Silence and space are two of the most valuable resources we have. And they are free. What’s needed is the judgement and skill to let them have their moments at the right time and place.

Ringo Starr’s one high-hat drum pattern in ‘In My Life’ and the melodic gap before the vocals in Pink Floyd’s ‘Breathe’ are lasting examples of the clever use of space in pop music. Emily Dickinson’s poems are surrounded by acres of white. Donald Trump gets good mileage by speaking in short sentences with simple words (sometimes).

In business, we (the collective ‘we’) often fall into the trap of spraying multiple messages and proposed benefits of services, cramming too much disparate information into too little space. And we know it. It’s why certain, succinct adverts or tag lines are so admired – venerated, even. They sum things up so powerfully.

In our personal development and lives there’s a strong case for fighting for silence, space and time. “If you read a novel in more than two weeks, you don’t read the novel,” said Philip Roth. That sounds extreme to many of us who can often barely manage a page before falling asleep. Still, one knows what he means.

Listening is a form of silence, and space and is often the best way to get to the heart of what your interviewee wants to say, or the most valuable aspect of it. We know this from conducting thousands of business interviews.

The world is full of noise. The information we can summon from billions of sources is instantly at our fingertips. But this capability will never trump the enduring power of silence.
 

We like this

• Madeline Miller – Song of Achilles

• Apple TV+ – Season 2 of Severance

• Satoshi Yagisawa – Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Word of the Moment: Tariff

A tax on a particular export or import. See associated language: free trade; trade barriers; quotas; supply chain; point of origin. Looking back to 14th-century England, see Edward III and wool. Looking forward…