Silence is Gold: Importance in Business Communication

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of silence in business communication. It begins by introducing the concept and then delves into the positive and negative aspects of silence, highlighting its importance in various contexts. The essay explores how silence influences communication, including its impact on negotiation, leadership, and cross-cultural interactions. It examines the different interpretations of silence across cultures and how it is perceived in different business scenarios. Furthermore, the essay discusses the constructive and destructive aspects of silence, and how they affect communication outcomes. The paper uses references like Ephratt (2011), Lane et al. (2016), Chu et al. (2015), and Samovar et al. (2014) to support its arguments.

Running head: SILENCE IS GOLD
SILENCE IS GOLD
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of silence in the world of business
communication. Keeping silence in the communication process is the method of letting others
to share their ideology hence for effective and successful communication, the action of
silence a prerequisite. This paper will be discussing the positive aspects of silence and how
these manipulate the communications of the persons. Along with this, the negative aspects of
silence will also be detailed. Silence has played important part in the business communication
and how this is interpreted in different parts of the world depending upon it culture.
Critical analysis:
Silence is considered to be the golden word in the field of psychology and business.
This is due to the fact that it is a powerful action that denotes various responses. It is the best
policy depending upon the situation and understanding of the communicators. This enhances
values of the communication positively or negatively but successfully reflect the
psychological response of the person. According to the English idioms, speech is considered
to be silver but silence as gold which is the precious of all metals. Silence is important as this
allows the persons to initiate their topic of communication. This denotes the fact that the
persons need to think before saying anything. This leads to have a good understanding of
scopes where the speakers can remain silent. These excellent communicators are attentive to
the needs and usage of silence in the conversation. These people truly understand the need
and importance of silence hence being pressurised into spill when the silence is used for
controlling.
Despite the fact that silence is considered to be positive aspect of communication
hence termed as the gold, more precious than speech, with the change of contexts and
situation, the meaning of silence gets changed. This is reasons why the critics from different

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parts of the world and different subjects have debated on the rightness of this idiom. They
question the fact that whether, silence of the political leaders with a huge power is expected
when their audience is asking for answer of any mishap or silence in the business meeting can
be acceptable if higher authority asks for reasons of the firms’ failure. In this regard, the
meaning of silence has been interpreted in different countries and cultures and different
contexts but it can be stated that use of silence in the communication is needed so that the
tendency of misunderstanding or misinterpretation gets reduced among the speakers.
It is the human tendency that they talk much and listen to the others less which often
leads to misunderstanding of the pointes or perspectives then conflicts. Therefore, the idea of
silence allow them to wait and listen to the others before making any remarks. The learned
and understanding people who have important information to share keep silence and expect
the audience to do the same otherwise the weight or proper understanding of the information
do not get proper exposure. It is completely a misconception that the introvert people are the
only persons to keep silence and use nonverbal communication process and the extrovert
people are responsible to use speech to express their minds. According to the critics, the
extrovert people who know the importance of silence keep using this action times again
because it serves to be the best way to respond in any situation and getting the time to think
about the matter. It is clear therefore, that there are numerous positive sides of silence in the
communication process that the successful communicators use the make their speech more
acceptable to the listeners as back to back words do not create appealing speech but the
audience get the time of contemplating over the subject if the speaker uses silence in his
speech.
Avoiding to the study by Ephratt (2011), silence in the communication system has
been considered to be one of the most effective concept. According to this author, there are
three types of silence which include Linguistic, paralinguistic and extra linguistic speech and

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silence. There is a strong connection between speech and silence but this idea is seen under
different lenses in different parts of the world. This connection of silence and speech is
therefore a subject of socio-cultural paradigm. According to some cultures, silence is
considered to be the action for lack of speech but in the other hand, it is seen to be an integral
part of effective communication where the communicators understand one another by reading
between lines.
According to Lane et al. (2016) also, silence is an important communication tools but
is usually considered to be the action denoting absence of communication. According to
survey it has been found that only 7% of the total communication the human being is
nonverbal and the rest is of verbal communication in which silence plays an important role.
According to the authors, silence encourages the other persons to speak inevitably therefore
communication is a bilateral or multilateral process. It is the process of letting others to share
their ideology hence for effective and successful communication, the action of silence a
prerequisite. In order to facilitate listening, the essentiality of silence is inevitable as only
being silent the persons can make the inner self active.
Silence is considered to the most precious of all because this enable introspection as
well as reflection through traversing into deep layer of mind where the inner self is hidden.
This enable the persons to recognize the depth which helps to make deliberate attempts of
remerging with these parts which were once left unattempted due to lack of discomfort
regarding the acknowledgement of emotions. Generally people use non verbals
communication when they are annoyed with an incident and express reluctance, resentment,
indifference. On the contrary, according to Chu et al. (2015), silence enriches communication
when used positively but often misfires and misdirects when not understood by the listener.
On this basis the idea of constructive silence and destructive silence need to be detailed. The
constructive silence takes the conversation forward but the destructive silence shuts all the

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communication process in one hand and create barrier for the speakers to express their
thoughts.
The impact of laden or negative silence can be expressed through the emotions like
embarrassment, defensive idea, appal, fear and awkwardness. On the other hand the golden
silence gives the feelings of confidence, reflection, peace, respect and comfort that actually
enhances the communication as well as promote tendency of increasing relationship. This is
the reason why the powerful people attempt to use silence as their strategy to flourish and
contemplation. This also helps to open up the cognitive mind and showcase the authority and
power through empathy. Silence creates listening space as well as deepen the understanding
of the others as well as of ourselves.
As mentioned before, the importance of silence is seen to be different in different
region of the world. The eastern culture values silence more than the use of words which is
completely nullified in the western culture. According to the authors like Samovar et al.
(2014), the communication between cultures therefore gets hugely affected by the idea of
silence and reading between lines. In this book, the authors have given a very common
example of the meaning of silence in different culture. The phrase ‘will you marry me?’ will
have an answer either negative positive. To the authors, the answer if expressed through
silence, in the eastern society, it will means interpreted as an action of acceptance but in the
western society it will be considered as the feeling of uncertainty. Quite contradictorily, this
question will be differently answered in African society. The woman if stands continuously it
will mean that she has not accepted the proposal but if she runs away, it will mean
acceptance.
Silence is an asset as well as an effective strategy in negotiations. The negotiation
process of different culture considers silence to be unimportant hence trey to fill the void with

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different irrelevant words. This however weakness the position of the communicator as well
as their message. It leads to settle for less and compromise bargaining position. Therefore
while finalising the financial deal or request for raising promotion, the negotiators must have
proper knowledge of using silence wisely. This gets promoted when the negotiator has the
ability to present his or her position and patient to listen to use the power of silence. Excellent
communicators allow silence when it is needed and called for. These excellent
communicators are attentive to the needs and usage of silence in the conversation. These
people truly understand the need and importance of silence hence being pressurised into spill
when the silence is used for controlling. These people consider the action of silence as the
gift or mark of respect. This high emotional intelligence of these people allow them to
consider and interpret the silence of the others hence respond properly.
Silence is seen to be gold as this helps to serve many purposes as well as functions
both in the personal as well as professional lives of the people. Therefore, the effect and
usage of silence largely depend upon the level of sophistication of the persons’
communication process. However, according to Kenny (2018), the power of silence is seen in
the context of spiritual speeches as well as in business when the ‘spiritual guru’ or business
leaders is sharing their thoughts and emotions which they have developed with the years of
experience. However, this is also true to the incident of the political leaders who try to
manipulate the thoughts of their audience through speech. In that case, silence is highly
demotivating for the audience as they learn from their leaders.
Silence has been playing an essential part of the global business in last few decades as
the quantity of communication among the negotiators and leaders have increased after
globalisation. According to Ephratt, M. (2011), the concept of silence is an accurate analysis
of the unsaid as sign. In this context, where the speaker refrains from speaking about a
particular topic, the importance of keeping silence emerges. Now in the case of cross cultural

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management, the interpretation of silence has been seen in different perspectives. In addition
to this, the operation of the business in the interconnected globalised world. The
specialisation of the business has increased which has demanded for different types of
thinking process as well as response to the communication. The customer demand and
grievances are also a part of business therefore, keeping silence has been promoted for
understanding and empathising for the response of the customers at the time of problem.
Silence has been manipulated by the changes in the technology based communication
process. The face to face communication gives scope for error or the listener or speaker
understand the meaning of silence as he is watching the person before him but in the case of
telephone communication, silence becomes uninterpretable and leads to the misunderstanding
of the persons indulging in communication (Le et al. 2019). In the board meeting for
example, it is expected that the silence will be the representative of acceptance when it is
ordered by a higher level manager or authority. It is acceptable scenario but this incident
takes place over phone or voice mail, silence cannot be considered as the process of
acceptance. On the contrary this will enrage the higher authority who will think that the
listener is incompetent for the post. In this regard, silence cannot be supported or considered
to be gold.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that silence is considered to be the most precious of all
because this enable introspection as well as reflection through traversing into deep layer of
mind where the inner self is hidden. Silence enables the persons to identify the profundity
which assists to make deliberate attempts of remerging with the parts which are once left
unattempted for lacking of discomfort concerning the greeting of emotions. Therefore,
despite of having negative and positive aspects of silence is understood that leads to debate

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among the critics, the usage of silence in communication is inevitable in this business
context.
References:
Chu, Z. J., Pan, S. Q., Liu, J. G., & Zhao, L. (2015, November). Silence Segment Detection
of English Speech Signals. In 2015 International Conference on Social Science,
Education Management and Sports Education. Atlantis Press.
Ephratt, M. (2011). Linguistic, paralinguistic and extra linguistic speech and silence. Journal
of pragmatics, 43(9), 2286-2307.
Kenny, C. (2018). The power of silence: Silent communication in daily life. Routledge.
Lane, J. D., Evans, E. M., Brink, K. A., & Wellman, H. M. (2016). Developing concepts of
ordinary and extraordinary communication. Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 19.
Le, P. D., Teo, H. X., Pang, A., Li, Y., & Goh, C. (2019). When is silence golden? the use of
strategic silence in crisis communication. Corporate Communications: An
International Journal, 24(1), 162-178. doi:10.1108/CCIJ-10-2018-0108
Samovar, L. A., Porter, R. E., McDaniel, E. R., & Roy, C. S. (2014). Intercultural
communication: A reader. Cengage Learning.