The cost of silence

I’ve recently shared a post on X about the asking questions and the importance of it in a company culture. Here they are:

The temporary discomfort of asking questions is nothing compared to the permanent cost of not asking them. The biggest red flag in any workplace? When people stop asking questions.

Risk to be stupid for 5 minutes. Learn. Repeat.

Let me expand on this a bit more.

In almost every software project, there’s a moment when someone in the room, often a junior developer or someone from another depertment, has a question but doesn’t ask it:

I don’t understand why we’re doing this. It doesn’t make sense to me.

The question is left unasked. The meeting continues. The project moves forward. The simple question goes unasked because:

• They don’t want to look uninformed.
• They don’t want to slow things down.
• They’re afraid of not being a team player, or lack loyalty.
• They’re afraid of being wrong.

Six months, thousands of dollars later, the feature launches with a critical flaw, or goes by unused. The team is left wondering why they wasted so much time money. Was it a lack of skill? A lack of resources? A lack of time?

No. It was a lack of questions.

There’s a dangerous illusion plaguing most workplaces today. We’ve convinced ourselves that looking smart is more important than getting things right. We reward confidence over curiosity. We promote people who have answers, any answers, rather than those who ask essential questions and actually solve problems.

Questions are the antibodies that fight organizational disease. They prevent assumptions from calcifying into “truth.” They expose weak reasoning before it becomes costly action.

The strongest teams don’t penalize question - they celebrate them. They recognize that “stupid questions” prevents a truly stupid outcome. The most valuable skill isn’t having all the answers, it’s knowing which questions will unlock progress. Master questioaners cut through complexity and expese the critical path forward.

The cost of silence is too high. The cost of not asking questions is too great. The cost of assuming is your job, your company, and your future. Dare to ask. Be stupid for 5 minutes. Learn. Repeat.