Are your loudest team members secretly harming your growth?
Every team has them, the confident talkers.
They speak first, think fast, and dominate the discussion.
And while they often have great ideas, they might also be quietly harming your company’s growth.
Here’s why.
The loudest voices don’t always have the most innovative ideas.
Most meetings reward confidence, not the value of contribution.
The people who think out loud shape the conversation,
while your quieter, more reflective team members sit back.
It’s not that they don’t have ideas — they just process differently.
And when those ideas never get shared, your company loses out on creativity, insight, and innovation.
How to fix it: Separate thinking from talking.
If you want to tap into your team’s full intelligence, change how you collect ideas.
Try this simple framework next time you run a brainstorming or strategy session:
Pose a clear question. Something like, “How can we make onboarding twice as effective?”
Give everyone 3–5 minutes to write their ideas privately. Paper, laptop, post-its, it doesn’t matter how—just no talking.
Go around the room and share one idea each, round by round.
Only after everyone has shared, open up the discussion. Look for patterns, insights, and surprises.
You’ll notice the energy shifts, the quieter team members start contributing more, and the louder ones start listening better.
Why this works
It removes social pressure.
It stops ideas from being swayed by hierarchy or confidence.
And it gives everyone equal airtime, which is precisely what drives better decision-making and innovation.
When everyone’s voice is heard, your team becomes more creative, more aligned, and more accountable.
Remember
Brilliance doesn’t always shout.
Sometimes it sits quietly, waiting for a leader to create the space for it to be heard.
Are you that kind of leader?
If you’re looking to build a culture where everyone contributes their best ideas, not just the confident few, that’s the kind of work I do with founders and executive teams.
Let’s chat.
