The Cost of Silence at Work

Chris J. Murphy

Welcome to the The Human Workforce Podcast Series and we are glad you are here listening. I am C.J. Murphy and I am taking the MC for today's episode called "The Performance Lie: When “Underperforming” Is Just a Cost Strategy". I am joined by the regular hosts of our podcast, Simon Carver and Lachlan Reed. --The story today is the reality that alot of people are carrying around two versions of the same workday: the one on the calendar, and the one in their body. On the calendar, it looks normal. Meetings at 10. Review at 2. Slack messages. Deadlines. But in the body, it's different -- tight chest, bad sleep, that little pause before opening your laptop because something is off and you know it. And the hardest part is, most people don't stay quiet because they don't care. They stay quiet because they are trying to survive.

Simon Carver

That phrase -- "two versions of the same workday" -- that's the one that's gonna stick with me. Because yeah, from the outside it can look almost boring. Then you talk to someone and they say, "I spend half my energy deciding whether this thing I just saw is worth mentioning." Not fixing it. Just deciding whether it's safe to mention.

Lachlan Reed

Yep. And that mental tax is a real mongrel. You tell yourself, "Just get through this week. Just get through the next review cycle. Just keep your head down." I've heard that from heaps of people, and honestly, I've said versions of it myself in rough gigs. You start treating your own instincts like they're overreacting, when half the time they're picking up smoke before anyone admits there's fire.

Chris J. Murphy

Right. And that "just get through it" mindset makes sense in the short term. Rent is due. Kids need stability. You don't want to become the problem by naming the problem. But let's talk about what silence costs. It doesn't only cost the individual peace of mind. It teaches the system what it can get away with. If a policy is ignored once and nobody says anything, that can be written off as an exception. If it happens five times and nobody documents it, it starts becoming culture.

Simon Carver

Wait -- that shift from "exception" to "culture"... that's the hinge, isn't it? Because people think silence is neutral. Like, "I'm not endorsing it, I'm just staying out of it." But you're saying the organization reads silence as usable space.

Chris J. Murphy

Exactly. Not moral agreement, necessarily -- but operational permission. We've touched this in earlier episodes on toxic environments and eroding culture: the people who keep the system running also keep its reality legible. Managers don't see everything. Executives definitely don't. HR sees some things through process. But coworkers, team leads, individual contributors -- they see where policy and behavior stop matching. When those people go quiet, the record gets distorted.

Lachlan Reed

And that distortion gets weirdly practical, too. It's not just ethics in the abstract. It's, "Oh, that's how promotions happen here." Or, "That's who gets protected." Or, "That's what happens if you question a dodgy call." Bit by bit, the whole joint starts running on unofficial rules. Like an old trail bike with the fairing taped on -- it still moves, but you really don't wanna trust it downhill.

Simon Carver

The taped-on fairing is good. Because from ten feet away, it still looks like a functioning machine. And then one bump...

Lachlan Reed

...and the thing rattles apart in your hands. That's it. And the cruel bit is the pressure is usually private. Nobody announces, "Hey team, we're normalizing harm now." It's more like nitpicks, selective enforcement, weird review language, meetings that somehow don't get written down. Enough to make you doubt yourself. Even a kangaroo could trip over that one.

Chris J. Murphy

Which is why I want to separate two questions people often collapse into one. Question one: "Can I afford to speak?" Question two: "What happens if nobody does?" Those are both real. And I think mature workplace conversations have to honor both. We should not shame people for protecting themselves. At the same time, we should be honest that cultures deteriorate when good people are forced into private coping instead of collective clarity.

Simon Carver

So if someone is listening right now and thinking, "That's me. I've been in coping mode for six months" -- what do you want them to hear first?

Chris J. Murphy

First: your discomfort may be information, not weakness. Second: you do not need to become a hero to become clear. Courage at work is often much quieter than people imagine. It's not a speech in the all-hands meeting. Sometimes it's simply refusing to let something harmful pass by as if it were normal.

Lachlan Reed

Alright, so let's make this useful. If something's going pear-shaped at work, first step is boring -- and boring is good here -- document it. Date, time, who was there, what was said, what policy or expectation it seemed to bump against. Not your whole life story. Just clean notes. Think mechanic's logbook, not angry midnight novel.

Simon Carver

"Date, time, who was there" -- that's huge. Because the difference between "my boss is targeting me" and "On March 4 at 2 p.m., in a review with these two people, I was told X after receiving Y feedback in writing the week before" ... those are very different things. One is a feeling. The other is a pattern you can actually trace.

Chris J. Murphy

Yes. Facts first. Specifics matter because memory gets challenged, especially under stress. Documentation is not about building a dramatic case file. It's about preserving reality before it gets blurred. Save relevant emails. Summarize conversations shortly after they happen. If your company has written policies -- performance, conduct, reporting, anti-retaliation -- read the actual language. A surprising number of people are navigating by vibe when the policy itself gives them better footing.

Lachlan Reed

And when you do raise something, keep the language steady. This is where people get baited, right? They go in hot because they're frustrated -- fair enough -- and then suddenly the whole issue becomes their tone instead of the actual behavior.

Chris J. Murphy

That's exactly right. You want to describe observable facts, the impact, and the policy concern if you know it. "On these dates, this happened. Here is the documentation. I'm raising this because it appears inconsistent with this policy or expectation." That's very different from making broad character judgments. You may feel those judgments privately. But clarity travels further than outrage inside systems designed to deflect.

Simon Carver

So let me try to say that back. You're not minimizing the harm. You're translating it into a form the system has less room to dodge. Less, "this place is toxic," more, "Here are three incidents, here are the witnesses, here is the contradiction."

Chris J. Murphy

Almost. And the part I'd add is: don't confuse procedural language with emotional surrender. Staying factual does not mean the issue is small. It means you're making it harder to erase.

Lachlan Reed

Because some systems will try to erase it. Let's not kid ourselves. Plenty of workplaces are brilliant at performative compliance. Fancy policy page, annual training, values posters near the kitchenette -- meanwhile everyone knows which complaints vanish into the swamp. That's the bit that really cooks people. The company says the right words, but the lived rulebook is different.

Simon Carver

The values poster by the kitchenette -- yeah, that's painfully specific. And when internal channels fail, that's where people can feel a bit foolish, like, "I did it properly. I followed the process. Why am I less safe now?"

Chris J. Murphy

Which is why another practical step is support. Not gossip. Support. A trusted colleague who has seen the pattern. A mentor. An employee resource group if one exists and is credible. Sometimes the most stabilizing sentence in a situation like this is, "I saw it too." Not because it solves the problem immediately, but because it restores your sense of proportion. Harm isolates. Corroboration reconnects.

Lachlan Reed

And choose your allies carefully. One solid person is better than six slippery ones. You don't need a marching band. You need someone who won't fold like a camp chair the second things get awkward.

Simon Carver

"Fold like a camp chair" is brutal -- and accurate. But it raises a real point: courage isn't always public, is it? We tend to imagine whistleblowing as this cinematic thing. Big confrontation, big speech. Most of the time it's quieter, slower, less flattering than that.

Chris J. Murphy

Much less cinematic. Real courage often looks like consistency. You document again. You follow the stated channel. You ask for confirmation in writing. You keep your account clean and factual. You refuse to participate in obvious distortions. And if the system will not correct itself, you at least deny it your silence as a form of consent.

Lachlan Reed

That's the bit, hey. Not loudness -- clarity. Not blowing the whole place up -- just refusing to paint over rust and call it polished chrome.

Simon Carver

And for the people holding a workplace together from the middle -- the coordinators, the analysts, the assistants, the managers who still care, the people everybody quietly relies on -- your honesty is part of the infrastructure. Not extra. Not optional decoration. Part of the infrastructure.

Chris J. Murphy

If something in your workplace keeps asking you to numb out, stay vague, and move on... that is not resilience. Sometimes the most human thing you can do is keep the record straight. ..... That's our episode for today. We hope you continue to listen and please give us a like, share this with others who could benefit from this episode and subscribe to our channel. Until next time. goodbye.