Silence as Data in Learning Partnerships
In learning partnerships, organisations often want to show what’s been said, done, recorded, and reported. What we’ve learned at Quotidian Strategies is that while contractual imperatives require a focus on visible signs of progress, we also pay close attention to what isn’t being said.
We call these learning silences.
These learning silences are not only the result of gaps in data or voice. They are patterned absences, what goes unspoken or unexamined despite best intentions. They can signal areas of bias, burnout, caution, fear, fatigue, or even assumptions of success. And they’re just as instructive as what’s said aloud.
As researchers and facilitators, we understand that silence is a kind of signal. It tells us something about the emotional, cultural, and structural life of an organisation.
In our partnerships, we recognise learning silences by drawing on our layered insight: our experience across sectors and organisational sizes, existing research, and our awareness of the broader ecosystem—funders, narratives, theories of change, andhistories. These all influence what people feel able to express. In this way, noticing silence becomes an interpretive practice of observing when expected themes are absent, when dissonance lingers unspoken, or when stories don’t align across teams or levels.
We pay attention to what participants systematically share or don’t share with us in repeated encounters. The keyword here is systematically. We are not talking about isolated omissions but rather consistent absences over the course of the entire learning partnership.
Grounded in feminist methodologies, ethnographic listening, and critical organisational theory, we approach silence not as absence, but as a field of meaning. What remains unspoken is often as politically and socially charged as what is voiced and shaped by who gets to count something as data in the first place.
Silences emerge for many reasons: what people believe they’re allowed to say, what has or hasn’t been heard in the past, or what current conditions make possible to surface. Sometimes it’s about which roles or departments consistently remain quiet, or which questions are avoided, deferred, or abstracted.
Fox example:
Different people in an organisation might say: ‘We care deeply about inclusion and want to ensure that all voices are represented at the table’. However, there isn’t any mention of what inclusion means for the organisation, or how this is addressed through power dynamics or accessibility. This silence raises questions regarding how the organisation conceptualises inclusion as a goal in practice, and what it might look like to them to achieve such a goal, for teams at different levels of the organisation.
This isn’t simply a missed input, it is a finding.
If you’re working with a learning partner or seeking to surface deeper insight within your team, here are a few things to consider:
Treat silence as data. Absence can be just as meaningful as presence. Invite reflection on what’s missing, not just what’s been gathered.
Choose learning partners attuned to nuance. Ask how they engage with what’s unspoken, not just what’s measurable.
Allow time for emergence. Silences often surface meaning over time. Rushed timelines can inadvertently reinforce them.
Resist the urge to fill in. Explore what conditions are needed to make the unspeakable speakable.
Build internal capacity to notice silence. Equip everyone to engage with silence thoughtfully, not to rush to fill it. Reflect on patterns of quiet, avoidance, or dissonance.
Create deliberate spaces for unsaid truths. Not every insight emerges in planned sessions. Consider creating space where the goal is not action planning, but surfacing the undercurrents.
Learning doesn’t end when the reports are submitted. Sometimes, the most powerful learning begins after the conversation falls quiet.
