The Quiet Power Of Introverts
"I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boy's feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight…
"Indeed the presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them." - Allen Shawn
In "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking," Susan Cain looks at how our lives are shaped by personality. Specifically she explores how where we land on the introvert-extrovert spectrum influences our choices, friends, conversations, careers, success, and even love. "It governs how likely we are to exercise, commit adultery, function well without sleep, learn from our mistakes, place big bets in the stock market, delay gratification, be a good leader, and ask "what if."
It's also one of the most exhaustively researched subjects. It's not just scientists who've contemplated this, they are a rather recent addition. Poets and Philosophers have been "thinking about introverts and extroverts since the dawn of recorded time."
Surprising? That's because most introverts, like myself, pretend to be extroverts. I'm what you call a "closet introvert."
The extrovert ideal is alive and well.
But, like anything, it's a mistake to embrace this ideal without thinking. Without introverts, we wouldn't have: the theory of gravity, the theory of relativity, Chopin's nocturnes, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Peter Pan, Orwell's 1984, The Cat in the Hat, Charlie Brown, Schindler's List, E.T., Google, Harry Potter, or Farnam Street.
In "How Heredity and Experience Make You Who You Are," the science journalist Winifred Gallagher writes: "The glory of the disposition that stops to consider stimuli rather than rushing to engage with them is its long association with intellectual and artistic achievement. Neither E=mc2 nor Paradise Lost was dashed off by a party animal."
Cain argues that it is not in spite of introversion that people like Eleanor Roosevelt, Al Gore, Warren Buffett, Gandhi and Rosa Parks achieve what they do, but, in part, because of it.
As society moves unconsciously toward an extroverted world - one of open offices, team everything, and organizations that value "people skills" above competence - introverts will have to adjust. But things like creativity and "innovation" will suffer.
If you're an introvert:
After taking my MBTI, one of my professors defined introversion as "where you get your energy." If you're extroverted you get energy from being around people, and if you're introverted you get it from being alone. But is there more to it than that? What exactly does it mean to say someone is introverted?
In 1921, psychologist Carl Jung had published a book, "Psychological Types," that popularized the terms introvert and extrovert as the foundation of personality.
Discussing Jung's work, Cain writes:
The MBTI is based on Jung's work. But, you should know, there is no consensus on any of this. There are "almost as many definitions of introverts and extroverts as there are personality psychologists, who spend a great deal of time arguing over which meaning is most accurate."
Whenever I tell someone I'm introverted the first thing they inevitably say is "you can't be an introvert. You're not shy."
The bus to Abilene
Here is one particularly amusing anecdote from the book: "The bus to Abilene." And this applies to everything from meetings to how we make decisions.
Innovation
A lot of organizations want to encourage innovation with "positive" action. They hold up Google, Twitter, and Kickstarter as models of innovation. In a well-meaning attempt to encourage innovation they inevitably come up with a process that relies on presentation skills to sift ideas.
In his book "Iconoclast," neuroeconomist Gregory Berns explores what happens when companies rely too heavily on presentation skills to sift ideas. "He describes a software company called Rite-Solutions," Cain writes summarizing his work, "that successfully asks employees to share ideas through an online 'idea market,' as a way of focusing on substance rather than style."
In his memoir, "iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It," Steve Wozniak writes:
Of course introverts are not necessarily more creative. The most creative or innovative people tend to ask questions, display a healthy disrespect for authority, a natural irreverence, and a stubborn streak. This suggests they may not work well as part of a team.
In explaining why introverts have a creative advantage, Cain writes:
In the end, creativity and innovation in organizations is about accepting and even encouraging differences. I'd caution organizations not to move too far towards the extroversion end of the spectrum (open offices, everything done in teams, promoting based on social skills above competence) without giving consideration to the effects that may have on some of your most creative people. A lot of things are better done by individuals than teams. It's ok to have offices. It's ok to have quiet. It doesn't work for everyone but it works for some of your best and possibly most misunderstood employees.
"Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" is an interesting look at how letting the extrovert ideal run wild is a bad idea for creativity, decision making, and cognitive diversity.