As many of you know, I am a passionate musician.  I have long expostulated common ground between business people and process, and making music.  The first area of common ground I will call (with apologies to Paul Simon) ‘The Sound of Silence’.

Let’s start with the music – a perennial quest, greatest guitarist of all time?  For me Mark Knopfler.  Why? –  not for the notes that he plays, but for the resonant silence that he leaves between them.  When he listens, absorbs, and responds and contributes.

In the workplace, the value of knowing how and when to listen is underrated and seldom coached.  More familiar is the individual who keeps talking beyond the point at which they have anything to say – quantity versus quality?!? But active listening with all audiences, internal and external is a MUST.

So think on it; understand the value of chat, of opinion, of language, and also the value of enhanced listening, absorbing, understanding and contributing that is a significant benefit of knowing silence.  Mark Knopfler certainly does!