Comments on: Conflict Hack: Silence Does Not Equal Yes

By: Lorelle

Lorelle — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 15:37:46 +0000

Ah, gee, shucks! Thanks for the kind words. And pox upon splogs. A serious blight, aren’t they?

You are doing a fabulous job here, Tammy. Thanks for reminding us that both the head and heart need to work together.

By: Tammy Lenski

Tammy Lenski — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 10:12:34 +0000

Lorelle, that’s such a sad but perfect example of the stories we fabricate in our minds when we’re puzzled by someone’s silence. I guess it’s part of the human condition that we make up stories, in those moments, that are blameful of self or other. Sigh.

I’m a big fan of your Wordpress blog and it’s helped me more than a few times…like just yesterday, when I found a splogger. Thanks for all that you have done and still do!

By: Lorelle

Lorelle — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 03:55:03 +0000

I’ve written about this in many different ways, and it is so true. Silence is not an answer. It is not a response. It means nothing except silence.

After Hurricane Katrina, I got an email from a volunteer group I worked with, addressed to the whole group, about their opinions on my silence. He judged my silence as an answer to a question he’d posed several days ago, raging about my response. I emailed back that silence was not a response. It was an ongoing lack of electricity, power surges, and computer failures. Silence meant I couldn’t answer and had never gotten the question. I made it clear that when I had an answer or opinion on anything, there would be NO DOUBT. Until then, nothing is nothing. Don’t make something out of it.

By: Tammy Lenski

Tammy Lenski — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:23:30 +0000

Congratulations on being a fellow SOB, Roy! Liz sure is terrific and I’ve found a number of my current reads from her list.

The secret of women, eh? We’ll see!

By: Roy

Roy — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:44:31 +0000

One of the great things about Liz’s SOB’s is finding new and interesting blogs.

I think I will use this one to find out the secret of women so I can communicate with my wife.

By: Tammy Lenski

Tammy Lenski — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 10:16:16 +0000

Ellen, I run into this issue most frequently when I’m asked to assist a workplace team with sorting through conflict that feels stuck. If I had a dollar for every time someone has said, “I thought we agreed to do X in that meeting!” and someone else has replied, “No, we didn’t agree, you assumed we agreed because no one dared disagree!”

By: Ellen Weber

Ellen Weber — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 03:07:54 +0000

Thanks Tammy, you blogs always make me think in a new way! I’d never really thought about what silence means in a meeting — but It’s an important consideration….

By: BrainBasedBusiness

BrainBasedBusiness — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:50:05 +0000

What Does Silence Mean in a Meeting?…

Over at I Can’t Say That! … Dr. Tammy Lenski had a great post today on the silences we hear at many meetings. Tammy asked: “Have you ever been in a meeting where the chair asked something like, ‘Does……