The scene is familiar. Mahogany or glass, depending on the corporate aesthetic. Expensive, ergonomic chairs are strategically arranged around a table that is itself a status symbol. On the walls hang abstract paintings or the company’s framed mission and vision statements, silent witnesses to the unfolding drama. The air is thick, conditioned to a perfect, lifeless temperature. Laptops sit on the table, aligned like soldiers, next to cups of coffee that have long gone cold. Somewhere in the distance is the muffled hum of the open-plan office, a sound of life that seems unable to penetrate this isolated chapel of modern business.
Officially, the topic of the meeting is a new market strategy, a multi-million-dollar project, the fate of a new product. The presentation on the big screen unfolds, slide after slide, filled with charts, projections, and analyses. The speaker, typically the person with the highest title or the most pressure, delivers the arguments with rehearsed confidence. The words are there, logical and connected. The numbers are there, seemingly irrefutable. All the components of success are present, assembled like the parts of a perfect machine. And yet, the only real sound in the room is silence.
But this is not a peaceful silence. Nor is it the silence of understanding or approval. This is a deafening noise. It is the rumble of unasked questions, the roar of unspoken doubts, and the clatter of personal calculations. This is the loudest room in the building because it echoes with everything trapped inside the minds of those present. The silence becomes the densest, most impenetrable material in the room.
The first and most piercing sound is the roar of fear. It is the fear of the junior manager who has spotted a fundamental flaw in the presentation’s logic but is afraid of looking stupid or, worse, disloyal. His silence is a risk assessment. The cost of speaking up, of being labeled “the one who complicates things,” seems far greater than the cost of staying silent. It is the fear of the experienced department head who knows the proposed deadlines are unrealistic but has previously witnessed how messengers of bad news are elegantly removed from the path. His silence is a scar, a learned lesson in corporate survival. Business psychology, I repeat, is not something we are taught in school or through specialized training. It is something that breaks us, and then we learn.
The second layer of noise is the tactical hum of calculation. This is the silence of those playing the long game. They are not listening to the content; they are analyzing the power dynamics. Who is looking at whom while the speaker talks? Who is nodding? Whose project is this, and who stands to gain if it succeeds or fails? Their silence is a holding pattern. They are waiting to see which way the wind will blow before they lend their support. They refuse to back a horse that might end up in a ditch. These are the political players on a chessboard, and silence is their strongest move. The meeting has transformed into a battlefield where tactics trump decisions, and the weapon of choice is passivity.
The third, and perhaps saddest, sound is the flat line of apathy. It is the silence of the one who is burned out. The employee who has given his all too many times, presenting brilliant ideas that were ignored or, worse, appropriated by others. His silence is no longer fear or calculation; it is exhaustion. Emotional bankruptcy. He sits there, staring through the presentation, feeling nothing. His mind is on the free weekend he won’t get to have, with the family he neglects, anywhere but in this room. He no longer believes in the story, and when you don’t believe, you have nothing to say. His silence is a symptom of a deeper organizational illness: the loss of purpose.
Hovering above all these sounds is the silence of the leader. It is often his own insecurity that conducts this ghostly orchestra. A leader who fears challenge creates a culture where challenge is not welcome. One who ties his self-worth to being infallible will subconsciously punish every objection as a personal attack. He asks the question, “Do we agree?” but his entire presence, his tone, and his history all say, “I dare you to disagree.” This is how an echo chamber is created. The room fills exclusively with the reverberations of his own thoughts, and he mistakes that echo for consensus.
Finally, the presentation ends. The leader asks, “Any questions?” Silence. “Excellent. Then we have an agreement.” A collective, barely audible sigh of relief is heard. Because the meeting is over. People stand, shake hands, and exchange false smiles. The official minutes will state: “The decision was reached unanimously.”
But the real decision has not even begun to be made. The real strategy will be formed in whispers by the coffee machine, in cynical comments during lunch breaks, in the silent boycott of the implementation. The project, born in silence, will die in silence, and in a few months, everyone will be asking the same question: “Why did it all make sense, but nothing moved?”
The answer was there all along, screaming from every corner of that room. It’s just that no one was willing to hear it.
CASE STUDY
We are now going to enter a specific room, in a specific meeting, and listen to the silence. This is a story that happens every day, in thousands of companies. This is the autopsy of a decision that was dead on arrival.
Case Study: Project “Orion”
The company is “TeleraCom,” a regional telecommunications giant. The boardroom on the seventh floor is their sanctuary. Glass walls overlook the city, but inside, all eyes are fixed on a massive screen displaying a five-million-euro presentation. The project is called “Orion,” a new mobile application designed to merge all their services into a single, seamless digital experience. The room is filled with silence.
Marko, the Chief Digital Transformation Officer, is just finishing his passionate presentation. He is the architect of “Orion,” a charismatic leader whose career depends on this project. His words echo through the room, filled with confidence. The charts on the screen show exponential user growth. The analyses predict market dominance. Everything is logical. Everything is supported by data. Absolutely everything, except for reality.
A dozen key people are sitting in the room. They are not speaking. But inside, they are screaming.
To Marko’s right, her head slightly bowed, sits Emina, a young data analyst. It was her job to prepare the market potential analysis. Her heart is pounding. Her hands are cold. Because Emina knows that the central piece of data, the one upon which the entire projection of a million users in the first year rests, is fatally flawed. The numbers were pulled from a case study on a similar app’s success in the Norwegian market. And Emina, during sleepless nights spent digging through data, realized that the user behavior, purchasing power, and digital literacy in their region are fundamentally different. Their realistic potential is, at best, a third of what Marko is presenting. She had wanted to include this in her report, but her direct supervisor pulled her aside the day before and said, “Emina, Marko is in love with the Norwegian model. Don’t spoil his narrative. Our job is just to support the vision.” She remembers the analyst who sat in her chair before her, a young man who challenged one of Marko’s ideas in a meeting and, three months later, was “given a career development opportunity” in the least important department in the company. She looks at Marko. She looks at her mortgage payment. She swallows the bitter pill of truth and focuses on correcting a small grammatical error in her notes. Her silence is the roar of fear.
Across from Emina, leaning back in his chair, sits Goran, the Head of Operations. He’s a man with twenty years of experience. He isn’t looking at the numbers. He’s looking at the project timeline on slide 32. It reads: “Launch in six months.” Goran laughs to himself, bitterly. He knows his team of developers and engineers is already bursting at the seams, even without “Orion.” He knows the technology they’re insisting on is unstable and that, realistically, they would need nine months for testing and debugging alone. He remembers the last major project when he stood up and said the deadlines weren’t feasible. Marko looked at him in front of everyone and said, “Goran, we need solutions, not problems. You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” For the next year, Goran worked day and night with his team, putting out fires, only for the project to end up being three months late anyway, with him being made the scapegoat. He won’t make that mistake again. This time, he nods. His nod doesn’t mean, “Yes, this is possible.” It means, “Alright, I get it. You’re the boss. I’ll be the one picking up the pieces in the end.” His silence is a scar.
A little further down from Goran sits Jasmina, the Director of Sales. Jasmina is a master of politics. She knows “Orion” is Marko’s project. Her analysis isn’t of the market, but of power. She watches carefully. She sees that no one is asking questions. She sees that the big boss, the CEO, sitting at the head of the table, is nodding with satisfaction, enchanted by Marko’s enthusiasm. Jasmina makes her decision. She will say nothing yet. She will wait for the right moment, perhaps at the end of the meeting, to say something vaguely positive, like, “This is a truly bold step forward for our company.” With that, she sides with the winner if the project succeeds but makes no concrete promise that could incriminate her if it fails. Hitching her wagon to Marko’s cart is risky. For now, it’s better to just applaud the driver. Her silence is calculation.
In the corner of the room, almost unnoticed, sits Adnan, the lead software architect. Adnan is the one who is burned out. Six months ago, he presented his own idea: a much simpler, cheaper, and more elegant app based on technology his team already knew. His proposal was met with a smile and the line, “Thanks, Adnan, let’s put that in the ‘parking lot’.” Now, he looks at Marko’s grandiose, overcomplicated architecture and feels nothing. Not anger, not jealousy. Just an endless, gray fatigue. He knows the project is doomed. He knows that in six months, it will all come crashing down, and he and his team will be the ones expected to save it. But he no longer has the strength to fight. His mind is on a lake, fishing. His body is in the boardroom, but his soul resigned three months ago. He stares through the presentation, not hearing a word. His silence is apathy.
Finally, there is Marko himself. As he finishes, he scans the room. He sees Emina diligently taking notes, Goran nodding in agreement, Jasmina smiling. He doesn’t see the fear, the scars, the calculation, and the exhaustion. He sees consensus. He sees harmony. In his mind, he has united the team. His vision is so powerful that it has conquered every doubt.
“Any questions?” he asks, the question more rhetorical than genuine. His gaze is sharp, demanding confirmation, not debate.
Silence.
“Excellent. Then we have a deal,” he says with a triumphant smile. “Let’s go change the game.”
The meeting concludes. Everyone shakes Marko’s hand. They congratulate him on his vision. And then they leave. Emina goes to the restroom and splashes cold water on her face. Goran lights a cigarette and calls his deputy: “Prepare the team. All hell is about to break loose.” Jasmina goes to lunch with her top salesperson and tells him, “Stick to the old products. This ‘Orion’ thing could get messy.” Adnan goes straight to his desk, puts on his headphones, and plays his music, shutting out the world.
Project “Orion” was unanimously approved. And in that very same silence, it was unanimously condemned to death.
____________________________________________________
from the book:
“The Silent Edge: The Hidden Psychology of Business Success”
(For those who know the most important things in business are never said)
Author: DŽERALD LETIĆ
Sarajevo, 2025
