Why Your Team Won’t Speak Up (And How to Fix It)

Summary

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HBR IdeaCast: Why Your Team Won’t Speak Up (And How to Fix It)

Date: April 28, 2026
Host: (HBR staff; alternating between Adi Ignatius, Alison Beard, and another possible co-host)
Guest: Charles Duhigg, journalist and author, Super Communicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection

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Episode Theme & Purpose

This episode delves into a common workplace challenge: why even well-intentioned leaders can't seem to get their teams to openly share honest feedback, opinions, or dissent—and what it takes to shift from a climate of silence to one of candor and real psychological safety. Charles Duhigg, journalist and author, offers research-backed insights and actionable steps for leaders eager to foster open communication, trust, and a speaking-up culture within their teams.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Candid Culture Paradox

• The Problem: Leaders ask for candor, but employees hesitate to speak up—often out of fear or belief that honesty won’t be rewarded.
  • Alison Beard: “Even me, you know, I'm a pretty forthright person, but I don't always say exactly what's on my mind, especially to higher level leaders... reflects an anxiety we all have. That total candor won't actually be appreciated.” (01:23)

2. Two Crucial Elements to Foster Candor (02:58)

• Rewarding Candor:
  • Charles Duhigg: “We can say that we want candor, but unless we reward people for being candid, then they won’t do it.” (02:58)
  • Leaders must explicitly recognize and thank those who challenge ideas or offer dissent, creating visible incentives to speak up.
• Building Psychological Safety:
  • Psychological safety is foundational.
  • Google's Project Aristotle found this is the "single most important element" for team effectiveness.
  • Duhigg: “Psychological safety is, I believe, that I can speak up... and what I say won’t be held against me.” (03:42)
  • Rewarding candor leads to a cycle where speaking up feels safer and more valued.

3. Techniques for Psychological Safety (04:36)

• Tactical Steps, Not Just Attitude:
  • Equality in Conversational Turn-Taking: Ensure everyone speaks at least once in a meeting, not just the loudest or highest-ranking.
    • Duhigg: “Everyone in that room feels like they have spoken up at least once... on par with their colleagues.” (04:43)
• Ostentatious Listening:
  • Leaders must demonstrate active listening—paraphrasing, explicitly referring back to someone's earlier point, etc.
    • Duhigg: “If the leader engages in ostentatious listening... I am paying attention to what you have to say.” (05:20)
  • This validation helps establish trust and encourages future candor.

4. Balancing Candor, Accountability, and Velocity (06:05)

• When to Encourage Challenge:
  • Not all moments are suitable for open debate—decisions needing swift action may limit discussion.
  • The key is to clarify when debate is welcome and when commitment is expected.
  • Netflix Example: Arguments and dissent are encouraged before decisions are made, not once it’s time to act.
    • Amazon Principle: “Disagree and commit”—debate openly, then unite behind the chosen course. (07:07)
    • Duhigg: “If I open my mouth, it's not going to result in me getting punished.” (07:41)

5. Measuring Culture & Matching Conversation Types (08:13)

• Is Psychological Safety Measurable?
  • Surveys and frequent, specific feedback can gauge whether people feel safe to speak up.
• Matching Principle:
  • Communication is effective when the leader matches the emotional tone/intent of the employee (practical, emotional, or social conversation).
    • Duhigg: “When we do that... we are creating and seeing psychological safety, because... the other person heard it and responded to it.” (09:56)

6. Authentic Response to Feedback (10:47)

• Walk the Talk:
  • If you claim you want feedback but people don't bring it, something is awry.
  • Leaders must show appreciation but also be candid about what will/won't change, explaining rationale to sustain trust and credibility.
    • Skittles Example: “I appreciate you bringing it to me, but... I have to have evidence that it matters.” (11:36)
    • Poor execution leads team members to think: “He doesn’t actually want feedback.” (12:08)

7. Dealing with “Fools,” Odd Ideas, and Respect (12:38)

• All Voices Offer Value:
  • Leaders may find some contributions off-base or “foolish,” but showing respect and acknowledgment keeps people engaged.
    • Duhigg: “You might need to suffer a part of their personality... that is foolish in order to get the part... that's really valuable.” (13:11)
    • “If you feel disrespected by your company, you will do nothing to make that company succeed.” (13:42)

8. The Pivotal Response to Public Challenge (14:23)

• Best Response: Thank, invite further engagement, and signal openness for future input.
• Worst Response: Defensiveness, dismissal, or ridicule—even in jest—destroys trust.
  • Duhigg: “Great communication does not require that we agree... it requires that we feel some sense of connection...” (15:26)

9. Incentives for Candor (16:21)

• Emotional Rewards Matter Most:
  • Praise, esteem, and public acknowledgment trump monetary rewards for encouraging future candor.
  • Duhigg: “That praise is probably going to be remembered longer than the $5,000 is.” (18:06)
• Everyone Wants Their Voice to Matter:
  • Duhigg: “Nobody wants to be in a job where they're biting their tongue...” (17:17)

10. Why Candor Helps the Bottom Line (19:14)

• Candor Alone Isn’t Enough:
  • Constructive challenge + unified execution (“debate and commit”) yields success.
  • Endless disagreement is counterproductive, but so is “yes man” culture.
    • Duhigg: “What does work is... you are encouraged to speak up and then you are encouraged to commit to the decision that's made.” (19:33)

11. Why Anonymous Channels Often Fail (20:53)

• Lack of Listening or Trust:
  • The issue isn’t lack of feedback; it’s whether leaders attend to and act on it.
  • Better to ask targeted, actionable questions rather than seeking vague general satisfaction.
    • Duhigg: “If you give people a chance to complain, they're going to complain... The problem is you're probably not listening to the truth.” (21:18)

12. Candor in Crisis (22:34)

• Cognitive Routines Trump Instinct:
  • Leaders should build habits to pause before reacting, even in high-pressure situations.
    • Duhigg: “These high pressure moments... usually it's not that if I have the answer in two minutes, it's okay... thinking in that timeline... means I have enough time to take a minute and just take a beat...” (23:35)

13. Who Speaks First Matters (24:28)

• High-Ranking Voices First Shuts Others Down:
  • At Amazon, meetings start with the most junior person’s opinion to encourage honesty and prevent conformity.
    • Duhigg: “The most junior people are the ones who are speaking first. That's how you get people feeling empowered.” (25:26)

14. Practical, Immediate Interventions (26:14)

• Three Essential Actions:
  1. Ask More Questions:
     • Duhigg: “When you're feeling furious, get curious.” (26:36)
  2. Articulate Real Company Values and Norms:
     • Leaders should explicitly convey which behaviors are valued, especially those that reinforce candor and commitment.
     • Office gossip shapes real workplace norms, so leaders must proactively share and reinforce the right ones.
  3. Ostentatious Listening and Connection:
     • Matching conversations to people’s intent and showing genuine listening is crucial.
     • Duhigg: “Great communication requires that we feel some sense of connection to one another, even if we disagree.” (28:49)

15. Balancing Vulnerability and Authority (29:49)

• Vulnerability is Key, Not Weakness:
  • Duhigg: “Vulnerability is being honest, is saying something that you could judge... At that moment, I pay very close attention to how you react.” (30:18)
  • The best leaders combine decisive action with open invitations to question the plan and contribute to making it better.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We can say that we want candor, but unless we reward people for being candid, then they won’t do it.”
  —Charles Duhigg, 02:58

• "Psychological safety is, I believe, that I can speak up... and what I say won’t be held against me." —Charles Duhigg, 03:42

• “When you're feeling furious, get curious.”
  —Charles Duhigg, 26:36

• “Great communication does not require that we agree with each other. Great communication requires that we feel some sense of connection...”
  —Charles Duhigg, 15:26

• “If you feel disrespected by your company, you will do nothing to make that company succeed.”
  —Charles Duhigg, 13:42

• “That praise is probably going to be remembered longer than the $5,000 is.”
  —Charles Duhigg, 18:06

• “The most junior people are the ones who are speaking first. That's how you get people feeling empowered.”
  —Charles Duhigg, 25:26

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Key Timestamps of Segments

• 01:06–02:34: The paradox of candor and why even forthright people don’t always speak up
• 02:58–04:23: What goes wrong: rewarding candor and building psychological safety
• 04:36–06:05: Tactical steps: equality in turn-taking, ostentatious listening
• 06:35–08:13: Balancing challenge with accountability—“debate and commit”
• 08:23–10:47: Measuring culture; the matching principle in communication
• 11:00–12:38: Responding authentically to feedback, even “foolish” ideas
• 14:23–15:26: Best and worst ways to handle public challenge
• 16:21–19:14: Incentivizing candor—emotional vs. financial rewards
• 19:33–21:07: The business case for candor: what works, what doesn’t
• 21:07–22:34: Why polls/anonymous channels fail, the real feedback problem
• 22:49–24:28: Candor under crisis—habits and cognitive routines
• 24:44–26:14: Empowerment by letting junior people speak first
• 26:33–29:49: Immediate actions to increase candor and connection
• 30:08–31:48: Balancing vulnerability and authority as a leader

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Actionable Takeaways for Listeners

• Reward Candor Explicitly: Create visible and emotional incentives for challenging the status quo.
• Equalize Talk Time: Ensure everyone in a meeting contributes.
• Practice Ostentatious Listening: Reflect, reference, and reinforce people’s input.
• Ask First, Especially Leaders: Start meetings with junior voices; senior staff should speak last.
• Model and Share Values Daily: Go beyond mission statements; reinforce practical, conversational norms.
• Respond Authentically: Be honest about what feedback will be acted on and why.
• Pause in Crisis: Use cognitive routines to thoughtfully process in urgent moments.
• Embrace (Real) Vulnerability: Show openness to being questioned and imperfect, balanced with decisiveness.

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This episode provides a wealth of practical insights, anecdotes, and scientific reasoning for any leader struggling with silence or groupthink—and equips listeners with actionable habits to nurture true candor on their teams.

Transcript

[Alison Beard]

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[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

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[Adi Ignatius]

This all virtual day will give you

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

practical frameworks to lead with purpose and strengthen culture across your organization. To learn more, go to hbr.org leadershipsummit See you there.

[Adi Ignatius]

I'm adi ignatius.

[Alison Beard]

I'm alison beard and this is the hbr ideacast.

[Adi Ignatius]

So I'm sure every manager has experienced this at one time or another. You sincerely encourage your employees to speak up truthfully, to give their unvarnished opinions about what's happening at work without fear of retribution. You try to set up a psychologically safe environment, but guess what? No one speaks up.

[Alison Beard]

Yes, I have seen this happen all of the time, and even me, you know, I'm a pretty forthright person, but I don't always say exactly what's on my mind, especially to higher level leaders. And I guess that reflects an anxiety we all have. That total candor won't actually be appreciated.

[Adi Ignatius]

Well, exactly. And I think, look, I think smart leaders know that the ideal scenario where you get people to talk openly and fearlessly about what's working, about what's not working at the company could be a real gift. You really want your people on the front line who are developing and selling your products and engaging with customers to tell you how it's all really going.

[Alison Beard]

So how do we get from those good intentions to actually getting people to tell you the truth?

[Adi Ignatius]

Well, so it depends on building a credible pattern of trust, of course, but it also boils down in many ways to the art of communication. So today's guest, Charles Duhigg, is an expert in that field and author of several books including Super Communicators how to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. He offers a lot of research backed advice on how to speak, how to ask questions, how to respond to challenges, all of which can help executives open up the culture in Healthy here's our conversation.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So your book, Super Communicators analyze things like conversation, like influence, like communication. I want to focus on one part of that which I think is relevant to our audience and that is on what you've learned about how leaders can create and sustain a culture where people will actually speak up. Because we've all been there, right? Leaders say they want candor, but their organizations too often default to silence. So what are we doing wrong?

[Charles Duhigg]

So I think there's two things that are going wrong there. Number one is we can say that we want candor, but unless we reward people for being candid, then they won't do it. Right. And the truth of the matter is, if you go into a meeting with your senior VP and you're the one who's second guessing him and offering all these different alternatives about other plans we should use, you're probably not going to get rewarded for it. Unless that SVP takes a step back and says, look, just want to say at the end of this meeting, thank you so much, Charles, for like, bringing up all those issues, because the more we question ourselves, the better we're going to get at doing this job. So we have to reward candor rather than punish it, which is what happens most of the time. But the second thing is that in order for people to feel like they can be candid, we need to have psychological safety. And psychological safety is this thing that's been studied extensively. There was a huge experiment that was done by Google trying to figure out how to build the perfect team. And they found that psychological safety is the single most important element in helping a team come together. And there's lots of techniques to develop psychological safety that we can talk about. But at its core, psychological safety is, I believe that I can speak up during a meeting or speak up to a colleague and what I say won't be held against me. When we have that, then we have the environment for people to say things that maybe everyone else doesn't want to hear right now, but that need to be said.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So psychological safety, you know, we've had Amy Edmondson on the program and hats off to her for her work in the field. So what is it then that leaders misunderstand about how that psychological safety is created and is maintained in practice?

[Charles Duhigg]

The number one thing that they misunderstand is that it's tactical. There are a set of steps that you can use to create psychological safety. It's not about being warm and fuzzy and friendly to everyone. Rather, it's about doing things like, first of all, ensuring equality in conversational turn taking. Basically, what it means is in a meeting, everyone should speak up and roughly in equal measure. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone's going to say the same number of words or speak for the same number of minutes. What's important is that everyone in that room feels like they have spoken up at least once and roughly on par with their colleagues. And sometimes that means if you're the leader of a meeting saying, hey, you know, Suzy, I haven't heard from you for a little while, like, tell me what you're thinking about, right, Inviting people into the dialogue. The second thing tactically that creates psychological safety is ostentatious listening. Because it's not enough to believe that you can speak up, to be invited to speak up. It's that you have to believe that other people are listening to you. This is where leaders have a huge amount of influence. Because if the leader engages in ostentatious listening, if they say things like, that's a great point, let me repeat back what I just heard you say to make sure I got it right. Or, you know, Jim, you brought up a point about 10 minutes ago that I want to resurface now because I think it's really important in those examples, I'm ostentatiously showing you that I am paying attention to what you have to say. And when we feel like we can speak up and we feel like we are listened to, that is when we start to create psychological safety.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So again, this all sounds great on paper and I don't think anybody would disagree with the principles, but obviously in practice, it's tricky. I guess part of it how can leaders signal that it's safe to challenge authority without losing accountability right in the moment and without losing decision velocity? I mean, there are two things there could be. I want to hear from everybody that's performative versus we need to make a decision. You know, there's a certain velocity to this. You know, I think that's probably where it goes off the rails in practice because those are the important considerations.

[Charles Duhigg]

If a decision has to be made right now in the next five minutes, we shouldn't have second guessing and back and forth unless someone feels really, really strongly about it. What it does mean is it means creating the environment and making messaging to your team or your company what the environment is, where second guessing or challenging each other is welcome. A great example of this is Netflix. Like Netflix is a company that is constantly making decisions into very high pressure situations because it's a streaming company and everything's moving so fast. And one of the things that they've done is they've essentially created a rule that people have to argue with each other. Not all the time, not when it's time to make the choice, but in the lead up to that, when we're having dinner together, when we're having a meeting where they come away from the meeting isn't that we have to absolutely have made a choice together, but we want to know what our options are in that environment. People are rewarded for second guessing, for challenging each other, for bringing up alternatives. The same thing happens at Amazon. Right. Amazon has one of their 14 principles that we're going to disagree with each other and then commit. Which means I'm going to walk into a meeting and I'm going to tell my boss all the reasons he's wrong. And when my boss makes a decision, I'm going to commit to his decision, regardless of whether it was the decision I would have made. There are ways of managing through these tensions, but at the core of it is this basic belief you have to have as an employee, which is if I open my mouth, it's not going to result in me getting punished.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So if people in your company aren't speaking up, then is it a cultural problem or is the leadership failure?

[Charles Duhigg]

I actually think they're synonymous. I don't think you can have a culture problem without leadership failure. And if you're having leadership failure, you're probably going to have a culture problem.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

How do you measure then, whether you speak out? You know, safe space.

[Charles Duhigg]

Yeah.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

Culture is actually working. Is it just, you know it when you see it, or is it actually measurable?

[Charles Duhigg]

Well, I think it's definitely measurable. Right. We know that you can do surveys where you ask people, do you feel like you can speak up? Is it a safe place to speak up? But the other way is to really listen to what people are saying. In super communicators, there's this core idea, and this is based on a lot of advances in neuroscience. When we are having discussions, we think we know what that discussion is about. But actually there are many different kinds of conversations all happening at the same time. And those conversations tend to fall into one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're making plans together or solving problems. But then there's emotional conversations where I tell you what I'm feeling and I don't want you to solve my feelings, I want you to empathize. And then finally there's social conversations about how we relate to each other, how we relate to the outside world, the identities that are important to us. And what researchers have found is that super communicators, the people who communicate best, they really focus on having the same kind of conversation as the person they're talking to at the same moment. In fact, this has become known as the matching principle in psychology, that successful communication Requires having the same kind of conversation at the same time. And the way that this translates into the workplace setting that we're talking about in creating psychological safety is if I'm in a meeting and I have a direct report and they say, look, we got to talk about next week's budget. And I have all the numbers here, I want to run through them because I'm feeling really, really anxious. Because if we don't get this budget right, we're going to have to do layoffs. And I do not want to lay anyone off. Like that's something that keeps me up at night. A good leader is listening to that conversation and they're saying, this person has presented a practical problem, a budget. But all the language that they're using is emotional. They're talking about anxiety, they're talking about not being able to sleep at night, they're talking about what they're worried about. So before I jump in to the practicalities of that budget, I need to match them on the emotional level. I need to empathize. I need to say something like, you know, I hear what you're saying. I feel exactly the same way, like, we gotta get this right because our first priority is to protect our people. And if we don't get the budget right, we're not gonna do that. And I feel that responsibility, and I know you do too. With your permission, can we look at the budget and start going through the numbers to see how we're gonna do that? In other words, with your permission, can we move from an emotional conversation to a practical conversation together? When we do that, we are creating and seeing psychological safety, because what we're seeing is that this person voiced something important to them and the other person heard it and responded to it.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So picking up on that, if leaders say, look, my door is open, I'm open to dissent, what signal are leaders sending without realizing it that despite saying those words, it's not being absorbed?

[Charles Duhigg]

If it's not being absorbed, nobody's showing up and second guessing them, right? The people who report to you should be telling you you're making a mistake at least 15% of the time, because I guarantee you, you're probably making at least 15% of mistakes, right? So you want to be surrounded by people who are actually warning you about that. But I think the other thing that happens is that when someone shows up to give that feedback, the response matters a lot. Not just rewarding them for speaking up, but also giving them honest feedback. If someone comes in and they say, look, the biggest problem with this company is that you don't serve enough Skittles in the break rooms. And I'm going to strike if I don't get Skittles in the break room. I would say, thank you for bringing this up. This is clearly something important to you. I want to take it seriously. That being said, I just want to give you some honest feedback when we look at what determines our profitability. Skittles in the break room is not one of the things that ranks high. And so I promise you I'm going to look at this again, and I appreciate you bringing it to me, but in order for us to be this, to be something we action on, I have to have evidence that it matters. So what I'm doing there is. I'm saying to someone, thank you for bringing this. I'm probably not going to do anything with it. Now, the alternative is that you come in and you say, hey, I want more Skittles. And the boss says, okay, great, thanks. Love getting that feedback. And then weeks later, there's no new Skittles in the break room. And you think, oh, that jerk. All he does is say that he wants feedback. He doesn't actually want it. So I think that the way that we react and the way that we authentically react to people's suggestions matters a lot as to whether they feel like those suggestions have any agency.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So I have a feeling some leaders would say, yeah, I don't suffer fools. Right. And I consider that a strength.

[Charles Duhigg]

Sure.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

Is that attitude okay in sort of the construct.

[Charles Duhigg]

If you can populate your entire company without any fools, then it's a great attitude. Right. But if you're running a large company, I guarantee you there's going to be some fools. Right. You need people who might appear to be fools. Let's take software engineering. You go into software engineering. Many of the people who work in software engineering, they have very difficult. Not many. Some. Some are socially awkward. They have difficult times having hard conversations with their employers. They bring up crazy ideas because they're super into their own thing. That person might appear a fool, but they're a software engineer that you hired because they're doing a job for you. And you might need to suffer a part of their personality that is foolish in order to get the part of their personality that's really valuable to you. The truth of the matter is, and everyone knows this, if you feel disrespected by your company, you will do nothing to make that company succeed. And so sometimes respect is as simple as saying, I hear what you're saying. I don't totally agree with you, but I promise we'll look at this. But if we find that it doesn't align with our priorities, we're not going to act on it. All that people are asking for is they're asking for acknowledgment of what they've said. They're not necessarily asking for action. And so not suffering fools might be to say, I'm going to ignore this Skittles request, but I'm going to let this person know that I heard them and that what they have to say is important to me, even if it's not enough of a priority for me to act on.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So it takes a little time, but at very little actual cost to the leader.

[Charles Duhigg]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So on a kind of tactical basis, if somebody challenges you publicly, let's say, around a table as a leader, what's the one response? That in response, you kind of build up that culture that we're talking about. And what's the response? That could just destroy it.

[Charles Duhigg]

Okay, so let's try. I'll try with you, Adi. So let's say I'm one of your direct reports at hbr, and I come to you and I say, hey, Adi, I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about the last issue that we put out, and I just thought the COVID art was, like, really off. Like, it. It didn't tell me anything about what was going on, and it wasn't very attractive. So what do you say to me?

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

You're fired. So it wasn't so hard, was it?

[Adi Ignatius]

Yeah.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So I would say, look, thanks. This is subjective. Forgetting the actual answer. You know, I've learned you don't want to be defensive, and there's no value in being defensive. So you want to say, look, that's a good point. Which I thought of that. And think about a structure where we could have this conversation before it's too late.

[Charles Duhigg]

Yeah.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

If you feel strongly about this, let's find a way to get you into that conversation.

[Charles Duhigg]

I mean, I think that's a great answer. Right. Because what you're telling me is you're telling me you heard what I have to say. You actually had your own reasons that I might not be aware of for choosing that cover. You appreciate me coming forward, and if I have suggestions that are helpful going forward, meaning I'm giving you this feedback before the COVID actually hits the newsstands, then let's find a way to do that. I think that's a great answer. And it doesn't mean that you're going to agree with me. It doesn't mean that you have to agree with me. This is the thing about communication. Great communication does not require that we agree with each other. Great communication requires that we feel some sense of connection to one another, even if we disagree. And if I believe that you are hearing me and that you value my opinion, and you know that I care about this company enough that I'm bringing up this cover issue to you, we feel connected to each other. And at that point, we don't have to agree. We can peacefully coexist.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

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[Charles Duhigg]

I think the incentives around candor are in two categories. The first is that there is an incentive that just comes from feeling like you can speak your truth, right? Nobody wants to be in a job where they're biting their tongue and they're thinking to themselves, this is the dumbest plan I've ever heard in my entire life. But I can't say anything because I'm going to get fired. That's not a fun job. Nobody feels good. Everyone shows up to work every day wanting to contribute to success. And when you can't speak up because you're afraid to do so, it means you're not contributing to success the way that you hope to. So that's the first incentive, is that you recognize that everybody does want to speak up. Everybody does want to be a part of the solution. When someone comes to you and they're second guessing you or they're offering you criticism, it's not because they want you to fail. It's because they want to help you succeed. Then the second thing is the incentives that we create, the most powerful ones are emotional. So there's lots of companies that offer, for instance, bonuses or, you know, higher salaries if you, if you find a problem and you solve it. And that works, right? People will definitely do things for money. But what research shows is that the most powerful types of incentives are emotional incentives, such as giving Someone praise and esteem and raising their social esteem within a, within a group. So if I'm in the middle of a meeting and I say, hey, look, I just want to take a second to like, you know, Jim is sitting in the back. Three weeks ago he came in and he told me that he thought we were making a bad choice with the COVID of this latest issue of hbr. I just want to thank him for doing so because that was really helpful, Jim, and it made a big difference. You're giving him more social esteem within this crowd of people that he cares about, and that's going to be enormously powerful. That's a great incentive. Now you might also say, hey, and by the way, Jim, I'm giving you a $5,000 bonus. And that's fantastic. It's certainly not going to discourage him and it might encourage other people, but that praise is probably going to be remembered longer than the $5,000 is.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

Most of the arguments you're making seem to be for building up the confidence, security, safety, self esteem of an employee. What's the evidence, what's the science that encouraging this kind of candor helps a company, helps the bottom line? From that other point of view, it's

[Charles Duhigg]

really interesting because simply ensuring candor does not necessarily mean your company's going to improve. We've all been at companies where people are disagreeing with each other, where there's political battles and so people are trying to undermine each other. That clearly does not work. What does work is being in a company where you are encouraged to speak up and then you are encouraged to commit to the decision that's made. And again, I'll mention this Amazon example of debate and commit, which is basically what they say is go into that meeting and fight viciously. Like, in fact, we're only going to promote the people who prove that they're willing and able of second guessing their bosses. But when a decision gets made, even if it's not a decision you would have made, you need to be behind it 100%. You need to be completely committed. The debate is over. Now your boss has decided. Now we end the second guessing and now we all work together. And that, we find, is the type of thing that really creates this culture that helps us get the best of both worlds. Because we can't have something where people are constantly sniping at each other, but we can't have something where everyone is a bunch of yes men. And so what often works is delineating where a particular skill set or a particular attitude is most helpful.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

Companies all companies probably install sort of alternate channels, you know, the anonymous hotline, surveys and even then don't hear the truth. You know, do you have any sense as to why those systems? I mean, I've certainly heard that why those systems often don't work.

[Charles Duhigg]

I'm going to push back on that. If a CEO of a large company comes and says, I've done all this polling and we've got anonymous lines and X, Y and Z and, and I'm not hearing the truth, that doesn't mean that people aren't saying the truth. That means that person isn't listening to the truth. Right. We've both worked in large companies and small companies. We know that if you give people a chance to complain, they're going to complain. They're going to tell you what they think is wrong. And you might say, that's Jim. He always gets on the line and he always complains like nothing makes that guy happy. But it's not the problem that you're not getting the truth. The problem is you're probably not listening to the truth. It might also be that you're not asking the right questions. Right? Because again, are you happy? Is not a great question for a company because a company's job is not to make its workers happy. A better question is, do you think you're able to do the best work possible here? When you see something that you think is going awry, do you have the capacity to speak up and say something? Do you think people will listen to you? We have to ask the questions that we actually want the answers to. And the general polls usually don't do that well.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

And I think if you're not getting candor through those channels, you have a big trust problem. Because basically people are saying, I don't trust that this is anonymous.

[Charles Duhigg]

Or they're saying, I honestly don't think you're going to listen to what I have to say, so it's not worth. So why take the risk of saying it? And I think at that point, if you have lost that trust, you as a leader have to do something to regain it.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

Now, do you have a different view in terms of the way a conversation should go around the room? We talked about this a little bit about urgency, but in a really high stakes environment, a crisis response or something like that, do the rules go out the window at moments like this?

[Charles Duhigg]

No, but what is really important is having the right habits in place. Psychologists refer to these as cognitive routines. The things that I can do that allow me to think more deeply when thinking Deeply is hardest, such as in the moment of a crisis. Because in a moment of a crisis, my instinct is just to become reactive, right? To start acting right away. But what you find among really good executives is that they have this cognitive routine. They say, okay, look, this is a real problem. We need to act on this before we act. Let's take three minutes just to think about what are the consequences of these different actions. Or they say, okay, this is a real problem. My rule is we are not going to tweet anything, we're not going to send out any emails about this until we've gotten a chance to sit down and look at the wording together before we send it out. Those are little cognitive routines, what are known as implementation intentions. That in the moment of a crisis, instead of following my instinct to act, I'm going to create a requirement for myself that I pause to think. And you're right, these high pressure moments, they come, but usually it's not that. If I have the answer in two minutes, it's okay. And if I have the answer in five minutes, it's not. Usually, even in high pressure moments, it's not about split second choices. It's about choices over the next 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 minutes. And so if I start thinking in that timeline, that definitely means I have enough time to take a minute and just take a beat and think about what we actually want to get done here, rather than are we just reacting to some fire because we want to put it out?

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

So you haven't mentioned, and maybe because it's too obvious, but to me, the most reliable way to shut down conversation is if the highest ranking person there, the person who's chairing the meeting, says, all right, we have to decide on X, I think we should do this. But what do the rest of you think? It's over, right?

[Charles Duhigg]

No, no. That's terrible. That's terrible. So again, to go back to Amazon, what's really interesting is I sat in on a number of meetings at Amazon, including with Bezos when he was still at the company, and the same thing would happen every single time. There's a memo that whoever has called the meeting has prepared. The meeting starts with everyone reading the memo. And the memo is very formalized, like it can't be more than, I think at most three pages. And usually it's supposed to be about a page long. And it's supposed to lay out the problem, lay out how the decision ought to be made, etc. So the meeting starts with everyone sitting down and reading that memo, you're not expected to have read it ahead of time. If you have read it ahead of time, you're expected to reread it. And then Bezos, or whoever's the leading the meeting turns to the most junior person in the room and says, what do you think? Sometimes, including in meetings I've sat in on this is like him turning to a 27 year old, terrifying and saying, tell me your take on this. And the 27 year old is probably not going to have anything really great to say, but they might. And he's going to be honest and give feedback, say, that's a good idea. I don't think it's practical. Let's see what ideas other people have. And you kind of work your way up the chain so that the most junior people are the ones who are speaking first. That's how you get people feeling empowered. Because you're exactly right. If you start with senior people, nobody's going to fall out of line with what their boss says or they do at their own risk.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

You know, HBR and we like to be super practical and we love to have kind of immediate takeaways. So, you know, somebody's listening to this and says, yeah, I would like to have a culture that is more candid, that actually delivers on what we've been trying to do unsuccessfully for a while. What's an intervention somebody could make, you know, tomorrow with their team?

[Charles Duhigg]

Number one is ask more questions yourself and tell your senior leaders to ask more questions. There's this expression I love that goes, when you're feeling furious, get curious. Because this is again, a cognitive routine. When I'm feeling really upset, when I'm feeling overworked, when I'm feeling like my back is against the wall or defensive at that moment, what I should do is I should get curious and just ask a question. Because oftentimes, not only does it give me a break to start emotionally regulating myself, but it also gives the other person a chance to clarify what they're actually saying. Because it might not be the attack that I perceive it to be. It might be that they're actually trying to help me. That's the first and most important thing that we can do to create a culture of candor is that we can start asking more questions. We've talked about rewarding people for bringing up challenges for second guessing us. But then on top of that, I think is something that's important, which is we have to talk about who we are as a company in ways that reinforce what behaviors are most important. There's a lot of interesting research that's looked at on office gossip, and it's found that office gossip is actually the most important type of communication that happens within an office place, because it's through office gossip that we basically tell you what the norms are, how you ought to behave, the things that we can't write down in some book. So I would say what's really important is as a leader, something that we can do tomorrow is to spend a little bit of time saying, let me tell you what the values of this company are, not necessarily the values that we have written in our mission statement, because nobody pays attention to the mission statement. But let me tell you what I really value in my coworkers. I value people who, when they see something going wrong, they come and they tell me about it, even though they know that there might be some risk to them in doing so. And I promise you, I'm going to try and work hard to make sure that they don't suffer as a result of that. I value people who, even if they don't agree with the decision is made, once the decision is made, they get behind it and they commit to it 100%. Oftentimes we have an identity as a company, we have an identity as a worker, and. And we don't know what that identity fully is until people start voicing it. So in addition to asking questions, the second thing people can do, leaders can do is they can just have conversations about what does it mean to be an HBR employee? What does it mean to be an Apple executive? How are Apple executives different from other executives? The more conversations we have about that, the more we clarify who we want to be. And then finally, the third thing is we just try and connect, matching the kind of conversations that people are having, proving to them that we're listening. This ostentatious listening, inviting people into discussions, these are all things that exist to help us connect with one another. And the thing about connection is, Adi, I am absolutely certain that you don't agree 100% with your spouse or your best friend or your kids or your boss about everything thing, but you're probably able to get along with them pretty well, right? Because agreeing is not the thing that creates the glue for that relationship. It's the sense of being connected to each other. And so the more that we can really emphasize on trying to connect with others, the more that we're going to be able to navigate through situations where we disagree.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

And what do you tell people who feel like it's hard? I'm trying to project authority. I know that empathy is a part of leadership and vulnerability is a part of leadership, but I just, you know, I'm new to my job. I need to show that I'm capable of smart decision making. I mean, how do I balance that?

[Charles Duhigg]

That's a totally normal instinct. That's an absolutely normal instinct. And every single study shows it's the wrong instinct scientifically. If we go out and we ask people who are the best leaders, they inevitably point to people who are vulnerable, who admit their vulnerabilities. And we tend to misunderstand what vulnerability means. Vulnerability is not crying in front of each other. It's not saying, let me tell you this sad story about my mom. Vulnerability is being honest is saying something that you could judge. When I say something that you could judge, it sets off a neural cascade within my brain that creates a sense of vulnerability. And at that moment, I pay very close attention to how you react. And if instead of judging me, if you withhold judgment, and even better, if you share something about yourself or your thinking or what's going on in your life that I could judge in return, then we will feel closer to each other. So you're exactly right. A new leader coming into a company, they can't walk up and say, I have no idea what I'm doing. I make all the wrong choices. But what they can do is they can walk up and they say, look, I have this plan. Let me explain it to you. If you think that there's gaps in this plan, I want to hear them, and we're going to work through them. If I agree that these are gaps that need to be handled. And then once this plan is underway, I need everyone to fall in line behind it. I need all of you to commit to it because it's the product of all of our thinking. That's a leader who no one is going to say that person isn't decisive. But they're also going to say, that's a person who wants to hear from me, who's admitting, like, I have this plan. I'm not sure it's perfect yet. I need your help to make it perfect. That's a pretty healthy environment.

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

This is all fascinating.

[Adi Ignatius]

I want to thank you for being

[Host (possibly Sarah Green Carmichael or another HBR host)]

on HBR and eFast.

[Charles Duhigg]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Adi Ignatius]

That was Charles Duhigg, author of Super Communicators how to unlock the Secret language of Connection. Next week, Alison speaks with Nilfer Merchant about rethinking the status quo without losing what has made you you.

[Charles Duhigg]

Great.

[Adi Ignatius]

If you found this episode helpful, share it with a colleague and be sure to subscribe and rate IdeaCast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. If you want to help leaders move the world forward, please consider subscribing to Harvard Business Review. You'll get access to the HBR Mobile app, the weekly Exclusive Insider newsletter, and unlimited access to HBR Online. Just head to hbr.org subscribe and thanks to our team, Senior Producer Mary Du, Audio Product Manager Ian Fox and Senior Production Specialist Rob Eckhart. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We'll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I'm Adi Ignatius.