You may have heard the old expression, there's no such thing as a dumb question or a bad question. Technically speaking, that's not true. It is possible to ask a stupid question. People laugh at you and think you're stupid. So I'm not going to tell you that there's zero risk and asking questions or speaking up in a meeting. But you have to weigh that against the other possible negative outcomes from you not saying anything.

Now, it's been my experience that people actually listening to someone asked a question thing, oh my gosh, that's so stupid. This person is an idiot. that's relatively rare. And yet, when managers and others are sizing up a group, a team, a bunch of executives and figuring out who's an executive who really has leadership potential, who's going to rise further and further, who's going to be the CEO. People are doing that consciously and unconscious. asleep in every meeting, based in part on who's speaking and who isn't.

And those who never speak out, run a very high risk of being perceived as someone not really cut out for leadership potential. Someone who should sort of stay where they are. That's a real risk. So when you're weighing risks, you can't simply do it in an unfair way and focus exclusively on the risk of saying something stupid, you have to really look at the risk of being seen quiet, uninteresting, unintelligent, nothing to add. No real insights, no intellectual leadership. Those are all very real risks you face every single time you don't speak up at a meeting to either add your insights, give some additional thoughts, or to ask insightful questions.

So please, let's have an honest risk. assessment, in my view, the risk of asking you the question that people think is stupid is relatively low. The risk of staying silent is quite high.