Surveying the Lean Global Connection Audience on Barriers to Speaking Up

The blog post: https://www.leanblog.org/2024/11/surveying-the-lean-global-connection-audience-on-barriers-to-speaking-up/

At yesterday's Lean Global Connection event, I posed a straightforward yet revealing question to the audience:

“What keeps you from speaking up at work?”

The responses illustrated two of the common barriers. I posed the survey options based on the research of Prof. Ethan Burris, from the University of Texas at Austin, who has found that fear and futility are the top two reasons why people choose to stay quiet.

For some, fear stood in the way–the fear of reprisal, being judged, or being seen as a troublemaker.

For others, the obstacle wasn't fear but futility–the belief that speaking up wouldn't make a difference. Four people, sadly, said BOTH were barriers.

And yet, amidst these challenges, eight people shared that they felt no barriers at all, a testament to the environments they work in. That is the ideal we should all strive for.

The survey results line up with the Burris research that shows futility is actually the biggest reason, not fear.