Inside Our Field Research on Employee Voice and Leadership
What Happens When Leaders Listen Without Fixing
Last month, Professor Michael Parke (The Wharton School) and R&E teamed up with
The workshop’s simple in design, but powerful in effect:
→ Employees choose a concern they haven’t felt able to raise
→ They name how it makes them feel
→ Then they sit down with their leader and share
→ The leader listens without fixing, reacting, or jumping in
It’s one conversation. But the shift can be real. And at the same time, we see what changes are possible; when we create structured conversations about emotions at work.
So what changed?
Here’s what leaders and employees told us in the Check-Out Surveys after the session.
LEADERS SAID:
🟠 100% said it helped them better understand their people’s concerns
🟠 89% said it helped them listen more effectively
🟠 89% said they were satisfied with the conversations
🟠 86% said it helped them express care for their people
EMPLOYEES SAID:
🔴 72% want to have more conversations like this
🔴 67% felt their true feelings were welcomed
🔴 72% said their voice mattered
🔴 67% said their leader cared about them
Note: These are Check-Out Survey responses from participants, not the full experimental research data. That’s coming later this year when Professor Parke publishes the findings.
Why this matters
This isn’t just another workshop. It’s part of a groundbreaking research project into employee voice and emotion led by Professor Michael Parke at Wharton and brought to life through real-world experiments using The Emotional Culture Deck.
Together, we’re pioneering a new kind of field experiment.
We’ve designed this simple, human experience that helps leaders surface what’s been left unsaid and creates meaningful shifts in people, psychological safety and leadership capability, right there in the room. Then we measure what happens.
The research and data come after the moment of impact. This is research that moves people.
Interested in running an Unspoken Conversation Workshop?
We’re looking for 2–3 more teams to take part in this next wave of research in September.
To take part, you’ll need:
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A team of 12–20 people (ideally 1 leader to every 4–5 employees)
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A team leader willing to facilitate the 60-minute workshop (we’ll guide you)
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A September workshop date (that’s when the next research round is happening)
We’ll support you with planning, logistics, the tools, and the data collection.
If you lead a team — or work with one — and want to be part of this research, we’d love to chat. Reach out to us at [email protected]
The ECD Unspoken Conversation Guide isn’t publicly available just yet.
We’re still shaping how best to share it as we grow this research and our collaboration with Professor Michael Parke. This Unspoken Conversations Workshop is a small glimpse of what’s to come in 2026 as we get closer to launching the R&E Institute, a bold new home for real-world research into emotional culture, leadership, and the human side of work. Our aim: to bridge the gap between academic research, real-world practice and practical tools leaders can use to create real change.
