In a world always growing with a fast consumer appetite for (noisy) sound, the use of silence remains in collective perception something like a wrecked icon of old fashioned manners/ages, a spark of social oblivion, if not even a (sometimes snobbish) symbol of New Age / esoteric-meditative way of living. But if we just stop a minute and look back to his real deep meaning, we can learn that – if well used - Silence is a rich and powerful tool to be used in our business and social life.

1. Paolo Donati

2. 1. Why talking about silence
In a world always growing with a fast consumer appetite for (noisy)
sound, the use of silence remains in collective perception something
related to solitude, a wrecked icon of old fashioned manners / ages,
a (weak) side of NERD-losers, a spark of social oblivion, if not even a
(sometimes snobbish) symbol of New Age / esoteric-meditative way
of living.
But if we just stop a MINUTE (…the moment in which silence has often
been relegated) and get inspired by his meaning, we can learn that – if
well used - Silence is a rich and powerful tool to be used in business
and social life.
First good news: there’s nothing complicated from the technical point of
view. If we look back to the Latin word “Silentium”, one can find that we
are only talking about a pure mathematical subtraction of noise!
Simple and affordable for all the rest of us…
Apart from this, by using one more MINUTE stop, we can also find out another
interesting clue about the impact of silence in normal life.
Just consider for example:
- the use of silence / "no comment" in journalism;
- the right to remain in silence in court as a form of legal protection (something
enshrined eg in the well known Fifth Amendment of US Constitution);
- the religious silence as a form of respect (used also in military ceremonies);
- the ritual silence in oratory (Cicero’s oratory form is still used in modern public
speaking trainings!);
- the silence (or pauses) in music, in movies (remember Hitchcock?) or simply
the silence we can all manage with a correct punctuation in written docs…
- the use of silence as an "emotional" feeling or reaction: this is for example the
driver of the famous song "The Sound of Silence" of Simon and Garfunkel
(written after the assassination of John F. Kennedy).
Understood why at the end we have two ears / eyes and just one mouth?

3. 2. Business silence
In a usual company scenario there’s a narrow space for silence.
Power cannot be silent. Especially if it means (or leads to) uncertainty, chaos,
disorganization or anarchy. Take a company based on customer service:
silence might assume the meaning of a strongly negative "disruption",
malfunction or disorder.
Today’s huge proliferation of technology has also empowered us to be h24/365
potentially connected everywhere. Which is – to be honest - not always of
negative impact for companies (and coworkers) in order to get fast results!
But is this meaning that there’s no room for silence at work?
Think about a “yesmen” staff in a NASA project: is the total silence / absence
of thought being able to lift off a team to the Moon?
The answer is… we have to contextualize!
I’m in the HR. When meeting eg candidates it is key for me to HEAR answers
more than entering onto boring monologues (which I saw already a lot of times:
“we are kind of great company, we are this, we are that, we… we… we…”, and
who’s listening to the poor candidate??): focusing only in yourself means
closing the door to dialogue! This is why I still use Silence in job interviews
not only for hearing & understanding the candidates but also in order to test
how they react. Thus finding out that lots of candidates (not only youngsters)
are really panicking in front of this “vacuum”: quite often they immediately rush
to fill it, "going beyond" what they wanted to say… perhaps revealing details
that they were not willing to disclose at a first glance!
But apart from recruitment & selection, (active) Silence can be a powerful
weapon also for sales people: remember the “old iceberg” picture? Listening
FIRST means that you can understand the customer’s needs and, maybe, find
out also that he needs you more than expected!
Silence can be also effective when used in people management: providing (as
a motivational tool) the right space for listening people, without pre-judice,
Silence can be a synonymous of respect, openness and openness.
That’s why in a business meeting SPEAK only when you have the floor, ASK (that’s
really active!) questions during designated Q&A / without interrupting the others while
they are speaking and… LISTEN: you may find that many of the questions you had
in mind are already answered in the meeting!

4. 3. Summing-up
In order to effectively use Silence you don’t
simply have to shut up your mouth (unless you
want simply to breath a little bit).
To put it simple, active (valuable) Silence means
your availability to listen. Which is ultimately one of
the biggest efforts of modern (post, chat, text,
tweet…) people!
Few do it well, but it is not impossible to reach
them. Like any other good practice it’s just a
question of continuous (mental) gym…
The (correct) use of silence can be a dramatic
choice of social elegance, self-control, if not of
politeness. Or, at different levels, a powerful tool to
break massive (useless) noise…
That’s why we do not have to be afraid of Silence.
For sure, once you taste it, you will appreciate and
Share – Tweet – Like it!
Therefore, as part of this shift, next time
remember to switch off your mobile when
boarding a plane…