The fine art of keeping your mouth shut at work.
One of my core principles of office politics is this: Pick your battles.
Cliché? Maybe. But it’s broadly applicable in so many situations at work.
- Does the path you’re headed down lead you to a “win”? Then what the heck are you doing!
- Sitting in a meeting and it’s clear the decision isn’t going to go your way? Look for a compromise right quick, but don’t fall on your sword to fight a losing battle.
- Know you have the key votes on your side, even if your co-worker is running their mouth to the contrary? Just go along with it – no need to rock the boat if you have a win in sight.
- Not inclined to play the politics game at work? Maybe it’s time to pursue greener pastures elsewhere. If you say, you’ll likely end up pretty miserable.
A lot of those scenarios are dependent on developing one key skill: The fine art of keeping your mouth shut.
Have you ever noticed that those who are the highest rank in the room usually say the least? That’s because, over the course of becoming the highest rank in the room, they’ve learned when to speak up and when to keep quiet. The earlier you can learn this in your career, the better off you will be.
Be warned: This is a difficult skill to master! I’ve taught it for years now and I still struggle with it. If I’m in a bad mood, or someone has really done something to make me mad, it takes all of the energy I have in the world to keep my mouth shut…and I’m not always successful. But at the end of the day, you have to own your own behavior. You can think anything you want about the people you work with…but that doesn’t mean you are obligated to behave negatively towards them.
Here are some instances when keeping your mouth shut is your best bet:
- Do you know you’ve won a battle at work, even if others don’t know yet? Keep your mouth shut – there’s no reason to brag or be the deliverer of that news.
- Can you see, based on the decision makers involved, that something isn’t going to go your way? Keep your mouth shut – fighting won’t win you any gold stars, and will probably just send the wrong message about your willingness to be a team player.
- Do you hate your boss? Keep your mouth shut – gossip always gets back.
- Has your co-worker done something stupid that doesn’t impact you or your goals, but you feel the need to comment on it anyway? Keep your mouth shut – it’s none of your business.
- Don’t have something nice to say? Well, you know the rule!
- And so on, and so forth.
What if you’re directly asked your opinion in front of the group of people and you have no choice but to give it? You have to think about the larger context. Know where your co-workers stand by counting their votes but consider the cost of claiming a moral victory by voicing a descending opinion. Just say you’re fine with what the team thinks, or something to that effect. You haven’t gained anything, but you haven’t lost anything either.
So, when in doubt, keep your mouth shut. When you don’t say anything, you (usually) can’t get into hot water for it.
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This is good advice, however do you think we can be true to ourselves if we don’t tell what we really think? This is really politic actually! I know straightforward people and they are really successful because they are not afraid to say things. It really depends on the concept and on the culture…
Hi Julie – That’s a great question. Let’s look at the idea of free speech in the USA. The first amendment gives people the right to say whatever the heck they want BUT that doesn’t mean that there won’t be consequences for that speech. What you have to balance is are the consequences of it worth it. Again, what do you win by it? What could you lose? Are those things worth it to be able to speak exactly what’s on your mind that second? Or do you reign it in and avoid the consequences of it altogether? At the end of the day, this isn’t about what you CAN do…it’s what you SHOULD do.
Can’t agree with this. Ultimately, this message is what the article boils down to:
“Not inclined to play the politics game at work? Maybe it’s time to pursue greener pastures elsewhere. If you stay, you’ll likely end up pretty miserable.”
Or in other words, play the game, put up with the idiotic bulls**t, or leave, because the best strategy is to just accept it without a fight.
Sorry, but no.
My experience tells me that you have to have tough conversations in the workplace, and if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’ll definitely end up pretty miserable.
I’m not at all implying that you don’t fight – I’m saying you pick your battles wisely and focus on the things that matter. You can never fight all of the battles. If you do, you’ll just end up being that guy that’s fighting all the time that no one wants to work with. Sometimes not engaging in the nonsense is the best way to stand up for yourself.
Sometimes, oftentimes, you don’t have a choice about whether you engage with the nonsense or not. People will pick battles with you whether you like it or not.
I just don’t think it’s useful, or positive, to encourage people to ignore toxicity in the workplace. That gives toxic people a free pass, and tacitly says, ‘This behaviour is ok. This behaviour is acceptable’.
Your approach attacks the symptoms, but ignores the root cause, and the problem will continue.
Why not suggest approaches that business leaders can take to aggressively attack toxic individuals in their organisations and try to build human workplaces with healthy cultures, instead of telling the victims to just suck it up or ignore it?
I 100% disagree with you – we ALWAYS have a choice and we are always in control of our own behaviors.
I also disagree that I’m telling people to ignore toxicity. I’m the very last person in the world that will tell people to ignore it. What I am saying is that it doesn’t necessarily help solve the problem to fight it. In fact, if a situation is truly toxic (and there’s a big difference between toxic and annoying), then fighting it will likely just make it worse. You mention the root causes of the situations – in truly toxic situations, most of the time people are not going to have control over whether or not those things change because those start in early adulthood and are extremely hard to change when the person has been doing it for decades. I am far more concerned with helping people cope with toxic situations, or escape from them entirely, than I am in encouraging them to fight was research has shown over and over again to be a losing battle.
You also mentioned suggesting approaching for business leaders….which is EXACTLY what I’ve based my entire business on. Part of the work I do is helping organizations create great cultures for their people to combat exactly this type of stuff. However, I can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. If the problem is starting at the top, the chances of those people hiring me to fix the problem are slim to none. In that case, I’m far more interested in helping them people who find themselves trapped there than I am in the toxic leader.
I didn’t say we weren’t in control of our own behaviours. I said we aren’t in control of the behaviour of others, which you then repeated. The ONLY way to ‘cope’ in a toxic situation, is to leave. If you stay, you are giving licence to that behaviour.
I notice you also say ‘if’ the problem is starting at the top. The problem always starts at the top. Always.