Companies would benefit from helping introverts to thrive
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I'm fine with useful training where they teach you some stuff, and let you have a go at it, and are available for questions.
But no... these days they have to make it all "interactive". Instead of teaching stuff they have to stand there picking on people asking "what do you know about X", and then after a few hours of "teaching" you are "rewarded" by being forced to join a group of people for a group activity. No, it's not a reward, it's a few hours of hell.
ugh, this is why I tend to avoid so called training these days. Why can't we just be given actual teaching and notes and not be forced to do awful group activities.
Businesses seem to forget these basic lessons in favor of feel-good "team work" nonsense
Most studies have found that the idea people have different learning styles isn't actually true. People have a preference but it doesn't affect how much they learn.
http://qz.com/585143/the-concept-of-different-learning-style...
On the other hand, when I took "Medical Neuroscience" [0], a pretty heavy course with 16 hrs/week ~25 hours (or was it 35?) lectures total (the 1st edition of that course - I have not checked if they made any changes to the edition online now, Coursera switched to a different course format), at least for the duration of the course I ignored the textbook [1] even though I had it. The lecturer was mesmerizing, I just started the videos and listened for hours - and actually learned. The fact that most of the time you do want to take that textbook (even for this exact same subject) is that it's exceedingly rare to find such a specimen of a teacher.
Similarly with basic physiology lectures, even though they were done cheaply and he has stopped making new ones Aaron Mullally's lectures are of the same kind, I could just listen and listen and learn stuff. I tried many different ones, all of them prepared more "professionally" (I don't like that word because the dirtiest and cheapest solution can still be more professional than the one with the best packaging, but you know what I mean, I hope).
Math, physics, chemistry, biology: It depends (so the same), I found lectures - I guess that actually means I found lecturers - that at least for me are better than learning the same from a book. Another example where given the choice between book and lecture I would take the lecture any time: [3] (and that is 100% because of the person giving the lecture).
[0] https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience
[1] http://www.sinauer.com/neuroscience-621.html
[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0JRvRB-VkJ3yeSEdXpe9ew
[3] https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret-life-...
I had to take a math class while getting my AAS. The class didn't teach me anything with its sleek book, poor explanations, and ineffective teacher. I only passed because of this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT
It's professional quality now in this era of professional YouTubers, but not back in the 2000s. Still better than a $100+ textbook.
Reflecting back to these situations brought to mind the Seinfeld episode "The Pitch"[1] in which Jerry and George pitch a TV show to NBC executives. In it, the NBC team's leader expresses skepticism about George's idea, leading to this exchange:
RUSSELL: Well, why am I watching it?
GEORGE: Because it's on TV.
RUSSELL: (Threatening) Not yet.
I learn better if you give me a bunch of videos, access to documentation, someone knowledgeable I can ask pointed questions to in order to solidify or correct my understanding and an environment to which I can apply what I'm learning. I don't need someone to hold my hand 90% of the time, nor do I want to waste their time holding my hand for that 90%. I learn faster on my own, but it's way quicker to get unstuck when you can ask questions ... and some things you just can't learn without doing, as my Gran would say: You can't understand the texture of bread dough without getting your hands dirty.
For technical stuff PluralSight et. al, Google, Safari and StackOverflow are immensely more useful than sitting in a class of other people learning to program, except for access to the professor when you need things answered.
Similar conclusions - with some evidence of benefit from VARK and similar sensory preference inventories. Coffield and his team also asked if other factors (reinforcement, regular assessment and monitoring &c) had a greater 'effect size'.
But shouldn't learning in your preferred style affect motivation to learn, thereby affecting how much is learned?
Couple thoughts:
* As an instructor, I hate standing in front of the class and talking. That asymmetric form of teaching is pointless and I'd argue, outdated.
* Interactivity is important in a training setting because you're learning along with others. That initial path you create in your brain is dotted with waypoints that everyone in class travels together. This is powerful when learning because more likely than not, you will be able to pull each other way from common pitfalls and also connect concepts that you know about already.
* I see your point on group activity. It depends on the nature of the training. If it's a highly technical topic like a new programming language, it probably makes sense to have individual practice before any group project.
This is true for some, not for others. Once again, probably at least correlating with the extrovert-introvert axis.
Agree that the "lecture" format isn't great, though. For me, books, some space to work through/try the stuff at my own pace, and ideally an expert I can discuss stuff with 1:1 if I'm really stuck. Don't worry, I'll consult the FAQ first -- so long as one exists.
Then please understand that unlike you many others aren't introverts by choice. They can't simply "turn it off".
The point of a course is to teach you a topic, not teach skills outside of that topic. This was the worst with instructors and professors who felt they needed to teach you some life skill along with calculus. They'd fail to notice a large number of other professors were doing it too. Then you have 5 different people all convinced and trying their hardest to ingrain group communications skills right alongside advanced topics.
Meanwhile, I'm crying inside as I struggle with 5 different group projects - not because of the material, I could do each of these projects alone with only moderately more time - but because of the awkwardness of forgetting everyone's name and those details about each of their personal lives they want to talk about for the first 15 minutes of every meeting.
Take your life skills and write a self-help book. I just want to learn some integrals.
So it's kind of like saying "make sure you spend some time each day doing that strenuous activity so you get more used to it". Just like someone would say "go to the gym and work out a few times a week". Just because one person isn't as physically fit as another, doesn't mean the less-fit person shouldn't get any exercise at all.
If you ask someone who strongly identifies as being an extrovert, I think they'd answer the other way: after some boring solo work they're probably craving some human interaction, even if it's in the context of a boring meeting.
Introvert vs. extrovert doesn't refer to whether you like to work alone or in a group but what kind of environment gives you back your energy/exhausts your energy: Being alone in a (typically) silent environment vs. interacting in a group.
Rather "yes" (don't use the term from physics ;-) ). I think Filligree (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461044) and cmdrfred (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12461049) gave decent short descriptions. I would describe it in a lot more words with: You surely know after what kind of activities you feel really exhausted (in particular mentally, but also physically) that you just want to go to bed (or as an introvert to some silent place). These are activities that exhaust your energy. On the other hand there are activities that will give you energy (for some introverts for example intelligent conversations with close friends).
So "energy" refers to the state whether you are mentally exhausted or have enough ressources available that you would love, say, found a startup, to revolutionize the way something is done (which does not mean you are capable to do or it is a good idea - but you really would love to and mentally you are willing). See "energy" as the noun derived from the "energetic" adjective in "Jane Doe is a very energetic person".
>>for example intelligent conversations with close friends
when in reality, introversion and extroversion are not traits that are inherent to you as a person. Introverts are people who have not spent the time developing social skills. There's no reason to not bias towards extroversion -- the arch-typical extrovert is social because they can be, not because being alone "drains them of their energy".
I know introverts who are socially quite skilled.
"Introverts are people who have not spent the time developing social skills." Really? Yeah, sure, they are just lazy bastards, I guess. And please stop naming 'skill' something that generally consists of wasting other people's time because you need to tell the world everything about about your so interesting self, or because you need to drown each piece of information in an ocean of unnecessary blah-blah, or plain seductive lies...
Yes, some extroverts can't bear to stay alone and need a group around them and if possible an audience. Guess what, I know a few and I even like the company of a few of them (those who are not in tech, obviously, so that they have something interesting to tell). When it is not in a work situation, I can offer them my listening and they can talk 95% of the conversation; this is fine for both and I can leave when I want. But I don't want any of this at work, thank you, especially considering it often comes from a manager that you cannot dismiss easily, since this kind of showmen and talking machines generally end up in that position.
I've had one that was telling me about his grocery list before leaving the office to go home. Well, I knew he would be trouble: when he recruited me, he almost only spokes about himself during the interview. I mean, THE GUY SPENT SEVERAL MINUTES TELLING ME ABOUT HIS BLOODY DOG DURING THE INTERVIEW. He would never stop talking, on the phone, in random offices, disturbing people who were trying to work to tell them for the third time about the wonders he'd achieved. And that would last 12 hours a day because he wouldn't stand being alone, he needed someone to talk to (and listen passively if possible) all the time, so he stayed at the office as long as possible because they was a captive (though not captivated) audience always available there.
I've never seen an introvert being such a nuisance. I've seen many extroverts being PITA and sometimes not understanding that they annoyed everyone, or even though they understood it from people's attitude or people telling them, not being able to stop going on all the time.
You're going to "no true introvert" me and tell me I was an extrovert in sheep's clothing all along but again: these labels are meaningless, and used as a crutch by people who want to justify their reclusiveness.
You're mistaking extroversion for narcissism. Obviously having social awareness and self awareness are healthy and necessary to having meaningful, reciprocal relationships.
I'm sorry, I'm totally lost at what this metaphor is even supposed to mean. I have no idea what the deep mental processes of my fellow students are when they are learning, even if we would talk about the material and ask questions and discuss, and I'm not even sure why I should follow the same "pathways" as them to learn to grok some concept.
Most efficient learning method I've found is to study materials on your own (be their written materials, videos, recorded lectures, though I prefer texts), try to apply it (first to some basic exercises if available, then try more independent work), and ask a more knowledgeable person questions about it when I have questions to ask. The last stage is inherently interactive, but at the first stage all and the only action that happens should be you and your brain concentrating on the material.
The idea of waypoints etc sounds more like a clumsy narrative about how it should work than how it really does.
If I'm "learning with others", I'm putting a lot more energy into being with others than into learning.
Unless it's an explicitly social problem, it's a very inefficient way to learn.
There are problems with self-directed learning. The most obvious is that because you don't know what you don't know, you can build an oversimplified mental model, which can cause issues later.
And if you're not taught best-practices and microskills that people learn with experience, your learning will be incomplete.
It's up to course material developers to try to solve both of those problems. Ideally teaching should combine rich and realistic model/overview with useful time-saving rote skills from real practice.
FTFY!
For #2 - "everyone in class travels together" means slowing everybody down to the rate of the slowest person on the room. If you insist on that, you'd better filter your participants into a very homogeneous group (on both style and capacity), or you'll lose anybody that is not completely stupid.
Holy hyperbole.
Couldn't you also be learning how to spend time in a group?
I think the definition of the word "introvert" might be something you should review.
The term itself is useless anymore because it conflates shyness, introspection (an aspect of introversion, classically), and symptoms of social anxiety.
To an introvert, groups of strangers are uncomfortable, parties are taxing, and crowds are torture.
"Can't you learn to spend time in a group?" is, to an introvert, conceptually equivalent to social mithridatism. All you have to do to feel comfortable in a pit of venomous snakes is to painfully inject yourself with increasing amounts of venom over an extended period of time, giving yourself time to recover after each dose. Or, to overcome a food allergy, you undergo desensitization therapy, gradually increasing your exposure to it.
Since the process is painful, there must be some perceptible reward at the end of it in order to make the first step worthwhile. There is no such benefit in most companies. Hey, congratulations! You get to keep your job, doing more of the same thing! Now get back over here and do a trust fall, where you close your eyes and then a dozen people touch you at once, all over your body! It's fun!
How about instead of doing that, you give me an office with a lockable door (and also actually give me the key for it) and make sure I only have exactly one boss? Put up a team wiki and give everyone dev blog URLs instead of having a daily face-to-face status meeting? Automate or pre-schedule any co-worker lunch outings, such that everybody knows the restaurant selection in advance?
We need more nuanced language to discuss this than just extrovert and introvert.
But that's just me. I've got a friend working down the street. He's so much happier being in an office with 3 other people who never talk to each other. He'd hate the environment I'm in and the team sizes I work with. To the best of my knowledge, and by his behavior (compared to my experience with my own issues and working with/helping others), he doesn't seem to have any social anxiety (or nothing beyond some fairly common level that many engineers seem to have).
My father is even more introverted than him, but he successfully ran organizations (military) of thousands of people. He got his alone time, really small group time was more to his liking, on the weekends and after-hours. He tolerated it for 8-12 hours a day, then came home and set work aside. Again, introversion isn't a disorder. It becomes a disorder, and likely some sort of anxiety disorder, when it impacts your ability to do what you want to do.
Ultimately, there's also only so much a company can do though. Introversion isn't a disorder (anxiety is), so there's no obligation to accommodate people, legally. Which is another reason to address things by what they actually are.
When I was last depressed, addressing it as depression meant that I worked with my supervisor to reduce my workload, reduce my stress (my depression is a consequence of anxiety, combination of personal and professional stressors triggered it last time), while I got through it. Then we ramped it back up once I got passed a couple hurdles.
Another thing to note, things that annoy productive introverts also annoy productive extroverts. A loud office filled with nonsense like five people playing music on their speakers, and conversations about WoW. That annoys almost everyone that just wants to get shit done.
Introversion/extroversion as a spectrum is a real thing. But it's dangerous to use them as reasons for behaviors that are also strongly correlated with other conditions. You're potentially masking the real problems and letting them fester.
I've been in shitty work environments. Being by myself in the evenings and weekends gave me the energy to go back into it and start again. Using the "I'm an introvert" reasoning would have been valid: it was an open plan, I was right on top of other people, little-to-no privacy. But that wasn't the cause, it was the stress of the place (contractor, no benefits, could be fired at any time), that was dragging me down each day. It took me almost a year to realize that, because I did use the introvert reasoning. Addressing it, by leaving, got me to another physically equivalent environment, where I wasn't stressed by the environment (found other stressors, but by then I had mostly learned to recognize anxiety/depression and my reaction to them as a separate thing).
I suffered through being in that position myself early in my career, and people under me suffered as a result, and I had no follow up or help whatsoever in terms of obtaining the skills to deal with it. It took a lot of time to recognise the problem and "fix it".
It still saps me of energy to spend time actively reaching out to people, but I've learned strategies to work around it (e.g. setting appointments to talk to people so I can't get out of it without being rude prevents me from just indefinitely postponing it), and "compensate" by ensuring I allocate "quiet time" to recharge.
There were also a lot of little things I had to learn. E.g. I eventually learned that simply walking around the office now and again and asking people how they were doing got people to report far higher satisfaction with my level of engagement, even if I spent less time actually responding to issues.
My managers never engaged with me that way when I started leading teams (I once had a manager that didn't actually talk to me for about two years - I passed on status reports once a week and that was pretty much it), so I didn't either for a long time. It turned out to be a very "low touch" method of showing interest that didn't wear me down but gave very positive results.
A lot of teams struggle with bad to non-existent training of people who get promoted into management positions, and that problem gets far worse with people whose "default" is to not spend a lot of time talking to people, and it puts a strain both on the team and the person put into that position that could be reduced very quickly with some basic training and some coaching.
I actually occasionally take on contracts to do coaching for technology managers because I love helping people shortcut all the time I wasted on it when I first started managing teams.
A few of my bosses have been "upset" when I've declined management opportunities. I don't have those skills, nor do I want them! It's the finest example of the Peter Principle I can think of.
Back when I worked at Yahoo, the existence of a separate path to promote tech specialists was one of the great redeeming parts of the organisation, as well as a willingness to be flexible about remuneration for top performing tech staff - e.g. one of my direct reports was a developer that I gave raises that pushed his salary up above my own due to a combination of much longer service than my own and stellar performance (Yahoo was a great employer overall - at least the London office - back when I worked there, up to and including providing proper training for managers as well; but it was already then suffering from multiple-personality disorder, trying to be both a tech company and a marketing / media company at the same time).
But the problems also manifests for people who could do very well as managers, and maybe eventually will do, but who doesn't get proper support.
Short of finding a new job, I'm not sure how to work around this problem without becoming a manager.
An idea to solve this problem that I have seen, I think, on HN: Why are the managers the people who decide what the subordinate programmers have to do? Why not instead hire management people who assist the programming team to do the things that the typical programmers don't like (in opposite of "management types")?
To give examples:
Instead of some management boss forces some deadlines on the programming team, now instead the "management assistant" is here to communicate the deadline to the customer so that the programmers are shielded from grumpy customers who want more tight deadlines.
Or they are mediators if there are conflicts in the programming team.
Or they serve as the bogeyman who explains to the customer why their idea for new "necessary" program features cannot be implemented this way.
Or they help (instead of force) the programming team to arrange some roadmap for shipping the product (something unluckily few programmers like).
Or they help the programming team to understand what the customer really wants so that less time is wasted implementing stuff that the customer meant differently.
...
TLDR: Why not reverse the hierarchy: The management guys assist the programming team.
According to your description it involves handling all the sh*t work that you don't want to do, but with absolutely no upside in terms of scope, power or authority. Presumably, you're willing to pay someone well to do this, but that only handles extrinsic motivation not intrinsic motivation. If you wouldn't want to get up in the morning to do it, you should doubt that anyone else would want to either.
Just look at your list:
+ Or they are mediators if there are conflicts in the programming team.
A job you don't want to do that involves smoothing the feathers of various angry people and their messy emotions. All mediation is terrible because you always land-up being disliked by 50% of the parties, and if you're truly blessed 100% of the parties. Your use of the word mediate is interesting because I think you mean "can't tell them what to do" - so that way you get to be disliked by all the parties and don't even get to solve the actual problem!
+ Or they serve as the bogeyman who explains to the customer why their idea for new "necessary" program features cannot be implemented this way.
A job that involves handling angry customers who actually pay for everyone's salaries. I don't know how many calls you've had to do with customers telling they can't have things, but members of the public can generally be quite unpleasant - particularly when they feel they've paid for something and they're not getting it. And, it likely puts that individual at risk of being fired if the customer says that they're not going to work with your company any more!
+ Or they help (instead of force) the programming team to arrange some roadmap for shipping the product (something unluckily few programmers like).
Sounds fairly tedious trying to get a bunch of people to agree by consensus some stuff that they just don't want to. And when "help" becomes that the developers believe the roadmap can't be done in the time-line the customer wants, what are you expecting to happen? Oh and the effort estimates the developers have for each step on the roadmap are probably 100% correct right, so we can be certain it can't be done. Because it's well known in the technology industry that technical effort estimation is 100% correct!
+ Or they help the programming team to understand what the customer really wants so that less time is wasted implementing stuff that the customer meant differently.
Seriously, the problem here is that why would someone else be any better at understanding the users requirements than the programmers - if you have an interface it automatically loses something in translation - developers should spend time with customers or be customers. Bottom line neither managers or developers are psychic! Again this is someone doing messy work that you don't want to do - you're definitely going to have to motivate me to do all of this!
Of course, these are often all part of management - but let me point out the first skill - being able to successfully frame something in a manner that makes an individual intrinsically motivated to do it .. your list would have a reasonable chance if you can understand these strange creatures called 'managers' :-)
* Handled comp planning and negotiating with upper management for headcount
* Escalated technical disagreements my team had with other teams
* Provided career advice and coaching to me and their other reports
* Made me actually take time at the start and end of the quarter to grade performance towards quarterly goals, and set goals for the new quarter. Importantly, it was the engineers setting and grading the goals.
Not all managers at Google follow this model - some are active software engineers that act as manager for a small team of junior engineers, some are tech lead + manager but not writing much code, and I'm sure some are bad, because Google is a big place and humans aren't uniform. But all eng managers that I've heard of have a strong software engineering background - there are no pointy haired bosses.
These are not necessarily the views of my employer, I'm not speaking for them.
But too often I think non-tech people are pushed into management because that's the only way to advance their career, get a raise, etc. They don't really want it. Pushing people who don't really want a job into management doesn't really solve the "tech vs non-tech" issue IME.
It's a disaster. It seems that finding a technical person and having them learn the business skills is more common and easier than taking a business person and hoping they can learn enough technical skills to be able to understand the piece of the business they're in charge of.
In my situation, it's a manufacturing engineer with an MBA who was asked to manage a design engineering department. What happened was that he forced the implementation of procedures and checklists on immature processes. So the procedures were immediately out of date and because the processes were immature, there's no solid theory of operation - just lists of steps that engineers and techs execute blindly.
The problem is mostly with non-tech companies and their "IT" departments that largely don't get it. It would be great for employees and for labor efficiency, but how do you even start trying to get buyin when the leadership's head is in such a different place?
My current company (Google) and my previous company (Electronic Arts) both have job ladders for technical people that let you continue to progress without having to take a management position.
You are expected to have influence among other people, of course. Your work should have higher impact the higher you go. But you can get that impact without having to have direct reports.
It's one of the things I really like about both companies. I like working with people, and I like feeling like my expertise has wider impact as I get better, but I've never had any desire to manage other people.
I've actually heard conference speakers call out behaviours as toxic that are basically the defining character traits of introverts (not to mention people in the autism spectrum).
Note that I'm not even talking about the shouty-sweary-abrasive behaviour people like Torvalds are being derided for but simply preferring to work alone rather than in a team.
There's a big difference between being relatively quiet and lacking social skills. Unless you look at from the personality type that needs to fill every silence with any old rubbish.
Of course, it's just my personal opinion and experience. As an introvert, i dislike crowds, big events, dancing and singing; It's challenging, but very beneficial to invest some of my energy into "being social". If you can learn ${lang}, you can learn to identify your own feelings. Once you know your own feelings, you can learn empathy. Once you learn empathy, social skills is a breeze.
Believe me: I think I know my feelings pretty well. But I also claim that they are often so much different from the feelings other people have that this does not help me to empathize. Just to give one example: How is the feeling called that you feel when you read and understand beautiful mathematical proofs? I have not found a name for this feeling in any psychology book that I have read. On the other hand grief (in the sense of the feeling that people feel when someone near dies; I hope this is the intended translation of the German word "Trauer" - I'm no English native speaker) is a feeling that I only know from literature and watching people - I can confidently say that I never felt such a feeling myself.
Back to topic: I believe the step from "knowing your own feelings" to "empathy" assumes that your feelings are somehow related to the feelings other people feel. I think this bold assumption does not hold very strongly for me. Believe me: If I act on this assumption, chaos will happen. On the other hand if I apply, say, some maximum-likelihood estimation (to use a word from statistics, don't interpret the word "maximum-likelihood" too literally) on how another person might feel (which is often quite the opposite to how I feel and completely against my instincts and I would never like to be treated this way), at least less chaos will happen.
I would call that "awe".
I would describe a feeling when you read and understand beautiful mathematical proofs as bliss or relief (when it was hard before everything unfolds). Dopamine kick? It is just that most people don't get satisfaction from such things.
> bliss
It's not about happiness - the world is still bad - but about deep understanding.
>awe
It's not that I'm intimidated by it - it's just the feeling of having understood something really deep
> epiphany
it comes near, but epiphany is (as far as I understand it) the feeling of the sudden realization (which is different), but I talk the feeling that you have afterwards. While in panel 2 of
the feeling is clearly "epiphany" the later panels transport a different feeling (a much less "striking" one) - the latter is the feeling I mean.
> It is just that most people don't get satisfaction from such things.
But they might get the same feeling from other stimuli.
The "elegant math proof" feeling was just the description of a feeling that at leas some HN readers seem to be able to empathize with - I also had much stranger feelings under meditation (that I never had in "ordinary" life) that are even much harder to describe (and I only had them one or two times - so my descriptions might even not be very accurate).
Instead, I'd just say that I love it, and wouldn't even attempt to express my actual feeling.
I would only have used "epiphany" to express the feeling of figuring something out on my own, suddenly, but never the feeling of figuring out something that was clearly designed to explain something to me. Still, it's the closest word in this list, in my opinion. But not adequate.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy
That might resonate with you.
It's based on an essay by Augusten Burroughs at the Wall Street Journal, and shares much with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "flow", from the book of the same name.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023047466045773798...
http://www.worldcat.org/title/flow-the-psychology-of-optimal...
That's a dangerous line of thinking. It implies that people with a lack of social skills lack empathy.
Eh, you're assuming everyone feels the same way about everything. I hate it when people talk about my clothes or my looks. It makes me really self-conscious and embarrassed, even if it's a compliment. So in an effort to practice "the golden rule," I don't talk about others' clothing and looks. Turns out other people get offended when no one comments on a new haircut or whatever. Knowing my own feelings actually ended up as the opposite of empathy.
/Why are you upset I don't just walk into your house!?
In Parks and Recreation, Ron Swanson gives exactly the sort of compliments I would be comfortable with: "Your work product is often adequate.", "Sharing a workspace with you is not entirely unpleasant.", "I don't dread seeing your face entering my office.", "You remind me of a 16 oz. porterhouse."
It makes me a bit sad that they were perceived as jokes.
I don't believe that's the case; I think you're just early on in the process arpa describes. For me, part of really coming to know my own feelings was understanding the feeling very separately from the circumstances that trigger it.
With that separation in hand, it was much easier to develop deeper empathy. I would perceive other people's emotions and then work on reverse-engineering their very different triggers and preferences. And, of course, reverse-engineering how I ended up with the particular triggers and preferences I had myself.
For anybody eager to pursue that route, the two things I recommend are a meditation practice and seeing a therapist.
Which behaviours? I'd be interested in hearing specifics.
Maybe cite the conference speakers too (assuming these were public statements)? Who has condemned a preference to work alone as 'toxic'?
I've heard similar lines of thought from other people in the same circles before, though.
Being part of office layout team in a Fortune 10 company I'm now aware that most of the time the motivation is cost. It is way cheaper by many order of magnitude to have an open plan office. Other cost related reasons are easy to manage space -can be expanded and scaled down in jiffy- cheaper HVAC installation and maintenance etc.
It's even cheaper to let people work remotely from home, which is also perfect for introverts. I'm constantly surprised by how few companies have embraced remote work simply because of its cost-saving potential.
Because it's only cheaper on paper. The risk is way too high for me to abuse the fact that there is no IT staff, there is no redundancy, and there is no one to make sure I'm on task. I can stay home from work because I don't have to go anywhere to work in the first place. I'm working in my fun place... which has the negative effect of making my fun place less fun and possibly making my work place less work.
You can of course argue that someone should know they are going to be less productive as a remote worker, but most people _are_ going to accept the offer even if it is detrimental.
In tech, literally every change we make is logged in a history with timestamps. If someone's output seems low, then it's straightforward how to quantify output in terms of quantity, difficulty, timeliness, etc. Of course, that requires managers that can actually evaluate the work product itself (code, docs, etc.).
>>> Of course, that requires managers that can actually evaluate the work product itself
Agree, but would specify "over a relatively long period of time."
That only applies to junior developers whose measure is the amount of code they complete and even that is potentially gameable with fluff check-ins.
High-level design by senior developers, writing specifications, and QA, for example, don't have an output that's measurable in kLOC or work per unit time.
> High-level design by senior developers, writing specifications, and QA, for example, don't have an output that's measurable in kLOC or work per unit time.
They still have measurable, logged and recorded output. Specs get checked in. Bugs get filed and updated. Sample some of it.
This will better help you identify who's struggling or slacking off in the office too.
All of that aside though, the main argument I've made in favor of remote work in the past has been that for many people and teams (in software development, I can't speak outside of my field) even if remote work does cost some productivity it's worthwhile because it vastly increases quality of life.
That's where we are, right here, right now.
If it hasn't become 100% like that where you are now it will be soon.
Big companies do not care about productivity. They care about maximizing the bonus and curriculum of their executives.
There is some middle way of companies small enough to care about productivity, but big enough to have problems with an open floor. That middle is a bit hard to find, because often the preferences change the other way around, and they stop caring about productivity before they get that big. But it exists, and you may be able to convince somebody in there.
Probably my comparison is too extreme, but as an introvert myself I can see this as telling gay person to be straight five times a day.
I think this behaviour is necessary because the corporate environment cultivates a culture of insincerity and sometimes downright hypocrisy.
We all want to feel good about ourselves - So we either:
- Lie to ourselves or;
- Accept the reality and only pretend to believe the lies (that's where the public façade comes in handy).
Marketing is more important than technology.
Few groups actually reward introverts, who may be doing most of the real work.
Just like not every extrovert is immediately likable, not every introvert is a smart and hard worker. I know you wrote "may", but I've just seen too many colleagues and too many of my employees fall into this trapping mindset, which can result in some really nasty work atmostpheres. The attitude one brings to a job should be appropriate for the work. There is truth that if you don't speak up, it's hard to hear you sometimes, but that doesn't mean the way you sell yourself is most important - you still need substance.
I've watched as social charmers worked their way into my previous places of employment only to get shitcanned months later when it turns out you have to beat them with a stick to do even the simplest of tasks. I've also seen the same types of people and categorized them the same way, only to find out later that they were really doing tons of great things I just never knew about.
This is more the manager/supervisor in me not wanting people to draw lines in the sand unnecessarily, but who you are is how you want to present yourself. I'm a shy guy by nature, and I know that at my last job my coworkers could never understand why I liked lunch alone or rarely went to company events, didn't buy into company pride, etc. But once I dug in and made an impact work-wise, it was made pretty clear that they couldn't imagine not having me around, even if I was quiet.
> Marketing is more important than technology.
I assume you meant this as a jab (if not I apologise), however with proliferation of affordable and reproductible technology this is very true. Marketing is not only advertising, it is also knowing what problems your technology should solve and how to do it differently than myriads of your competitors.
In my company there are a lot of extroverts that only do work in group meetings. They are insecure working alone. So six people have to go over a document for two hours which the person that has called the meeting could have written alone and sent to others by email for review. There is no real collaboration going on in those meetings.
Marketing gets bad rep all of the time, but I think that is because often marketing is done (like you said) after one has something to sell. For me the order should be inverted:
1. Find a real world problem and identify potential customers (marketing) 2. Create an original solution that actually helps solve it (engineering) 3. Loops from marketing to engineering to improve the product
If you are pondering what should you that could actually sell you are doing marketing.
> The problem, I think, is that extroverts collaborate more easily
It's a self-perpetuating observation bias. You don't see the successful introverts, because they don't go on TV talking about their amazing life journey etc.
Ergo, everyone associates success with extroverts. There's actually no natural correlation between being an extrovert and being successful, but people /think/ one exists because of observer bias, and that makes it harder for introverts to succeed because they get passed over for hiring and so forth for not being "outgoing enough to be a leader" or whatever.
The perception creates the reality.
> Ergo, everyone associates success with extroverts.
Larry Page is known to be introvert.
I've come to the same conclusion. I've developed a mode that I switch on when needed. It is typically engaged when charming/schmoozing/selling/persuading is involved.
> But I feel somewhat insincere doing
I don't think you should. You work with humans as well as machines (I'm guessing). Some of these humans crave social activity and respond positively when they get it. That could mean telling someone about your day. It could also mean listening about their day.
> that and it takes a lot of effort emotionally.
I hear you. I burn energy very quickly when my extrovert mode is switched on. What's even harder, for me, is switching back to introvert related work after being in extrovert mode.
I used to think this way, and this line of reasoning misses the point.
You don't ask someone what they had for lunch to find out what they had for lunch. As you said, that piece of information has no bearing whatsoever for you. I may even ask someone what they had for lunch already knowing what they had for lunch.
The reason you ask what they had for lunch is that doing so is an explicitly social behavior, or as you call it, "keeping up appearances". The fact that you're willing to do the song and dance just like everyone else means you are sincere about keeping peace and order within the social group you're interacting with. You understand there are certain expectations, and you fulfill them. That's the behavior of someone that cares.
If you were truly insincere, you wouldn't bother keeping up appearances. You would tell that person "Oh fuck off with your lunch, no one gives a shit".
Still don't like going out in the weekends :p.
In a group, I'm usually loud and gregarious. And it's not even an act.
Yet, I don't need social interaction to feel good. Usually, one meeting a month with friends fulfills all my social needs.
I also remember some school director warning me about my behavior and telling me that humans are a social species.
The Susan McCain book really opened my eyes, in the end, to me it really seems to be a matter of values.
It's crazy because this issue makes me pretty angry. I failed 2 degrees because the score coefficients in teamwork projects were pretty high, not to mention being targeted and harassed in school because you're calm and silent most of the time.
Also I listened to some NPR podcast who talked about personality being a myth.
Basically we moved from recognizing that race and gender are bad biases, but we have new ones now.
Was it better than that?
And now you have a grade that accurately reflects nothing.
You're missing my point as I'm not talking about degrees but individual class grades. The moment a grade for a class in Nuclear Physics incorporates a group project, that grade no longer accurately reflects that student's understanding of Nuclear Physics but a hybrid of that understanding and the necessary social skills.
A degree can and should represent a wide array of skills from technical to social within a domain. This is accomplished by having classes in a wide array of technical to social skills. A class in Nuclear Physics. A class for Group Presenting. Maybe even a combined course if the coupling of the two is actually important for the degree program.
It's the blending of two topics into a course under the guise of "it's a good life skill" that infuriates me.
And even if workers have an obsessive focus for one task, market principles would dictate that those people have their place on the work place. There is no point in making communication mandatory. Ultimately it can become a matter of discrimination at the personality level.
Refusing introversion is like putting a big emphasis on communication, and none on the actual work.
tl;dr Extroverted leadership teams always seem to try and set goal's for introverts that aims to help get them "out of their shell" or fake being an extrovert. But you need to stop trying to get me to fake being an extrovert and leverage my actual skill's instead. "Traditional" Org's like that still have a really hard time leveraging introverted leaders effectively. Its super frustrating.
[0] https://medium.com/@pandemicsyn/on-care-feeding-of-your-intr...
I also was no wallflower, networking -- on my own initiative and maintenance -- with people throughout these large organizations spanning multiple countries.
In those same workplaces, I was met with a bureacratic, political, and not infrequently personal wall of rejection when I requested a quieter workplace.
I was raised to "pay my dues." My advice to the current generation: There's no such thing, particularly with respect to introversion and/or environmental differences. If they are not already respecting you, get out.
Take it from Mr. Burnout, here.
P.S. The current "introvert" business press is just the latest round of "mind the gap" cargo cult management. If organizations were really on board with understanding and practicing some of what's being written -- well, too late for me, but at least "hurrah" for future generations.
But... I severely doubt it. Same old bullies, new clothes. (And who is going to be the first to get those performance enhancing offices, do you thing?)
So, I repeat myself: If they are not already doing it, and you identify with the described population, GET OUT!
The issue could be boiled down to a lack of self confidence. There are lots of other things that were part of it, but mostly explained by self confidence.
I worked (and am still working) through this and I am tremendously better than I was. My coworkers argued that I wasn't introverted when I described myself as such once.
I say all this to make the point: the real issue is that some people are poor leaders and have poor social awareness. Leadership is less natural for introverts but the nature of leadership isn't any different for them because of that introversion.
Introverts need to be able to take charge of their own lives and their own success as a leader. Employers shouldn't need to provide quiet spaces for them. They should make their own quiet space. If you're unable to do that at your job for whatever reason (it's as simple as sitting in your car for a 15 minute break) then you need to move to a different environment if you have the expectation of being a successful leader.
Really, companies should be gaining understanding and helping all of their employees to do their best work regardless of which specific traits you're talking about.
Now, what we usually call "introverts" are people who can't express their thoughts well, who sometimes can't even pronounce words cleanly, loudly and with confidence when ideas are needed. They tend to be quiet at formal group settings and say nothing at all even though they might have already thought of something. That's really just a lack of ability (totally acquirable) instead of "personality trait" or whatsoever. The type of person I mentioned in the previous paragraph also don't necessarily enjoy talking all day long, but they make a hell of a talker when the time is right. So, differentiating people based on whether they "enjoy being together with others all the time" is just such a totally laughable and nonsensical concept. And to say people should "act like" an "extrovert" is just some other oversimplification BS. Act like a pro who can present ideas expertly, not a brat who only knows to party all day and crack irrelevant "jokes".
What those real "introverts" need is indeed some help in getting themselves at least able to express their thoughts with clarity and communicate with others in a group setting. However, to say that successful CEOs etc. are such "introverts" is really a gross mischaracterization and something totally missing the core of the issue.
I don't know what you usually call "introverts", but, no, that's not what either I call -- nor what anyone I've ever encountered seems to call -- "introverts". In fact, the people I've seen described as introverts are usually quite good at expressing their thoughts well. OTOH, they range from being emotionally drained by to being psychologically incapable of engaging in many of the extended low-information-content schmoozing activities that are common team-building, networking, or obligatory (by social expectation if not outright mandate) team/company social events.
Forgive me for being rude, but your response, even if meant to be tongue in cheek, comes off as petulant, a little arrogant, and not particularly well reasoned. Assuming you mean to say that you are not progressing in your career because you're an introvert, I would suggest maybe actually talk with your higher ups and figure out why you have not progressed.
Being introverted is not incompatible with leadership or with management or with any higher level position. An equally logical position on why an introvert hasn't advanced is because they don't fulfill the requirements of higher positions. There's nothing inate about being inroverted that makes you suddenly incapable of more responsibility. However, if what your employer is looking for is incongruent with what you're offering, that's not a failure of the employer to recognize your worth, it's an incongruency with your wants and their needs. This is true of any business for any person, regardless of personality.
That is, if advancement in a company means more managerial work or team management and so on, you need to demonstrate you can provide these services; these aren't matters you can just say "yes I do this", it has to be demonstrated. Lumping failure to advance under "it's because I'm introverted" without any other justification seems to be more of an excuse.
Actually in the IT world, it's better to switch jobs than wait (or ask) for promotion.
TL;DR: Be confident, know what you know, know what an employer needs, sell that.
You might be surprised at how little it can take to come across more positively to your managers.
I've worked with a lot of developers, and coached a few, and even most "problem developers" that gets written off as not management material rarely have any deep seated personality issues that cause them to be seen as flawed - more often it is a matter of how they let their personality manifest.
E.g. developers that come across as abrasive often just need to learn subtle changes in how to give feedback or criticism, but often think that they're being punished for the technical content or for "political reasons".
If you give some details about your "flaws" (in private if you like - my e-mail in my profile), I'd be happy to give you some suggestions you could try to see how people respond.
No matter how good a developer you are, you're still only one person.
> the logical conclusion is that i will have to become their competitor as soon as i can
If you think you can become a successful competitor to a large company with ONLY development skills and not any of the people skills that would have gotten you into a management position, you're in for a rude awakening.
To hear a lot of people tell it, the work of banking is largely in having and maintaining social relationships with your clients.
Sure, in fact my additional hope is that this being over-extroverted will have a negative impact on business.
> To hear a lot of people tell it, the work of banking is largely in having and maintaining social relationships with your clients.
Not only that, at least in IB case. It is also a lot about tech (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12443678&goto=news for example) and mathematical/statistical modelling.
It also means "San Francisco" if you're in San Francisco.
Also I'm not difficult to work with in a group, I simply prefer to work alone.
Introverts lose 'energy' in a group and gain it back when they are by themselves. Extroverts gain 'energy' in a group.
That says nothing about how well you do in a group. I know plenty of extroverts who have toxic personalities and kill productivity in groups.