8/15/2023 0 Comments Shut up your mouthThe example below, an advertisement from the Iron County Register, dates from September 1884: This idiom has been used since at least the 1870s. Why don’t you put up or shut up,” said Michael. “You claim you can always get a woman to go out with you. “I’m not giving you anymore blackmail money. “You’ve been saying you want a chance to show what you can do. You’ve been holding him for 48 yours – put up or shut up,” said the lawyer. “If you’re not going to arrest my client then let him go. Then the buyers said, “We’ll give you $3.5 million, but not a penny more.” Less than an hour later, a very advantageous deal was made.Want to see more videos from Idioms.Online? Subscribe to our YouTube channel! The buyers quickly filled the silence with a rundown of the machine’s strengths and weaknesses. When he sat down to negotiate, however, an inner voice told him, “Wait”. After careful calculations, he fixed a price of $2.5 million and formulated his arguments carefully in his head. A story is told of the owner of a printing business who was delighted when another company wanted to buy one of his used printing machines. Not only is there wisdom in knowing when to keep your mouth shut there are practical advantages as well. And specially, silence will never make you look like a fool! Silence can give you the competitive advantage. And if you have nothing to say, say nothing. Not sure which way the wind is blowing? Don't speak until you find out. Most people in business are afraid of the silence. There's an old Spanish proverb that says: "Don't speak unless you can improve upon the silence." Probably one of the most important skills you can ever learn as a leader is to keep your mouth shut. Marshall Goldsmith, a well known executive coach, suggests that before speaking you ask yourself: "Is this comment going to make our team more effective - or is it just intended to prove that I'm more clever than my peers?" Then, If the primary driver of the comment is your own ego, don't say it! Let your people find the answers and take pride in their achievements. Unless it's essential to the situation, you need to remember that as a leader you are not a technical expert, but a developer of people. But unasked for information, insight or evaluation is simply that: unasked for. Other times you might be bursting to speak and tell others what you think, why you think it, why your opinion or advice has merit, and what they should be doing, thinking, or considering. What would be the point of correcting the storyteller at this moment? Many times it's better to let some inaccuracies go, especially if they aren’t critical to the point of the story. Should you speak up or keep your mouth shut? At times like this you should ask yourself it it's really critical for other to know the exact information. You might be right, but do you need to show others up? Let's suppose one of your peers is talking about something funny that happened at the last board meeting and said there were 15 people present, when you KNOW there were only 13. Close your eyes and count to ten, or count to 100 if you need to! If that doesn’t work and an explosion of anger seems imminent, simply turn and walk away. When you find yourself on the edge of an angry confrontation, stop, shut your mouth, and back off. It’s when you’re angry that you are most likely to lash out at others in ways that are hurtful, and that can create longstanding resentment and build walls of distrust. It would only make you lose influence and it gives others too much control over you. But you should not… you cannot… you MUST NOT give in to the feelings. People will do and say things that will make you mad, yes, furious, fuming, even ferocious. It’s only natural that you would want to react in anger. This individual feels the need to quickly react to every situation. But this type of response only serves to make things worse.ģ situations when it's better to keep your mouth shut Instead they instinctively develop a knee jerk, reactionary leadership style. The reason so many young or inexperienced leaders (ok, and many not so young and experienced ones too) find themselves in deep water is that they have not learned to measure their words carefully.
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