Quiet road to success
Colm Carey on a book which claims low profile executives can be achievers

If you are involved with any large corporate whether as an employee or a supplier, you will agree that a lot of executive time is spent in meetings. Many of these meetings concern internal matters that have little value and add nothing to the bottom line. It is estimated that once a business reaches a certain size it spends significantly more time on internal matters than on issues that impact on customer satisfaction and market development. The internal workings of the machine (the means) come to matter more than the reason why the business was set up in the first place (the end).
The almost inevitable outcome of this behaviour is market share decline as customers are ignored or dealt with in ways that suit the needs of the organisation rather than the needs of the customer. Meetings convened to deal with customer related issues often lose out to internal meetings as people are forced to focus on what is urgent to the detriment of what is important. If many meetings are a waste of time, what about the much coveted brainstorming sessions beloved of marketing people and consultants? The theory goes that if you get a group of people into a room with a facilitator and a brainstorming methodology you will come out with one or more ideas that when implemented will boost your organisation’s fortunes. If this brings to your mind the one about monkeys with typewriters eventually coming up with the complete works of William Shakespeare, you are in agreement with some research into the relative effectiveness of groups versus individuals in creating breakthrough ideas. In a recent book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, author Susan Cain makes the case for individual reflection as a source of innovation.
Cain says introverts often come up with great ideas without the need for brainstorming or group consultations. She instances people like Bill Gates and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, both essentially introverts, who came up with ideas that contributed significantly to shaping the world we live in today.
Despite the achievements of introverts, our culture tends to show greater admiration for extroverts whom Cain calls the “alpha beings who prefer risk taking to heed taking and action over contemplation.” Talkative people tend to be rated smarter, more attractive, more interesting and more desirable as friends and colleagues.
You can see this in action in focus groups where people often pay greater attention to what more talkative participants say than to the thoughts uttered by the quieter individuals. But as an experienced moderator will tell you, when the talkers have talked themselves out, the valuable insights often come from introverts. If you hassle the introverts in an attempt to get them to perform like extroverts they clam up altogether, or conform by expressing agreement with their more vocal group mates

A COGITATION OF INTROVERTS

The list of talented introverts quoted by Cain is long and impressive. It includes Newton, Einstein, Chopin, Van Gogh, Proust, Orwell, Warren Buffet, Ghandi and Google co-founder Larry Page. Cain says “neither E=mc