Haven’t we all been in a situation where speaking up could make us look foolish, or worse? Colleagues hesitate to question a doctor’s prescription error. Engineers are pushed to meet deadlines even when there’s a faulty part. Students do social calculus before deciding to stand up for someone being bullied at the next lunch table. In The Out-Laws movie that’s popular on Netflix, Owen, played by Adam DeVine, weighs the risk of losing his fiancée if he tells her “Your parents are bank robbers.”

 Harvard Business School Professor Amy Edmondson names this the voice-silence calculation. It turns out that remaining silent is often easier, because the almost certain and immediate benefit provides safety from retaliation and being wrong. On the other hand, speaking up benefits the group, often at some unknown and less likely point in the future.[1] Can you blame Jonah for choosing to run away rather than speak up? The Ninevites get the benefit of God’s mercy, while Jonah’s doomsday prediction makes him look less reliable than a soapbox preacher yelling on the corner.

[1] Hadley, Constance et al. “Make It Safe for Employees to Speak up - Especially in Risky Times,” Harvard Business Review, 2023 Accessed online:

https://hbr.org/2023/04/make-it-safe-for-employees-to-speak-up-especially-in-risky-times