Introversion

How to deal with introverts
And how to deal with yourself if you are an introvert
And how to deal with extroverts

## Outline

What is introversion? Extroversion?
Stories
A word about hiring and onboarding?
Statistics about introversion

- Answer "What is introversion?"
- Develop an understanding of why people act as they do.
- Learn ways to cope with your own introversion.
- Identify the challenges inherent in working with introverts.
- Explore practical ways to effectively deal with introverts.

## Abstract

Business requires people working together, and that often brings people of
different personality types and temperaments together in the hope that
something worthwhile will come of the interactions that will take place.
Challenges can arise when *any* two people try to communicate, but it can be
especially tricky when at least one of those is an introvert.

This talk will provide insights into how to deal with introverts, whether they
be your peers, the people you manage, or your boss. You may also learn how to
deal with yourself if you are an introvert.

## Notes

Communication is hard (at best) when you don't take your receiver into
account. Example: Picard tries to communicate with the "darmok" alien. Even
though the universal translator was making it so that all the words were
individually understood, communication still wasn't happening. There is more
to language than mere words. Likewise, there is much more to effective
communication than language. A mutual understanding at some level is necessary
to make communication work, and better understanding is required for better
communication. Consider how network protocols are used to specify exactly how
two machines or programs can communicate.

Speaking of Picard, what a great example of an effective introvert. See clip
of Picard trying to relax on shore leave but women are talking with him
because Riker gave him a trinket that is culturally significant.

Separate the condition from the apparent or supposed results.
- It's not aspergers or autism.
- Rage quitting and abusive nerds online.
- Social awkwardness.
- Depression, [social] anxiety, stress, shyness, energy level, self esteem.
- Aloofness, selfishness, stuck up, self-absorbed.

Stress is caused by inconsistency between a person's belief and their actions.
It is also the gap between what a person wants to do or feels like he or she
needs to do and what that person is actually doing or able to do.

Human personality spans many spectrums. It isn't black and white. You're not
either an introvert or an extrovert; you exist somewhere in between.

It's good to try to be more well-rounded. Try to put yourself out there, but
understand your effective limitations. Building meaningful relationships is
cool.

Introverts need extroverts and visa versa. We compliment each other. A world
without extroverts would be quite dull.

Introverts don't need to be coddled. Certain individuals (introvert or
extrovert) may feel they need that, but introverts don't inherently need that.
In fact that may be very anti-productive. Because of the energy requirements
of introverts, they do need special consideration, that's true. But not
coddling.

One of the most cringe-worthy concepts for an introvert is breaking out of
one's "comfort zone." This phrase is bandied out constantly, but little time
is spent considering whether or not doing so has real benefits that the person
should care about. It may be beneficial, but we all seem to have this
assumption that we all should be breaking out of our comfort zones, but should
we really all be striving to do that? Yes and no.

### Deadlines

Don't rush introverts. When you ask them a question that they don't
immediately know the answer to, you may get a blank expression that may make
you think that there is no thinking going on there, but they are thinking.
Just be a little patient and you'll get a response eventually. If you're an
introvert put on the spot, try to make some sort of indication that you are
thinking and will respond. "Give me a second to think about that..."

Introverts are very capable of leadership and making decisions, but some will
find it more difficult to commit to a decision in cases where facts are not
available. They are data driven (is this true?) that may have more to do with
right brain lift brain differences. Introverts can be very creative. Although
an introvert may effectively fill my roll, some things may simply be done
better by an extrovert.

Introverts can handle complexity, but they do better when they can focus on
one or two areas. More than this, and there is risk that the introvert will
become overwhelmed and then be less effective.

### Communication

Even though an introvert may be bad at face-to-face communication, they may do
just fine at other types of communication. Email, intranet chat, things like
that are much less stimulating and give introverts plenty of time to gather
their thoughts and formulate proper responses.

Introverts can be so good at those types of communication, you may not even
realize they're introverted. (Until you meet them face to face. Then it may
become painfully obvious. It's like: you were so articulate and well-spoken in
your email, and here you can barely string two sentences together!)

### Meetings

In a meeting or other social setting, it's not unlikely to find the introverts
there may seem to not be participating. What may be happening is that they may
be having deeper thoughts than the extroverts. This does take time, though, so
they're probably lagging behind in the conversation, and by the time they have
something really interesting to say, they may find the conversation topic has
moved on, so they may not ever share their thought. Encourage people like that
to perhaps take notes and then to submit additional ideas via email or
something after the meeting.

Introverts don't like to interrupt people, and sometimes extroverts engaging
with each other fail to leave gaps in the conversation in which introverts
feel like they can interject. Again, not all introverts have this issue, and
some that do have it have trained themselves to interact more like extroverts
in social settings.

Introverts don't feel the need to say something unless it's important AND
isn't already being said, so if extroverts happen to be covering all the
important points in the conversation well enough, introverts may be content to
sit back and let the extrovert say everything. While some introverts may even
be fine with extroverts getting all the credit, you should be aware that many
those ideas may have come from the introvert.

Try not to put introverts "on the spot". You'll likely get a blank expression
in return. Seed the discussion beforehand. Send out a list or summary of
things to think about before a planned meeting and make sure they know what
will be expected of them.

### Atmosphere, office stressors

Stimulation (note steril slides).

Some introverts may be prone to not remembering "trivial" details... such as
people's names. If you struggle with this, work on it. Sometimes you see
somebody but you just don't care enough to actually see them. Start to care.

## About Me

Most of what I know about how to deal with introverts I learned from how my
boss and coworkers deal with me.

I wouldn't say that my story is unique at all.

I am not in HR. I'm actually a software developer. I learned of and then
became interested in understanding introversion when I was at a point in my
life where I was trying to understand myself. When I was growing up, I was
often frustrated that I wasn't more like my extrovert peers. I enjoyed and had
fun with my friends -- fortunately for me, my friends enjoyed many introverted
activities -- but I also enjoyed (read: needed) down time, and I was ashamed
of that difference. That was at least one part of my personality that
I identified as an undesirable trait.

Unfortunately, I often made the mistake of caring what my peers thought of me,
because all kids do care about that, and that had some effect on my self
esteem. It was worse than that, though: I made the far-more foolish mistake of
believing in and caring what I *thought* my peers thought of me.

My life experience made me uncomfortable being me, which is awful because I wasn't
about to be anyone else. After I realized how silly I was being by putting so
much weight behind what others may have thought about me, my discomfort left
and I was able to be happy again.

I think this experience, to varying degrees, is shared by many people of
a variety of personality types. If you can relate to the experience I shared
and are still clinging to the false idea that your self-worth should be
unhealthily tightly coupled with what others think of you (or what you imagine
others think about you), please let go of that notion! This is the most
important thing you could take away from this presentation.

But don't mistake me: I'm not saying that you should have no care at all for
what other people think of you. That would also be a sad and unfortunate way
to live. As with most things, you need a balance. Caring how others regard you
will help you accept criticism when it is founded, and the balanced
perspective will help you reject baseless criticism.

For all the introspecting that introverts are supposed to be doing, they can
be really bad at viewing themselves accurately. Poor self-esteem affects
introverts and extroverts alike. It's often caused by bad assumptions going
in, so even introverts can't come to more enlightened conclusions by
themselves. Thoughts like "I am not a good person" attach themselves deeply
within the mind, and once they grab hold they're hard to shake.

So, bottom line: if you are not comfortable in your own skin, make a change.
Get a new perspective. If you are introverted, there are simple things that
you can do to "manage" your introversion.
- First, learn and understand how you function.
- Stay on top of your schedule so you don't run out of energy. If you know you
  will be around people, compensate be carving out time in your schedule to
  rest up.
- Know your limits, and don't feel bad by saying "no" to some social events.

## Quotes

"What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be."
-- Ellen Burstyn

Unlike extroverts, who were their personalities on their sleeves, introverts
often keep their best to themselves. With extroverts you see what you get.
With introverts, what you see is only a portion of their personality. The
richest and most trusted parts of an introvert's personality are not
necessarily shared with the outside world. It takes time, trust, and special
circumstances for them to begin to open up.
-- Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen from "Type Talk at Work"


Disclaimer: I like introverts and extroverts equally. Seriously. Now, I'm
going to be talking introverts up a little bit during this presentation, and
in case I don't give equal time to both type's good and bad qualities, I just
want it to be clear that they're both great. Both types have different
strengths and different weaknesses, but they actually complete each other, as
corny as that sounds. The world is a better place because of both introverts
and extroverts.