When Silence Is Not Golden

Abstract

Drawing on a survey of nurses and airline personnel, the authors make it clear that if we want to empower others to speak up and minimize errors and incidents, we need to understand personal perceptions of risk in order to mitigate the worries and fears involved. We must demonstrate that the benefits of speaking up are indeed greater than the perceived personal costs involved. The authors show that speaking up has to be encouraged constantly for people on all organizational levels, and it must be done in an environment that is safe and 100 percent conducive to their input. However, it is leaders who must help create that environment.