How to Get Your Team to Actually Speak Up

When you ask your team to share their ideas, thoughts, suggestions, or feedback, how many of them actually speak up? Do they share what you want to hear or what they’re actually thinking in their heads?

Getting your team to voice their true ideas and opinions is important because not knowing what they’re thinking can lead to confusion, misalignment of expectations and misunderstandings. Not speaking up also leads to groupthink―people in the team conform to dominant opinions without questioning their validity. Mistakes that could have been flagged early go unnoticed. Critical insights and alternative solutions are missed. Thinking that their inputs don’t matter also leaves team members feeling undervalued, frustrated and unheard. 

It doesn’t matter what I say; no one listens anyway.

I guess it’s fine, whatever everyone else decides.

Every decision seems already made before we’re even asked.

Why bother sharing my ideas? They never get considered.

I’ve brought this up before, but nothing ever changes.

When people in the team are empowered to speak openly, the feeling that their thoughts, ideas and concerns matter makes them feel valued and respected which builds a sense of connection and inclusion, makes them feel capable of influencing decisions and enhances their confidence to participate actively.  

Even when we don’t agree, I feel like my perspective is respected.

It’s great to know my ideas make a difference.

I appreciate that my input was taken seriously.

I feel like I can be myself and still be heard.

It’s refreshing to be part of a team that values openness.

Team’s achieve better outcomes when all its members speak the same language. But to do that you need to get everyone on the same page―invite differences of opinion, challenge assumptions and address concerns.   

Harmony itself is good, I suppose, if it comes as a result of working through issues constantly and cycling through conflict. But if it comes only as a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, then it’s a bad thing. I’d trade that false kind of harmony any day for a team’s willingness to argue effectively about an issue and then walk away with no collateral damage.
― Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Use these 5 strategies to encourage speaking up in a team environment: 

Make speaking up non-threatening

What’s the biggest impediment to speaking up in a team environment? 

Lack of safety.  

People don’t share what’s on their mind because they worry about being ridiculed, belittled or looked down upon. Fear that their disagreement will be misconstrued as disrespect or the feeling that their ideas aren’t worthy of others’ time subjects them to silence.

Asking your team to share their views doesn’t work when your behavior and actions communicate otherwise:

• You turn defensive when someone disagrees with you.
• You outrightly reject ideas that contradict your views. “That’s not right.” “It’s a stupid idea.” “It will never work.”
• You resort to blame or punishment when they make mistakes. 
• Your body language communicates disinterest or dismissal when faced with dissenting views.

Your team can easily make out whether you value their opinions and suggestions or simply pretending to listen to them while refusing to hear the truth. Fear of reprisal, judgment, rejection, being misunderstood or being perceived as incompetent can stop your team from speaking their truth.

To get your team to actually speak up, you need to create a safe environment where they won’t face judgment, ridicule, or negative consequences for speaking up their mind. 

Watch your reaction to disagreements or differences of opinion. Own mistakes demonstrating that making errors is a natural part of growth. Listen attentively, without interrupting or dismissing what others are saying. Modeling humility is critical here. Admitting gaps by saying “I don’t know” or inviting correction by asking “What am I missing here?” can encourage others to share their perspective. 

We thrive in environments that respect us and allow us to (1) feel included, (2) feel safe to learn, (3) feel safe to contribute, and (4) feel safe to challenge the status quo. If we can’t do these things, if it’s emotionally expensive, fear shuts us down. We’re not happy and we’re not reaching our potential. But when the environment nurtures psychological safety, there’s an explosion of confidence, engagement, and performance.
― Timothy R. Clark, The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety

The more your team feels a sense of belonging—especially when they express themselves candidly—the more likely they are to continue speaking up and sharing their ideas and concerns. Belonging cues are the signals you send that make them feel valued, included, and heard. Send positive vibes. Create a non-threatening environment. 

Balance dominant voices with quieter ones

There are two types of people in a team—loudspeakers and observers. 

Loud ones try to dominate the conversation by speaking non-stop, imposing their views, and talking over others thereby preventing them from fully expressing their views. In short, they hog the conversation not leaving enough room for anyone else to share their thoughts. 

Quiet ones stay silent, often observing and listening to others viewpoints while holding themselves back from contributing out of fear that their ideas will not be valued or that they will make a mistake in front of others. Not speaking up or being sidelined by the loud ones can get their ideas, thoughts and concerns overlooked.  

Just because observers don’t object doesn’t mean they agree. Don’t mistake their silence for compliance, lack of interest or incompetence. They may bring fresh perspective or creative solutions which if left unshared will prevent the team from capitalizing on their valuable insights. 

There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
― Susan Cain, Quiet

To create space for the silent ones to speak up, put a pause on the loud voices. Say this:

Let’s give everyone a chance to speak. I’d like to hear from others who haven’t had a chance to share yet.

I value your enthusiasm, but let’s give some others a moment to share their thoughts.

Let’s make sure everyone has a chance to contribute—how about we hear from someone who hasn’t shared yet?

Great points, but let’s step back and hear from others so we can broaden the discussion.

We have some quiet voices in the room, and their perspectives are important, so let’s listen for a moment.

If the silent members still don’t chime in, call them out one by one and encourage them to share their thoughts openly. Remind them of the impact of not speaking up. Show them that their perspective is valued. Say this:

By staying silent, you might limit the team’s ability to make informed decisions.

Without everyone’s input, we might overlook potential solutions that could solve the problem more effectively.

Not expressing concerns or suggestions can lead to solving problems with incomplete knowledge, which could lead to mistakes down the line.

Anyone in your team can come up with an insight that can lead to a better solution, decision or a better outcome. Don’t let the loudspeakers in your team prevent you from seeking diverse perspectives. Silent them to create space for other voices.  

Promote participation with thoughtful questions

When dealing with open ended problems, complex situations or ambiguity, getting inputs from the team is crucial, but often very hard.

Uncertainty of the situation, risks and high stakes multiplies the fear factor and scares away people from expressing openly. While such situations demand creative thinking, taking risks and venturing into uncharted territory, these things instead of being at the forefront takes a backseat. Tried and tested ideas, solutions that have worked before or maintaining the status quo feels safe and the default tendency is to lean towards them because deviating from the normal requires people to step outside their comfort zone. 

To tap into your team’s experience and expertise, you have to make it easy for them to think differently. Questioning helps you achieve this.  

Questioning puts a brake on the brain’s autopilot mode and activates the thinking portion of the brain which enables your team to make the connections required to think creatively. Questioning also forces them to respond. They can’t ignore, avoid or refuse to answer when put on the spot. 

But it’s important to be thoughtful. Instead of questions with yes or no answers, ask questions that encourage them to think deeply, challenge assumptions and invite them to share their unique viewpoint and perspective. A collaborative approach that fosters open communication and demonstrates respect for others’ opinions is the key. 

What other alternative perspectives we haven’t explored yet?

What did we miss?

Which risks we haven’t addressed yet?

What are the potential challenges with this approach?

What’s your vision for how this could turn out?

How can we combine some of these ideas into a better solution?

What would happen if we tried a completely different approach?

Creativity requires asking questions for which an answer is not already known. The truth is that innovation is rarely the product of pure inspiration, that “Eureka!” moment when some genius comes up with a wholly new idea. Rather, innovation happens when people see things differently. It starts with a questioning culture that helps people gain new perspective and see things differently. 
― Michael J. Marquardt, Leading with Questions

Questioning can also be utilized to implement a constructive feedback loop. Learning about the challenges your team is facing when trying to share their ideas or situations where they feel hesitant to speak up can enable you to change the team dynamics or address specific behaviors that discourage them from contributing.  

What do you think of our team discussions?

How can we make them better?

How comfortable do you feel sharing your ideas or concerns during team discussions?

What challenges do you face when trying to voice your opinions?

What changes could make it easier for you to speak up?

How do you feel about the balance between listening and speaking in our team?

In what situations certain voices dominate, making it harder for others to contribute?

Getting access to ideas brewing up in your team’s mind can unlock a completely new world of possibilities. Ask questions to open the door and discover these hidden gems.

Recognize and reward contributions

Despite your best efforts, if your team is still lacking in open communication, the problem may not be that they’re lazy or simply don’t care. They probably don’t understand that speaking up is a valued behavior. 

Think about this. How often do you:

1. Recognize employees when they speak up, showing that their input is appreciated.
2. Acknowledge not just successful outcomes but also the act of sharing ideas, even if they’re not implemented.
3. Thank someone for raising a tough but important question in a meeting.
4. Show employees their input has an impact by acting on their suggestions or providing updates on how their feedback was used.  
5. Credit team members whose ideas or feedback contributed to improvements or decisions.
6. Give them visibility by presenting their suggestions to leadership.
7. Offer personal notes of encouragement for improvement in participation over time, especially for quieter team members.
8. Enable team members to recognize and appreciate their colleagues for speaking up, creating a culture of mutual encouragement. Think “Shout-Out Fridays” where people can thank others for their contributions. 

When employees are rewarded or recognized for voicing their ideas, concerns or feedback, it reinforces the desired behavior and encourages others to follow suit. Recognition also demonstrates that their inputs matter and reduces the fear of being ignored, criticized or dismissed which makes them feel secure about participating in future discussions.

That’s a great point, thank you for bringing it up.

Thanks for bringing that idea forward. It’s a fresh perspective!

Our recent success in reducing downtime was based on [xyz’s] suggestion during last month’s review. 

I’ve noticed you’ve been more vocal in meetings lately, and it’s made a difference to the team.

Kudos to [xyz] for sharing a suggestion that improved our customer response time by 15%!

Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.
― Gary Chapman, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace

Make your team members feel that their voice matters. Celebrate ideas, highlight contributions and recognize progress. Your team will be tempted to repeat behaviors that will earn them this recognition.  

Make speaking up a habit

Getting your team to open up and express freely by providing a safe environment, asking questions and appreciating them for their input is important in the beginning. It sets up expectations on how to communicate, collaborate and get work done in the team.

But you can’t keep pushing your team to speak up forever. For them to embrace open communication, it ultimately has to become a habit. 

For this to happen, you need to create opportunities in the team where team members are encouraged to participate:

1. Conduct brainstorming sessions. Regularly scheduled sessions dedicated to idea generation will provide structured opportunities to your team where they are encouraged to suggest ideas, big or small. 
2. Organize retrospectives to review what went well and what didn’t after a project or milestone. Seek inputs from everyone on the team. 
3. Have team members play the role of a devil’s advocate. It gives them permission to speak up without the fear of offending or creating conflict making it easier for them to voice dissenting opinions and challenging ideas.
4. Implement dot voting which lets team members place dots (or votes) on options, ideas, or suggestions they think are most important or valuable. This allows everyone to have a say.

Many other practices like these can make speaking up a norm. Once your team adopts the new behavior, it will be led by their subconscious mind. You’ll no longer need to ask them to speak up, they will do it voluntarily out of habit.

Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

Remember there aren’t short term hacks to make this work for your team. Speaking up is a habit that you need to inculcate in your team.  

Summary

1. Team members don’t speak up because they fear being judged, criticized or looked down upon. It’s safer to keep quiet than share ideas and opinions that may not be worthy of others’ attention,  or so useless that it makes them feel stupid or incompetent. To encourage your team to speak up, you have to provide a safe environment where all ideas, big or small, are valued and people in the team don’t worry about how their opinions will be perceived.  
2. Letting loud voices dominate the conversation makes it hard for silent ones to contribute. They speak too much, not leaving sufficient time to seek diverse perspectives. It’s important that everyone is given a chance to speak up. Silent loud voices to create space for everyone on the team.
3. Asking thoughtful questions unlocks creativity and encourages dialogue by making your team members think and respond to your queries. It makes speaking up easier by answering specific questions without being overwhelmed by too many things on their mind. They’re also saved from the burden of how to structure their thoughts, where to start and what would be the best way to present their ideas and opinions. 
4. People model behaviors that are rewarded and recognized at work. If you don’t appreciate your team members for speaking up, even when their ideas aren’t the best or don’t help you achieve the desired outcome, they may hold off on speaking up with the worry that their idea is less than perfect. Great ideas aren’t always great at first. They may turn into something big with inputs and feedback from others. Appreciate your team for speaking up. Show them you value their inputs.
5. Finally, you can’t keep coaxing your team to share what’s on their mind. To make it work for your team, you have to make speaking up a habit. To do this, organize brainstorming, retrospectives and other sessions where your team members get the opportunity to come together and share their views. Doing this on a regular basis will make this a habit. 

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