Listening: What can you do to capture the unsaid?

Abhi Shanker:

What should you do to know what your employees want to tell you, but haven’t yet?

In every change journey I’ve led—whether facilitating the introduction of a new sales methodology to 50,000 people, or rolling out cloud adoption for teams at the edge—the most revealing feedback has never come from a survey or a slide deck. It’s come from the unsaid. The tension in a team call. The eye-roll in a camera-on session. The silence after a big announcement.

Capturing the unsaid begins with acknowledging a truth many leaders avoid: just because employees aren’t pushing back, it doesn’t mean they have bought in.

The first step? Start reading between the lines. And no, I don’t mean decoding emojis in Slack. I mean actively observing sentiment—who’s stopped participating, whose updates feel transactional, who’s suddenly “heads-down” all the time. These shifts are signals. If we’re serious about change adoption, we can’t afford to ignore them.

Next, install actual listening mechanisms—not rituals. Town halls, AMAs, pulse surveys—they’re only as valid as the trust employees place in them. If feedback disappears into a void or the C-suite addresses it with generic responses, employees disengage faster than you can say “culture transformation.”

Instead, embed micro-feedback loops in your program design. Ask after every enablement session: “What’s not landing?” Better yet, let them show you anonymously. In one project, we invited field teams to drop “red flags” into a virtual parking lot. No names, no attributions. The insights we got changed the entire rollout timeline—and ultimately, the adoption rate.

Also: listen sideways, not just top-down. Peer-to-peer conversations, internal champions, employee resource groups—these are the conduits for what doesn’t make it into formal reporting. Tap into these. One of the most effective strategies I’ve used is to work with informal influencers—the ones others turn to for a reality check. They’ll tell you what the deck doesn’t.

And don’t underestimate timing. People don’t always speak when you want them to. Some voices take longer to emerge. That doesn’t mean they don’t have value—it just means we haven’t created the right environment for them to speak.

Above all, create space. Space for hesitation, disagreement, and even criticism. Because when employees realize it’s safe to say the hard stuff—that’s when you start hearing the truth. And that’s when the real change begins.

[Next: How AI Can Help You Hear What Employees Aren’t Saying]

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Abhi Shanker is a transformation leader and change management expert with deep experience driving global initiatives across technology and sales organizations. Currently at AWS, Abhi leads strategic programs that equip teams to navigate change effectively, blending innovation, data-driven insights, and customer-centric approaches. He is a Strategic Columnist and a  #WeLeadComms honoree.

Written by: Editor