Book title: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Author: Susan Cain
Background information: Cain is an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School. Her book, Quiet, was a New York Times bestseller and has spawned numerous other projects on introversion including her Quiet Revolution company and highly praised TED talks.
Brief description: (from the back cover)
At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.
In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.
Page length: 368
Why managers should read this book: Whether or not you already realize it, Susan Cain makes a compelling argument in her book that we live in a society more suited for extroversion. While the book delves into both personality traits, its focus is mainly on introverts. There are two reasons managers should read Quiet. First, reading it can help managers grasp the idea that not all employees think or act the same way, and to get the best results, they cannot all be managed identically. Second, this book would especially be helpful for those managers who are introverts themselves, because it also gives relatable examples and advice for real-life introverts in the workforce.
Best chapters to read:
- Chapter 1 – The Rise of the “Mighty Likeable Fellow”: How Extroversion Became the Cultural Ideal
- Chapter 2 – The Myth of Charismatic Leadership: The Culture of Personality, A Hundred Years Later
- Chapter 3 – When Collaboration Kills Creativity: The Rise of the New Groupthink and the Power of Working Alone
- Chapter 9 – When Should You Act More Extroverted Than You Really Are?
- Chapter 10 – The Communication Gap: How to Talk to Members of the Opposite Type
Key takeaway quotes:
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
“Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured.”
“The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers — of persistence, concentration, and insight — to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.”
“Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”
“Whoever you are, bear in mind that appearance is not reality. Some people act like extroverts, but the effort costs them energy, authenticity, and even physical health. Others seem aloof or self-contained, but their inner landscapes are rich and full of drama. So the next time you see a person with a composed face and a soft voice, remember that inside her mind she might be solving an equation, composing a sonnet, designing a hat. She might, that is, be deploying the powers of quiet.”
“We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”
Further reading:
- Susan Cain also has a website called Quiet Revolution where there are numerous articles that expand on some of the ideas presented in her book.
- There are countless studies and various other sources listed at the back of Quiet for reference. One particularly interesting study mentioned on pages 56-57 is “Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Productivity” from Adam Grant, Francesca Gino, and David Hofmann, found that a leader’s group tended to be more productive if the members had the opposite personality type of the leader.
Madison Hays 