I am a fresher in an IT firm and I work on two different projects, part time on both. I attend several meetings and I don't have any idea if I should talk in the meetings or not. Also, most of the time I try listening to what others say. But I make sure to talk on status update meetings alone.
Is there anything wrong with keeping silent throughout the meeting and listening to others when you don't have anything relevant to say?
Meetings usually fall into two types:
A place to distribute information, for example a project progress meeting where someone will be giving a summary of progress to others who need to know that progress
A place to make some decisions, where the people attending have views on what decision to make, or are empowered to make those decisions, or have information to share that will help the decision making process
Of course some meetings are a combination of the two types- progress is discussed and then decisions are made about the subject under discussion. There are probably other meeting types that I haven't thought of but most meetings I have seem to fall into these two types.
If you do not fall into one of those person-definitions, i.e. you are not expected to give a progress report or you are neither a decision taker, nor a provider of information that helps the decision making process, then you will not be expected to speak as a matter of course.
You may be there to listen and learn, which means listening. You may be there as someone who may have valuable information on a supporting subject, in which case you should only speak when it is clear the information you possess is relevant to the discussion in hand, or someone asks your opinion.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Unless you have reason to contribute, silence is a good thing. Some people see speaking as "having authority" which can be true, but speaking without actually being an authority makes a lot of people look bad, sometimes when they don't even know it. You're new, so focus on your listening skills.
-- the quote above is attributed to other people and restated in several ways, but I like this version...
The rules of talking in work meetings are really simple:
If your silence causes "bad" or misaligned discussion to continue then your silence is bad. You don't want to bring something up a day later and your coworkers are like "you could have saved us 20 minutes of debate if you would have told us that yesterday."
You speak to push things forward. If you have feelings about something a simple "I agree", "Well I think we should be thinking about _____ too", or "What do you need our team to do?" would save a lot of time. A lot of times conversations linger in meetings because the wrong people are doing the talking. If you are the wrong person don't talk. If you are the right person then make some sort of verbal or nonverbal communication to push the discussion along.
You can always say something funny. Just make sure you are actually funny. Got that T-Bone?
Well, no, as long as you don't have anything to contribute. Be sure to listen & to show it, OTOH, for example by taking notes.
As a beginner, it's likely not much input is expected from you in meetings. If you progress in your knowledge, there will be a time you will feel the need to speak.
Wow! I could speak at great length on this topic, but I will try to be brief.
There are all different kinds of meetings with all different kinds of expectations during meetings. If you stop reading this answer quickly, then remember this one point. When all else fails, follow the crowd. If you're doing what most everyone else is doing, then you're exercising an extremely safe option during a meeting.
For anyone who has done Agile, during the daily standup EVERYONE is expected to speak and give their status update--what did you do yesterday, what will you do today, address any roadblocks.
If a meeting is a give and take discussion trying to solve a problem, then if you have something to offer, an insight, a suggestion, or whatever, it's a really good idea to speak up with that information.
Some meetings, particularly in front of large groups, can feel like a college professor delivering information to 600 college Freshmen taking Flibertygidjit 101 in which you shut up, take notes, and try to stay awake. I delight in asking at least a question during those meetings, if for no other reason than to ensure everyone is paying attention.
I have been in meetings where someone in a leadership position is all but harping on people to speak and ask questions. Despite this "encouragement", most everyone remains silent because they know that the person leading the meeting really has no interest in our input, and when we open our mouths to speak we will get kicked and beaten, figuratively speaking. This is clearly not a normal, healthy, workplace environment, but most who have been around for a few years can speak to their experiences under these conditions.
In a normal, healthy, workplace environment, you may truly have no input to share during a meeting as you may not know enough about the subject or issue to even form an intelligent question. As such, you may attend meetings about the subject or issue over time, and then one day you may understand enough that a question strikes you so you ask. This is how I attempt to operate. If I don't know enough to ask a question, then why ask a question simply for the sake of appearing awake or interested.
There are two reasons to be present at a meeting: to receive information or distribute it. Freshers tend to have a lot more meetings on the receiving role, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you should gradually take some initiative to balance that out.
However, receiving information isn't necessarily passive. Asking opportune questions is a valuable skill in a meeting. Chances are, if you have a question, others do too. If it isn't asked, the subsequent information may be distributed in a less than optimal way.
The trick is judging your confusion level against the other participants, and how long you think it will take to answer your question. You want to defer long questions until later when they can be answered individually, but other questions can be answered quickly, and will make it much easier to follow the rest of the meeting. For example, I will sometimes interrupt a speaker to ask him or her to define an acronym.
As a side note, once you have a lot of experience in a position, if you find yourself never needing to contribute in a meeting, and never really receiving info you need to know, that's a good sign you don't need to attend. Some meeting organizers get into the bad habit of over-inviting. As a new employee, though, you should take every opportunity to learn how different parts of your business work.
