Enabling people to speak up is now an imperative to reduce the risk of wrong-doing as well as access vital knowledge and ideas from employees.
Leaders are encouraged to say their doors are always open, yet such organizational interventions are often too simplistic to make any sustainable change to culture.
Simply asking people to ‘speak up’ and encouraging leaders to ‘engage in conversation’ without thoroughly appreciating the impact that power differences and social and cultural norms have on what can be spoken, and what is heard, is naïve at best. At worst it leads to organizational cynicism.
Megan Reitz’s research over the last 20 years has focused on how we can flourish at our workplaces through the way we speak with, listen to, learn from, and care for one another.
Joining Megan is Nezar Al Saleh; an entrepreneur and the founder of Niqashna – a community platform to spread culture and exchange views through debates. These debates touch on important issues in the Kuwaiti society that are often considered controversial.