The 3 laws of shutting up that every leader needs for staying out of trouble

You never heard Mr. Spock say on Star Trek, “Me and my big mouth.”

That’s why he would make the perfect CEO. All his motivations are ruled by logic over emotion. Spock would never say something dumb to a journalist, make sexist comments about a rival starship captain, or threaten the Enterprise’s crew if they decided to unionize.

Unfortunately, our leaders on Earth do not have Vulcan blood. Human nature must run its course, such as showing a lack of empathy: MillerKnoll CEO Andi Owen told employees they shouldn’t complain about their bonuses potentially being cut: “You can visit Pity City, but you can’t live there.”

Related: What’s happening at MillerKnoll?

Or acting shallow: After his Blue Origin space flight, gazillionaire Jeff Bezos tactlessly thanked every Amazon employee and customer “because you guys paid for all this.”

Or weighing in on radioactive world affairs, even when that’s bound to impact the brand: Hims and Hers’ stock dropped 8% after CEO Andrew Dudum tweeted job offers to pro-Palestinian college protestors facing disciplinary action.

What forces, real or imaginary, compel us to say something—anything—to avoid dead air? The opportunities to fumble are endless.

One formidable internal safety net against saying the wrong thing is patience. Unfortunately, we can’t even take a 20-second elevator ride without whipping out our mobile phone to check our email.

What we could have better control of is keeping our mouths shut, which Mr. Spock excelled at. As long as our lips are sealed in the right situations, you can’t be misquoted, misunderstood, or pass on misinformation.

There is no downside either: Even on Jeopardy, you are not penalized if you don’t hit the buzzer with an answer.

Everybody needs a firm set of rules in order to stay out of trouble, so I have created the Three Laws of Shutting Up and its corollary, The Wisdom of Playing Dumb.

If you don’t know the answer, shut up

At a well-attended industry conference Q&A, an audience member asks your panel about the launch of an aggressive competitor looking to steal market share.

You may feel now is the perfect time to show off your brilliant insights in front of your peers. Except you don’t possess any inside information about this new rival. You could make up the answer, but that’s like lying about your age on a dating app profile: your ruse will be uncovered almost immediately.

You could hazard a guess by prefacing it with, “I’m only speculating here.” However, very few people are good at predictions, your take could be way off, and you would look foolish in the long run.Or you can safely not say a word and let others put themselves in the firing line and on the record.

If you do know the answer, but there is no good reason to give it, shut up

Let’s say your industry connections have already filled you in on what the new competitor is up to.You can share it with the panel audience, who will be delighted with all this juicy dirt. But why have your peers take advantage of what you learned? If “information is power,” you hold the cards, so don’t show them. Besides, what if your connections are wrong? Then you’ve traded a few seconds of glory in the spotlight for spreading misinformation.

If you don’t know how to read the room, shut up

At a post-panel networking event, it seems like an opportune time to knock your new rival with a group of attendees. So you mock the CEO, shoot holes in their business model, and question the sanity of anybody who does business with them. News moves quickly to the event organizer, who rethinks inviting you back next year. And unbeknown to you, a couple of your colleagues are friends with the rival CEO and text them everything you just said.

In a world where everything is recorded and texted, and you don’t have the time to look up LinkedIn connections, take the high road and keep all the negativity to yourself.

How do you occupy yourself while you are keeping your mouth shut? You listen instead. In exchange for suppressing the urge to talk, you may be rewarded with potential tidbits that others may inadvertently give away, such as customer insights, a rival’s plans, or the spark for your own creative idea.

Playing dumb

There are times, however, when you want to be quiet but a few words are required. For example, everybody on the panel has answered an audience question, and now it’s your turn. When somebody asks you directly, “What do you think,” you can’t go silent and shrug.

You need a go-to set of phrases that double as a safeguard from saying anything you may regret.

Enter the Wisdom of Playing Dumb, an honorable tradition that doesn’t reflect on your intelligence, but acts as a placeholder so you can choose to answer at a future time. If ever.

Always have these two mix-and-match replies ready in your Playing Dumb arsenal:

• “Unfortunately, I don’t have the information in front of me. I’ll get back to you.” 
• “I have more research to do. I can’t give a definitive answer right now.”

In each example, you’ve uttered several words, but in fact, you’ve actually said zero. It is like you’ve put a phantom bookmark in the conversation that you can go back to if and when it’s convenient.

You can easily borrow from the playbooks of the Masters of Playing Dumb, lawyers and politicians. Each group has their favorite yet similar phrases when they want to dodge tough questions. Lawyers like to declare the standard, “We have not reviewed the lawsuit yet,” while politicians deny the very existence of whatever they are supposed to comment on by pretending to be preoccupied with something else: “I didn’t hear what they said” and “I didn’t read the paper this morning” are two of my favorites.

Or you can quote what Mr. Spock himself said when Captain Kirk pressured him to speculate about a seemingly abandoned ship floating in space sending Morse Code signals. Spock, not wanting to say anything without enough data, cooly replied: “Insufficient facts invite danger.”