“That’s what work is: It is a vacillation between collaboration and solitary exploration.” – Seth Godin.
Whether you work at home occasionally or all the time your work involves some collaboration with others. Some people are challenged by solitary exploration. Some struggle with collaboration. Collaboration occurs during a formal meeting or an informal conversation. The format of meetings tends to favor extroverts, but introverts offer insights that will enrich the project and its process. The best ideas and outcomes arise when introverts and extroverts work together.
“If you take a group of people and put them into a meeting, the opinions of the loudest person, or the most charismatic person, or the most assertive person are the ones that the group tends to follow,” best-selling Quiet author Susan Cain says. But research shows that “there’s no correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
Collaboration is a challenge to the extrovert and the introvert. When successful the net result is a best outcome.
Artist Molly Crabapple filmed a delightful animated exploration of introversion and extroversion and how they played a role in the development of Apple. (Watch the wandering coffee cup.) The video is narrated by Cain. Scroll down to see the full video. (I only wish I could draw as well as Crabapple, if not as fast.)
If you are an introvert how do you share your insights with a group? If you are an extrovert how to you receive the contributions of the quieter members of a group? If you facilitate team or committee meetings how do you balance the input of both the introverts and extroverts?
Click here to see the benefits of the walking meeting.
Image by Molly Crabapple for RSA Shorts – Espresso for the Mind.
