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Most of the world’s corporations strive to avoid discrimination against employees on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation. But few people think about the notoriously disadvantageous position in which introverts find themselves today. But they can work with greater efficiency if employers take into account their features.
Psychological tests show Introverts make up one-third to one-half of the population. Susan Cain’s book about their plight has sold 2 million copies. The TED lecture, which outlines the main ideas of the book, has collected more than 14 million views. And for the first time, Carl Gustav Jung drew attention to the difference between introverts and extroverts back in 1921. But every day the conditions for introverts in the work environment are only getting worse.
Aggressive environment
The main culprit for this deterioration is the vogue for office “open space” and so-called group work. Business leaders believe that in a world where computers do a lot of routine work, innovation is the elixir of growth. But from this fair premise, they draw the false conclusion that the best way to boost creativity is to tear down office walls and keep meetings running non-stop.
Thinking this way is wrong for a number of reasons. This judgment is based on a hackneyed comparison of intellectual and physical barriers between people. It does not take into account the fact that noise and distractions make it difficult to concentrate.
Extroverts do get their energy from other people. But introverts need time alone to recharge. Companies forget this too often!
Invisible leaders
The recent vogue of “hyper-connectedness” also reinforces the prejudice against introverts when it comes to promotions. In many corporations, it is customary to equate leadership qualities with extroversion – that is, with the desire to project your self outward, shake hands and rant in front of an audience. This means that the ideal manager is Donald Trump.
However, management guru Jim Collins shares an observation that the longest-serving CEOs in the top positions in their fields tend to be quiet and even inconspicuous. They put their company above their own “I” and often keep a low profile.
Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg are introverts who would find it difficult to stay afloat in an extroverted culture
Many successful business founders and top executives in the tech industry (like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg) are introverts who would find it hard to stay afloat in IBM’s extrovert culture, with its corporate anthems and strong emphasis on team spirit. By hurting employees like them, firms overlook or marginalize potential leaders.
At all levels of the corporate hierarchy, this leads to the fact that the abilities of employees are not fully used.
Adaptation of working conditions
How can companies improve the lives of introverts? At the very least, provide them with individual space and quiet areas for relaxation. And recognize that introverts bring their unique skills to work. In meetings, they talk less, but their words make more sense.
Leaders will have to look at their companies through the eyes of an introvert.. How often do large meetings take place in the organization, where the loudest ones have an advantage? This leads to the marginalization of introverts. Are new hires selected based on how they present themselves in interviews? Because of this, those who know how to work, but do not know how to present themselves, go unnoticed.
The most astute leaders have already begun to meet these challenges. Amazon has made its meetings more focused. Each of them begins with silence: those present read a six-page text on the topic of the meeting. This shifts the focus from the behavior of people in the audience to the discussion of what they have read.
Google has moved away from focusing on interviews to select candidates and is paying more attention to how they perform on tests, whether that’s writing code or solving technical problems.
Team Building
Of course, managers are not aware of all scientific achievements in the field of personality typology. But it would be useful for them to know how teams are created and how groups of people interact with each other. If employees must simply follow orders, then extroverts will do better with management. But if employees must think for themselves, then introverted leaders are more successful.
Introverts have to put in more effort to adjust to corporate life because work is primarily a social interaction. They find it easier to communicate using the keyboard than in meetings. But instead of avoiding meetings entirely, it is better to have small meetings, as this is necessary for moving up the corporate ladder.
Introverts who have reached career heights usually know how to behave like extroverts at least part of the time.
Introverts who have reached career heights are usually able to behave like extroverts at least part of the time, says Carl Moore of Montreal McGill University, who interviewed 200 CEOs during the radio show. The former head of the Canadian State Railways, Claude Mongeot, set himself the goal of acting like an extrovert five times a day.
Most of humanity is located on the introversion-extroversion scale somewhere in the middle between the extreme marks.. Carl Moore suggests that “quiet” people can have just as much impact on the world as true extroverts, if only they have time to reset. He challenges his students to “communicate and relate like an introvert” or “communicate and relate like an extrovert” to empower them.
Enlightened management of the future
Business has long been dominated by the extrovert ideal, because that’s how the corporate fashion has been for decades—whether it’s the 1950s model of asserting oneself in an organization by standing up for one’s point of view in meetings and in teams, or the current obsession with instant communicative response. Susan Kane writes about this in her book.
Fortunately, some trends are directed in the other direction. The technology industry, that is, the industry where there are especially a lot of introverts, has facilitated remote communication. The purpose of enlightened management is not to push an extrovert-oriented company towards introverts. It’s about building a new type of company where introverts, extroverts, and everyone in between have an equal opportunity to thrive professionally. An ambivert organization, let’s call it that.
The article mentions the book by S. Kane “Introverts. How to use the features of your character” (MIF, 2014), as well as thoughts from the book by J. Collins “From good to great” (MIF, 2016).