Collective silence: when a missing response becomes a management issue
A proposal goes unanswered while exchanges continue among the other team members. The management question is specific: how can a feeling of exclusion be addressed without prematurely attributing hostile intentions to colleagues?
What the literature establishes
Kipling D. Williams, Christopher K. T. Cheung and Wilma Choi (2000, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) studied the effects of exclusion in an online ball-tossing game. Being ignored in this minimal interaction affected participants’ sense of belonging and self-esteem, among other outcomes. These findings show that a brief interaction can be enough to generate a negative emotional experience without any open conflict.
A subjective experience that cannot be dismissed as oversensitivity
Naomi I. Eisenberger, Matthew D. Lieberman and Kipling D. Williams (2003, Science) used brain imaging to examine social exclusion in a virtual ball-tossing game. They observed activity in the anterior cingulate cortex associated with participants’ reported distress. This finding sheds light on the experience of rejection; it does not provide a test for identifying exclusion at work.
The premature conclusion
One might infer that every unanswered message constitutes a form of ostracism. Yet these studies concern experimentally arranged exclusion, not the ambiguous silences of an overloaded team. For managers, acknowledging an emotion therefore does not mean confirming the interpretation attached to it: the feeling deserves attention, while the assumed intention requires checking. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these data cannot settle
An experimental game reproduces neither hierarchical relationships nor a department’s relational history. These studies establish no acceptable response time and do not demonstrate that an acknowledgement alone prevents feelings of exclusion. Conversely, a clearer communication rule cannot replace an examination of repeated exclusion.
A practical check in Berne
As part of SHR’s Emotional Intelligence programme, an exercise could be proposed in Berne within a federal administration unit, a public health team, a telecom operator or a precision engineering company: distinguish the observable fact, the emotion experienced and the intention attributed. Over two weeks, the team would agree on an acknowledgement deadline for requests explicitly addressed to an individual, then measure the proportion acknowledged within that deadline, keeping acknowledgement distinct from resolution. An anonymous question before and after the trial — “Are my contributions taken into consideration?” — would complement this record without collecting the content of sensitive exchanges. Comparing these two indicators would help examine whether greater visibility of responses accompanies an improvement in people’s experience, without establishing a causal relationship on its own. To go further: explore the Emotional Intelligence training in Bern in the canton of Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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