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tacit
TASS-it
- 01Understand
- 02Hear
- 03Distinguish
- 04See it used
- 05Choose how it lands
Understood without being spoken.
It lets you name an agreement nobody wrote down, which is usually the rule doing the most work in a family or a team.
Unspoken only means nobody said it. Tacit means nobody said it and everyone is acting on it anyway.
work“There is a tacit rule here that nobody books meetings on Friday afternoons.”
conversation“We had a tacit deal that neither of us would mention the interview.”
thought“My silence at that meeting was tacit approval, whatever I told myself afterwards.”
A team has drifted into never challenging one senior engineer's design calls, and you are raising it with your manager.
Meaning held still: Name the unwritten rule so it can be discussed, without accusing anyone of enforcing it.
“There is a tacit rule that we don't question Dev's designs, and I don't think he put it there.”
It lands as: Describes the pattern as something the group made, so nobody has to be the villain.
Tradeoff: Removing the blame also removes urgency, and unowned problems tend to survive.“Nobody challenges Dev's designs any more. That is a problem.”
It lands as: States the behaviour and the judgment in two short sentences, which is hard to talk past.
Tradeoff: Puts one named person at the centre of a problem that belongs to the group.“Design review has got quieter than it used to be. Have you noticed it too?”
It lands as: Opens the topic as a shared observation, which invites your manager to name it themselves.
Tradeoff: If they have not noticed, the point dissolves into small talk.Restrained
- certainty
- describes the pattern as group-made, a tacit rule Dev didn't put there, nobody the villain
- exposure
- removing blame removes urgency
Direct
- cadence
- behaviour and judgment in two sentences, nobody challenges Dev's designs, that's a problem
- exposure
- one named person at the centre of a group problem
Tactful
- distance
- opens as shared observation, review's got quieter, have you noticed
- exposure
- if they haven't noticed, the point dissolves
“Ask Dev to invite more challenge himself; he's the centre of the rule, so he's the one who can revoke it.”
Why it tempts: The rule's apparent author fixing it seems like the shortest path.
Why it misses: The tacit rule wasn't authored, it accreted, and Dev announcing please-challenge-me changes nothing about why people don't: each junior still privately prices contradiction against Dev's track record and the room's history, the invitation gets politely consumed, and Dev now believes the problem is solved because he solved his half of a rule he never made. The intention is to name the unwritten rule so it can be discussed, because tacit agreements are group property, and only the group examining how it got there, in the manager conversation the lesson stages, actually dissolves one.
Watch for: Tacit needs the shared understanding to be real. A rule you assume everyone accepts, and nobody actually follows, is not tacit; it is only yours.
First met in The Reconciliation. Saving keeps that example with the word.