Talented people. Good ideas.
Silent in meetings.
They’re capable.
They know their work.
They have ideas.
And yet, when the meeting starts,
they say very little.
If you've already tried to get people to speak up, start here.
A 16-minute briefing on what motivation, encouragement and psychological safety can miss — and what may need to change instead.
What is actually stopping them from speaking up?
They have an opinion, but wait for someone else to speak first.
They have a question, but stay quiet until the meeting is over.
Instead of stepping in, they wait for someone to bring them in.
For a company, this isn’t just a “communication problem.”
It means you’re not getting the full value of talented people you already hired.
And there’s another problem.
When some people stay quiet, other people start becoming the helpers.
Nobody speaks, so someone asks a question.
The silence continues, so someone calls on people.
The atmosphere gets uncomfortable, so someone tries to lighten it.
The meeting starts moving again.Technically.
It looks like the problem has been solved.
But over time, a different problem is brewing.
The people who wait learn:
“If I wait long enough, someone will help me.”
And the people who help start thinking:
“If nobody is moving, I need to do something.”
Before long, two roles can become fixed inside the organization:
the people who wait,
and the people who help.
What BEMi thinks is really going on
BEMi doesn’t teach people what to say.
We don’t teach speaking techniques.
We don’t give people scripts for sounding confident.
We don’t rehearse the “right” way to speak up in meetings.
We start with a different question:
“You wanted to say something.
Why did you stop yourself?”
In most cases, the person actually has something on their mind.
They have a question.
They’ve noticed something.
And still, they say nothing.
Why?
Often, there’s fear underneath it.
What if I’m wrong?
What if people think that was a stupid thing to say?
What if I upset someone?
What if I derail the meeting?
To the person experiencing them, those fears are very real.
That’s why BEMi doesn’t believe the answer is simply: “Let’s make it feel safer to speak.”
Psychological safety has an important role.
But if the people around us are always responsible for reducing our fear, it becomes harder to develop another ability:
speaking while afraid, without needing someone else to make us feel safe first.
We each carry our own private fears
Don't wait for the trembling to stop;
learn to act with shaking hands.
Becoming "Fearless" is Not Realistic
Learn to move while fear is still there.
BEMi isn’t trying to make people fearless.
The goal is to be able to feel afraid and still think:
I’ll ask anyway.
I’ll say what I think anyway.
And if I’m wrong, I can correct it.
And if speaking up doesn’t go the way you hoped?
You learn how to recover.
Because that’s the ability people actually need at work.
What happens in BEMi?
No scripts.
No correct answers.
No formal role plays.
Instead, participants take on unexpected projects designed to leave them a little unsure about what to do.
Then we examine what actually happened.
Why didn’t I speak at that moment?
What was I thinking?
What was I afraid of?
Why did I wait for someone else to speak first?
And from the other side:
Why couldn’t I leave the silence alone?
Why did I step in before the other person had a chance?
What happened to them when I helped?
BEMi doesn’t work only with the people who stay quiet.
We work with both sides of the pattern:
the people who wait, and the people who help.
How Dangerous IS speaking up?
Suppose you ask one unnecessary question.
Is the entire meeting really going to fall apart?
Probably not.
Suppose you ask a question that isn’t particularly helpful. Is that really going to permanently destroy someone’s trust in you?
Probably not.
And suppose your question does send the meeting off track for a while. Is the whole project now doomed?
Probably not.
Through experience and dialogue, something that once felt like:
“I absolutely cannot let that happen”
can begin to feel more like:
“If that happens, I can deal with it.”
That shift matters.
Because it changes what people are willing to do back at work.
What happens when the helpers
stop helping so much?
Change in BEMi isn’t only about getting quiet people to speak.
Keiko was an excellent facilitator. When a discussion stalled, she knew exactly what to do.
She called on people.
Encouraged them to speak.
Brightened the atmosphere.
People relied on her. And that was part of the problem. Without realizing it, the group had learned:
“If things get difficult, Keiko will do something.”
During a BEMi program, Keiko tried something different. When silence appeared, she didn’t immediately help. She didn’t call on anyone. She didn’t try to lift the mood. She waited.
At first, the silences got longer. Then something started to change.
The people Keiko had been helping began speaking for themselves. Six months later, Keiko emailed James with another change she had noticed.
One employee who normally waited for work to be assigned spotted a problem and said:
“I’ll do it.”
Nobody called on him. Nobody encouraged him. Nobody even asked, “Would anyone like to do this?”
He moved on his own.
That’s the kind of change BEMi is looking for.
What if speaking up really does go badly?
It happens.
No matter how carefully you think before speaking, someone can still take what you say badly. Sometimes you really will say something stupid. There is no communication method that guarantees nothing will go wrong.
So BEMi doesn’t only ask:
“How can I speak even though I’m afraid?”
We also ask:
“If it goes badly, what can I do next?”
Because as long as you work with other human beings, things will occasionally go wrong.
The goal isn’t to become someone who never makes a mistake. It’s to become someone who can recover when you do.
──── The Right Fit?
BEMi CEO
James Chappell
If you’ve tried everything and people still aren’t changing.
Communication training. Facilitation training. Psychological safety initiatives. Encouragement, support, coaching.
You may have tried all of them. And yet you still have people who:
say little in meetings, wait for someone else to get them involved, or have good ideas but rarely offer them on their own.
Maybe the problem isn’t how they speak. Maybe we need to look at what happens in the few seconds before they decide not to.
What did they feel? What did they think? Why did they stop themselves?
And at the same time: Why does everyone around them keep stepping in to help?
Until you can see both sides of that pattern, it’s difficult to change it. BEMi doesn’t focus on better ways to speak. We work on what’s stopping people from speaking in the first place.
Are there people in your organization who make you think: “I know they have more to say than this”?
If the approaches you’ve already tried haven’t changed much, perhaps it’s time to try something fundamentally different.
If this helped make sense of what you've been seeing
If this approach puts words to something you have already been noticing, there's a good chance we'll work well together.
At BEMi, we provide training to build teams that can speak up with confidence. We tailor our programs to offer the best solutions for each company. Please feel free to contact us to get started!
