Rise Above

There is nothing more dangerous than keeping quiet.

Leadership can often feel out of touch.

Sorry, that’s not what I meant to say.

What I meant was leadership is out of touch. And yet you still don’t say what you actually think when they’re around. You wait for them to leave, and then you and a small group of fellow employees will spend the next nine hours texting each other what you wish you had said.

You think you’re being smart. Protecting the job. Keeping your head down.

You’re not.

All you’re doing is showing the most powerful person in the building that you’re not worth taking seriously. And when I ask people why they won’t respectfully offer their opinions in front of their boss, it’s always some version of the same answer. I can’t lose this job. I’m just staying out of the way. Or, my favorite, what’s the point.

The point is your strategy sucks. Leadership can tell. Anyone who has ever been in a meeting can feel it when a room is handling you instead of working with you. The boss watches everyone go quiet and shrink, and then decides these people are weak. And then all that talent just sits there unused, because everyone decided that staying invisible was the safe play.

There has never been anything safe about work. Ever. And right now it's less safe than it's ever been.

I say fuck safety. I always interrogate the work. Out loud. With respect. The way you’d push back on a friend whose idea you believed in and wanted to make better. What if we push it further. Can we try it the other way and see what happens. And almost every time, the scary impossible boss everyone warned me about did something nobody expected. They liked it. They liked me. Because I was the only one in the room talking to them like a person instead of tiptoeing around.

If you make things for a living, this is the whole job. You’re supposed to scare the hell out of people with your ideas. You want a room to go quiet and then somebody to ask, wait, can we even do that.

An idea everyone is instantly comfortable with isn't an idea. It's a screensaver.

That nervous feeling is the sign you’re onto something. If you’re just nodding and agreeing and handing in the obvious answer, I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a creative. You cannot be scared and creative at the same time. It will never work.

Every time you sit on your idea, you prove to yourself that you never had one. It’s easy to be confident when you’re off-camera and on mute. You may as well be in the goddamn parking lot. The only version that counts is the one that shows up in the room, in front of the person who can tell you no.

Trying is winning. Not trying is losing. Sitting there quietly is still losing. You’re just quieter about it.

So next time you catch yourself waiting for the boss to leave so you can finally say the smart thing, don’t. Say it to their faces. Respectfully, clearly, and without apology. Worst case scenario, they can’t handle being questioned, and now you know exactly what kind of place you’re working at. Best case, you turn into the one person leadership actually trusts to tell the truth.

Speak up. Make noise. Rise above.

I’m here if you need me.

Pump Up the Volume: On Confidence, Self-Doubt, and the Voice in Your Head That Can Go Straight to Hell is coming soon. Foreword by Becky Lynch. Blurbs from Jimmy Kimmel, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), and Chris Regan (Family Guy, The Daily Show).

aaronblitzstein.com