When to Zip It

"Although most people tend to speak up too little rather than too much, there are times when it is better to stay quiet," observed the editors of the Harvard Business Review (May 2003).

"Some issues are simply not worth raising, and you don't want to unnecessarily turn small differences of opinion into broad conflicts. There’s no sense in spending time and effort getting bogged down in dealing with every little difference, especially ones that are not likely to affect the quality of people’s work or those you’re not likely to remember in a week or a month. And if the conflict is in an unimportant relationship or one that won’t continue much longer, speaking up may not be crucial. You will still lose out on the creativity and learning that stem from expressing differences, but you don’t need to worry about the additional costs of unresolved differences lurking beneath the surface and destroying the relationship."

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