We know there is a link between speaking up and keeping people safer. We know simply telling people to speak up, is insufficient advice. These pages explore speaking up in the real world. When you want to face an ethical question – what is being asked of me, given my values, experience and know-how, in this situation?[1] A situation where, maybe, no one wants to or is able to listen to what you have to say. Where people may prefer you to shut the **** up.

The ideas and suggestions that follow, can reduce the risk of being silenced and one’s capacity to think, going AWOL. Here are ways to be ‘constructively awkward’. The capacity to speak about things others are reluctant to think about; in a way that sustains working relationships. The skills to resist those who would prefer others to be quiet, compliant, docile.

To be constructively awkward is hard work, both cognitive and emotional labour. A capacity that fluctuates according to context, how others are thinking and behaving and how safe you and they feel. In the end, the decision to speak is a combination of our internal deliberations (what is being asked of me in this situation?) and the harnessing of that tricky wild horse called rage, to a list of good questions.

Given the risk of one’s thinking being temporarily incapacitated by anxiety, a good investment is the humble notebook. A professional and personal development tool, to be pulled out when you find yourself in a cramped space, full of others’ certainty. A device, with a long history of capturing and storing the writer’s knowledge, thoughts, questions and doubts during turbulent times.[2]