What I Learned In School Today: You can participate in a group without speaking constantly.
Whenever working in a group, people assume some sort of role in terms of their quality and frequency of contributions. Some people jump right into the conversation and share every thought, often driving the direction of the talk. Others sit back quietly and listen, preferring to take in information from the discussion and determine their own points of view. Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes, finding a balance between speaking and listening, but is one side of the continuum better than the other?
I fall closer to the listening side of the continuum. That’s not to say I do not speak in meetings and refuse to contribute. On the contrary, I feel it is my responsibility to speak up when I have something to say in order to be a useful participant in the group. Nevertheless, I prefer to listen carefully, analyze the situations being discussed, I provide thoughtful responses when possible.
When working in a group, we need a combination of people who want to speak up and people who prefer to listen. If everyone wants to speak constantly and have their voices heard, collaboration won’t exist, the discussion will devolve into a battle for attention, and there will be no learning from one another. If everyone wants to listen, the conversation will stall, no ideas will be shared, and the work will go nowhere. Ideally, we want to work with people who can sway to and from active speaker to active listener seamlessly. These versatile participants are the those who keep all work moving forward.