If you have been reading my work for a while you likely know that I am an extrovert, married to an introvert, and am raising one of each. So, I spend a lot of time thinking about the innate preferences; their strengths, differences, and how to be more effective with the opposite style.
That brought me to the book, Quiet, by Susan Cane. She is teaching me about the natural gifts and strengths of both introverts and extroverts.
Introverts tend to know more about a subject than extroverts, because of the way they take in information.
When it comes to task orientation, extroverts are more productive because they’re focused on the goal and the outcome. Extroverts put 90% of their energy towards the accomplishment of a task. Whereas introverts put 75% of their energy into a task and 25% on monitoring how that task is going.
What I found the most fascinating in this lesson was how the two styles spend their thinking time. Susan Cane says introverts spend a lot of time on self-reflection, thinking, and imagining What IF. Whereas extroverts spend their time observing What IS.
What a fascinating contrast. It got me thinking about the benefits of each of these trains of thought. Whichever one you are, I think the benefit is in stretching ourselves to think about the other.
If you’re an introvert, make sure that you are stretching the way in which you think by spending time observing what IS.
If you’re an extrovert, try not to only focus on what is and what is next but slow yourself down enough to think about what is possible.
If we learn to listen to other voices and consider other ways of thinking and approaching a problem, we are far more likely to have robust, innovative, and lower risk solutions.
If you want to learn how to work with diverse styles, check out my program Collaborative Communications.
What can you learn from those who think differently than you?