Two introverted participants in a recent communications seminar told me how frustrated they both were. What about? It turns out their company wants them to “talk out” project ideas to a variety of people outside their internal group. This is the new expectation in their culture – that they float ideas in the early stages. These introverted leaders are concerned that this reluctance to carefully think through ideas before sending them half baked into the “corporate universe”results in lower quality output.
Yet they know that they will have to get with the program and are trying to figure out how to create a healthy balance between thinking and talking..a common organizational challenge for introverts.
Taking time to pause so that we can carefully consider proposals(even sleep on it?) makes total sense. It is hard to do when the message is “Talk to us, talk to us!”
Actors like Streep prepare extensively to take us into the world of that character. Likewise, introverts often emphasize how much they prepare for meetings, calls, presentations, etc. so that they perform at their best ( a side note: Meryl Streep is an introvert like many actors). Yet, despite careful preparation, you can’t always anticipate what is thrown at you. Handling the moment sometimes trumps preparation. Continue reading the rest of this article...
The sort of coaching that fosters effective innovation and judgment, not merely the replication of technique, may not be so easy to cultivate. Yet modern society increasingly depends on ordinary people taking responsibility for doing extraordinary things: operating inside people’s bodies, teaching eighth graders algebraic concepts that Euclid would have struggled with, building a highway through a mountain, constructing a wireless computer network across a state, running a factory, reducing a city’s crime rate. In the absence of guidance, how many people can do such complex tasks at the level we require? With a diploma, a few will achieve sustained mastery; with a good coach, many could. We treat guidance for professionals as a luxury—you can guess what gets cut first when school-district budgets are slashed. But coaching may prove essential to the success of modern society. Continue reading the rest of this article...
Introverts are so often mischaracterized and even blamed for the woes of the world. Now government workers seem to be taking the hit. Continue reading the rest of this article...
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