I think we can call in the Pareto Principle here. After a certain point, assertiveness / aggressiveness becomes zero-sum (or worse). But getting to the point where everyone worth listening to has had a chance to speak gives you a lot of bang for your buck. You can either have an environment which enables this (everyone gets the talking stick) or train everyone to have a baseline of assertiveness skills.
The baseline shouldn't just be "excuse me, I have a question" scenarios though. The baseline has to be sufficient to handle stuff like "I think my boss is screwing up big time".
A man of culture!
I think we can call in the Pareto Principle here. After a certain point, assertiveness / aggressiveness becomes zero-sum (or worse). But getting to the point where everyone worth listening to has had a chance to speak gives you a lot of bang for your buck. You can either have an environment which enables this (everyone gets the talking stick) or train everyone to have a baseline of assertiveness skills.
The baseline shouldn't just be "excuse me, I have a question" scenarios though. The baseline has to be sufficient to handle stuff like "I think my boss is screwing up big time".