted yet thoughtful approach to leadership
• Jeff Bezos – introduced meetings with a ‘silent start’ at Amazon where attendees spend c.20 mins at the start of the meeting together in silence to carve out true focus time and dedication to the matter in hand. Also, speaks of his conscious decision to speak last in meetings to avoid influencing his juniors

This invites a question: Is being the quiet, reflective type maybe a bit easier to pull off if you’re a Supreme Court justice (even a supremely controversial one), or a plutocrat, or (depending on the way the wind blows) literally the richest man in the world??

So consider this a call for help: How do you make time to listen and to reflect? In field? With stakeholders? Who does it well?