Review of Susan Cain's book Quiet, with own additions such as my personal story and level of maturity around introversion and extroversion at work.
The weekly mood
Unexpectedly, I've been able to catch up with a couple of project tasks left behind during the past few weeks, and even found the time to look a bit outside the box. In his talk and articles called The Architect Elevator, Gregor Hohpe defines the Architect person as a special "Animal", and the Architect role as a "Connector". The latest is not a surprising term from one of the fathers of Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP). However, I find the first one intriging because it conveys that Architects belongs to a minority of people who might not allways be well accepted or understood.
Quiet counts 250 pages divided into 4 parts and 11 chapters.
- The extrovert ideal
- Your biology, your self?
- Do all cultures have an extrovert ideal?
- How to love, how to work
1st part of the book
According to the study of personality, introversion vs. extroversion is considered to be one of the most meaningful traits, even though it is normally distributed as part of the Big Five traits and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). First one became popular with Carl Jung's introspective and empiric approach to Psychoanalysis, following to Sigmund Freud's work at the beginning of the ninetieth century. Second one was introduced during the industrial mobilisation of the Second World War. It was based on the assumption that people experience the world using four dominant functions, resulting in one of sixteen distinct types of persons, or personality codes. According to tests, one third to one half of the people's code starts with a "I" (for Introvert) rather than to a "E" (for Extrovert). The fact that introverts are less outgoing is often seen as a deficit, while their ability to better listen and analyze is likely to be underestimated. The author also emits reserves about stereotypes, and breaks extrovertion myths around Leadership,
Collaboration and Creativity.
My remarks on 1st part
This made me curious about the required traits for my previous and actual occupations. In fact, MBTI codes are often labelled with typical roles for the sake of referencing. For example, Introversion-Intuition-Thinking-Perceiving (INTP) is commonly labelled as "Architect".
Yoda and Hermione Granger on MBTI Charts of Fictional Characters
Based on those labels, one could be tempted to reverse conclusions, but:
- Would I agree that any architect should use or develop the above skills? No exactly. Different roads actually lead to Rome.
- Would I agree to hire only those who "pass the test"? Definitely not. A road-sign indicating Athens doesn't mean that the reverse direction leads to Marathon.
This brings us to the danger of approaching a non-exact science in a deterministic way.
2nd part of the book
Moving forward, the author explains chemical reactions triggered by the neurological system in response of social exposure or decision making. Indeed, researches have shown that introverts are actually over-stimulated, therefore more likely to show defensive than offensive. Depending on their "internal program", some people typically consider the same situation as an opportunity whereas others see it as a treat. For example, joining a crowd might serve the need for afiliation versus the cause for agoraphobia. Trading might inhibit the rewarding system versus fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). At the end, the way we feel might influence much more than expected the way we act. Even more interestingly, the author shared compelling findings around the performance achieved by groups of similar versus mixed temperaments, based on various research experiments and reference working couples.
My remarks on 2nd part
When I started my career as a Consultant fifteen years ago, I was neither comfortable with introducing myself, nor expressing my opinions and ideas, nor pretending that I am willing to work together with strangers. It was the early days of Agile software development when the industry agreed that it was not any more ok to be a good developer. Instead, you had to be extremely integrated and collaborative to be performing. The term Scrum adopted by the popular methodology stands for Rugby players packing closely together, for most introverts a horror scene.
Source: Wikipedia Scrum (rugby)
3rd part of the book
The author conducts a short ex-course towards the Soft power demonstrated by the Asian-American culture, whereas its personality traits tend to be more introspective. The way Asian-Americans perform does not only question the validity of western standards, but also their quality. Various experiments have shown that extroverts might not better impress or negotiate depending on whom they have in front of them. And that introverts might actually have far more potential to impact the outcome, because they potentially value different criteria than a perfect pitch, like for example natural sympathy.
In general, I found it an important bridge for the book itself. However, I found that putting personality traits in relation with cultural backgrounds could become a sensible topic in regards to the problems of racism existing in ethnological and sociological sciences. See also: Psychological research has a racism problem, Stanford scholar says.
My remarks on 3rd part
Taking action became an urgency after 2 years, since I couldn't trust myself but didn't want to stay behind. I tried to avoid conflicts and disappointments, therefore to asset social pressure, analyse people's mind and even take actions against my actual will. I did have other choices but my assumption was that those could cause some troubles (think of traveling to a foreign country and keeping a low profile to not awake attention). At the end, handling unnaturally might contribute to a good cause that you are probably going to be proud of (think of tasting something delicious which your eyes actually disqualified), or to an unfortunate one which you will find difficult to take accountability for (think of taking a 2 hours flight for a 1 hours meeting which then turns into something that would have equally worked out online).
I trained effective Communication and Project management techniques. One simple and impactly attitude which I can definitively recommend is the Golden Circle from Simon Sinek (screenshot below). Now I could eventually talk for two hours long, thus at the cost of my full-day battery.
4th part of the book
The author finally takes distance with personality categorisation by revealing the Free trait agreement defined by Brian Little, according to which "each of us is in certain respect like all other people, like some other people and like no other person" [TED Talk: Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality.] In other terms, some people might stick to some fix personality traits, while others are likely to adapt to their environment, even if it is contradictory to their pre-dispositions. A skill called Self-monitoring. Moving-out of a character might actually happen once in a lifetime or on a daily basis. The motivation can be for example some pursuit of a personal goal (ex. "I'd like to learn to swim"), some acting under social influence (ex. "I should learn to swim") or some threat (ex. "I have to learn to swim"). In any case, conflicting forces will apply and burn a lot of energy. In order to not overheat and get irremediably exhausted, it is essential to find restorative niches in which this energy can refill.
My remarks on 4th part
This section is probably the one which readers most identify (and argue) with. Let me share my personal opinion of the free trait personality. Belonging to those who tend to push themselves outside their actual nature and comfort zone, I tested the limits of three variants including a true-self, a fake-self and a best-self. Here is how I see my own instances, their potential, dos and don'ts.
- My true-self is a hard-working introvert who is curios to learn, passionated about all things analysis from people to system, perspiring at problem-solving. This is the young professional mentioned further above, who wasn't able to give a word of himself. This is also the one who enjoys exploring from his own mast, who only feels truly accepted and recognized by a few friends and relatives. Unfortunately, achieving a Person-environment fit (PE-fit) that is oriented after my true-self only is unrealistic. It would involve too much abstinence and responsibility which I am personally not able of. But I can try to visualise it just in case it helps finding my home (ex. another planet) and restorative niches (ex. mountains).
- My fake-self is the exact opposite of my true-self. The person that I used to think that I should be, in order to be better accepted and recognized. The one who took over tasks and responsibilities such as singing on stage for a music band, giving a public talk on randomly affected topics, pitching product offerings or negotiating service engagements without any talent or aspiration for Marketing and Sales, although a little voice coming form deep inside kept saying that it was a shame. The one who happened to fall into the clutches of the Self-help industry with its Body language, Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) and Personal branding. The one who who got lost in groundlessness and disappointment.
- My best-self is the one who consciously gives and takes, without hiding or modifying nature. The proud father of a six years old son. The introvert architect. The animal and connector introduced at the beginning of this article. I don't exclude ever giving a talk again in case I have the opportunity to engage my audience on a topic that really matters to me. By the way, I sometimes notice how much nervous some TED speakers are, although they obviously prepared up to the smallest detail. I really appreciate to see the human behind the facade and the importance she or he assigns to the cause. No matter wether the introvert achieves confidence or the extrovert humbleness, she/he just gains my attention, respect and empathy.
Take-away
The book is a masterpiece in Psychology. It concentrates much research and reflection around a topic which not only concerns introverts living in a world of extroverts, but also extroverts looking forward to better understand or come along with introverts. For example, the author develops concrete ways for adults to support introspective children in their socialization, education and unfolding.
Obviously I opened the book by knowing that I will find something inside. And I did. I wish I would have put my hands on it and opened my eyes that way ten years ago, before I had to go through a process which lasts for years and that I'm allowing myself to call a "distroversion", or all the efforts people might undertake to figure-out who they are, their potential and limits. Especially in challenging environments such as their workplace.
Last but not least, I probably didn't emphasise as much as the book on the legitimate existence of introversion and extroversion, as well as on the associated grey-zone aka. ambiversion. I am happy to conclude that an introvert architect is is less of a system bug and more of a natural feature. By chance my company values diversity and recognizes individual gifts.
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