A vice president I was coaching went with me to an emergency department to learn more about the work and the problems employees were experiencing. He was wearing a suit and tie, which made him stand out among the people in scrubs. He'd approach a staff member, smile, and ask, "Are you busy?"
Every person answered yes and hurried off to their next task. After about half an hour, the vice president was frustrated. He wondered how continuous improvement could get anywhere if he couldn't even start a conversation.
In the break room, I asked what he'd been saying. He repeated his question and recognized the problem himself. In a busy emergency department, "Are you busy?" has one obvious answer. It doesn't encourage someone to describe a problem or ask for help.
He changed his question to, "Do you have a few minutes to talk about how the work could be better?" Some employees still said they were too busy, which was fine. But more people stopped and talked.
The leader hadn't changed. Neither had the employees. A different question created a better opportunity for conversation.
That experience came to mind when I read new research about the importance of managers actively asking employees for their ideas and concerns, rather than assuming employees will volunteer that information.
New Research on Managers Asking for Employee Input
A study published October 23, 2026, in the Human Resource Management Journal examines the relationship between organizational communication, managerial behavior, and employee silence.
Researchers Margarita Nyfoudi, Hoa Do, Helen Shipton, and Daniel King analyzed survey responses from 1,200 workers in the United Kingdom. They found that more effective organizational communication was associated with lower employee silence, partly through what researchers call managerial voice solicitation.
That term refers to managers actively requesting employees' ideas, concerns, knowledge, and differing opinions. The researchers examined behaviors such as supervisors asking employees what could improve the organization, what they'd learned in previous jobs, and what knowledge or skills they could contribute.
The study is cross-sectional, so it identifies associations rather than proving that asking more questions causes employees to speak up more often. Still, it reinforces something I've observed in Lean organizations: leaders shouldn't assume that people will raise problems simply because they're allowed to.
An organization might announce that employee input is welcome. Employees learn whether that invitation is genuine partly through their direct manager's behavior.
An Open Door Isn't the Same as an Invitation
Many leaders say they have an open-door policy, and I generally believe they mean it. But that puts the responsibility on employees to recognize a problem, interrupt a manager, and perhaps challenge a decision made by someone with greater authority.
Some people will do that readily. Others have learned from experience that speaking up can be risky, uncomfortable, or a waste of time.
At the General Motors plant where I started my career, our superintendent, whom I call Bob, had a management philosophy built around putting pressure on people to do exactly what they were told. He once told a group of us that managers needed to "beat down on them" repeatedly to get compliance.
A few months later, he complained that nobody took any initiative.
I couldn't believe he didn't see the contradiction. He wanted employees who followed orders without question, then criticized them for not taking initiative. The management system had taught people which behavior was expected.
Not every manager creates that much fear. Some discourage people unintentionally, through an impatient response, a dismissive comment, or a habit of supplying answers before employees have finished describing their concerns.
Employees notice those reactions. They also notice when a leader consistently asks for their perspective and takes the time to listen.
Ask About Problems Before Asking for Solutions
One mistake organizations make with suggestion systems is expecting employees to submit fully developed solutions. People might recognize that a process is creating unnecessary work without knowing how to redesign it. They may see recurring delays caused by another department without having the authority to change that department's work.
Identifying the problem is a valuable contribution, even without a proposed countermeasure.
Managers can encourage that contribution by asking more specific questions. Instead of "Does anybody have any improvement ideas?" they might ask what makes the work harder than it needs to be, where employees experience recurring delays, or which workarounds have become part of the daily routine.
Asking about obstacles creates opportunities for managers to coach people through problem-solving rather than expecting employees to arrive with a finished solution.
Dr. Greg Jacobson, KaiNexus's cofounder and CEO, described a related practice from his years working as an emergency medicine physician. One day, he was preparing to discharge a patient with a splinted wrist when a nurse asked what he planned to do about the patient's left ankle.
Greg hadn't heard about an ankle problem. The nurse had spent more time with the patient and knew something he didn't.
After experiences like that, Greg made a point of finding the nurse caring for each patient and explaining his plan. Then he'd ask, "What am I missing?"
He wasn't asking nurses to challenge his judgment for the sake of challenging it. He understood that they had information he might not have, partly because they spent more time with each patient.
Initially, some nurses who didn't know Greg were surprised that a physician wanted their input. He had to keep asking and demonstrate that he would use what they told him.
That's an important part of encouraging employee voice. The invitation becomes more credible as people experience what happens when they accept it.
Fear and Futility Are Different Reasons for Silence
In my forthcoming book, The Silence Tax, I explore two reasons people hold back information at work: fear and futility.
Fear means employees expect speaking up to cost them something. They might be criticized, embarrassed, punished, or viewed as troublemakers. Bob's behavior at GM certainly gave people reasons to be afraid.
Futility is different. Employees might feel perfectly safe raising a concern but believe that doing so won't accomplish anything worthwhile.
Perhaps they've reported the same problem repeatedly without seeing action. Maybe suggestions disappear into a system without explanation or follow-up. They conclude that raising another issue isn't worth the effort.
I've heard people in healthcare organizations say some version of, "I'm not afraid to report issues. It's just that nothing happens."
That's futility.
An employee who stops raising concerns isn't necessarily disengaged from the work. They might still care deeply about quality, safety, and customers. They've simply stopped believing that management will help them make things better.
The distinction matters because fear and futility require different responses. Reducing the interpersonal risk of speaking up doesn't automatically make speaking up worthwhile.
Asking employees for input is an important leadership behavior. But if managers repeatedly ask for suggestions without helping people act on them, they may unintentionally reinforce the belief that participation is pointless.
Encouraging Is Only One Part of the Management System
In The Silence Tax, I describe four reinforcing leadership behaviors: Model, Encourage, Enable, and Reward.
Modeling means leaders make their own mistakes, uncertainty, and learning visible. Encouraging means they directly invite employees to raise problems, questions, disagreements, and ideas.
Enabling goes further. Employees need time, authority, problem-solving methods, and help from others to improve the work. Rewarding means responding constructively and following through so employees can see that their contributions were taken seriously.
These aren't four steps to complete in order. They reinforce one another.
Consider a supervisor who starts asking employees about problems during daily huddles. The team begins identifying delayed material deliveries, equipment issues, and recurring quality problems. Some can be resolved locally, but others require action from maintenance, engineering, or another department.
If those problems keep getting escalated without resolution, the supervisor may eventually become reluctant to ask for more. She can't help her employees fix the problems, and asking about them creates expectations she can't fulfill.
That isn't necessarily a failure of the supervisor's willingness to listen. She may lack the authority or resources needed to help.
Organizations need a way to respond to problems that cross departmental boundaries. That includes clear ownership, escalation paths, and management support when an issue can't be resolved locally.
Without that capability, encouraging more suggestions can create a growing backlog of unresolved problems.
Make Asking Part of Daily Management
Managers shouldn't need a special employee-engagement campaign to learn what problems their teams encounter. Asking about obstacles and improvement opportunities can become part of daily huddles, workplace observations, and regular coaching conversations.
The questions don't need to be complicated. At the end of a meeting, "Does anyone have any questions?" might produce silence. "What questions do you have?" communicates a slightly different expectation.
After presenting a plan, "Does anyone disagree?" asks someone to challenge the leader. "What flaws or gaps do you see in this plan?" makes identifying weaknesses part of the work the leader has asked the group to do.
The wording matters, but how the manager responds matters more. Asked impatiently, even a good question can sound like a challenge or an accusation.
I also wouldn't measure success primarily by counting how many ideas employees submit. An idea quota might increase submissions without increasing useful improvement. Some teams may have more opportunities to suggest changes than others, and submission counts don't tell us what happens after employees participate.
Instead, examine whether employees across roles and shifts are raising problems, whether managers respond, whether concerns receive appropriate attention, and whether improvements are implemented and sustained.
In a previous KaiNexus article about measuring continuous improvement culture, I suggested that response time can be a revealing measure. That doesn't mean every problem must be solved immediately. It means employees should receive a meaningful response, including when a problem requires more investigation or the answer is no.
Don't Mistake Silence for Agreement
When employees aren't raising concerns, leaders have several possible explanations to consider. Perhaps things are going well. Perhaps employees don't recognize certain difficulties as improvement opportunities. Or perhaps previous experiences have taught them that speaking up is dangerous or pointless.
We shouldn't automatically assume any one explanation is correct.
Toyota's Fujio Cho encountered this challenge when the company's Georgetown, Kentucky, plant opened. Employees were reluctant to pull the andon cord to signal production problems, even though using it was expected. Cho later explained that he had to visit the shop floor every day to encourage employees to call for help.
The workers needed repeated evidence that raising problems would bring support instead of blame.
That's something leaders can work on in the meetings and conversations they already have. Ask about problems. Listen carefully. Help people work on what they identify, and let them know what happened afterward.
If the first few invitations produce little response, don't immediately conclude that employees aren't interested in improvement. Consider what they've experienced in the past and what they might still need to see from you.
Employees shouldn't have to prove they're brave enough to speak up before management demonstrates that their input is welcome and worthwhile.
Leaders can start by asking. What happens after employees answer will help determine whether they speak up again.
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