Introversion and Solitude Increase Productivity 214
bonch writes "Author Susan Cain argues that modern society's focus on charisma and group brainstorming has harmed creativity and productivity by removing the quiet, creative process. 'Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They're extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They're not joiners by nature.'"
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Balance. (Score:5, Insightful)
There has to be a balance between one's teamwork and individual creativity.
On the one hand, you can have prima donnas running the whole show, doing really great things that have absolutely nothing to do with actually getting a product out the door.
On the other hand, you can take extreme programming to the extreme, piss of your rock stars, and wind up with them quitting, and get trainwreck product.
Bottom line is that any team management approach needs to be able to milk everyone for the best they've got without stiffing creativity, or putting the wrong people at the helm for the sake alone of giving them a chance to drive.
Just some random thoughts as I sit alone blasting out my Saturday code...
"Work well with others" is the lie of the century (Score:5, Insightful)
Job offers invariably require applicants to "work well with others" and "enjoy team work". I don't like team work, and I work well with others if I have to, but it's not natural to me.
Well guess what: at each and every job interview I've been to, I lied and pretended I enjoyed working with others, when in reality I like being left the fuck alone to do a good job. Same thing on my resume: if you believe what I put in it, you'd think I'm a social monster. All the folks I know who are a bit of an introvert like I am similariy bullshit their way through job interviews.
Everybody knows it, head hunters know it, employers know it, so why do they carry on asking those "skills"?
Depends on the work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for collaborative group processes, this is ok as long as your in the right environment. I've set around a table with some Software Engineers and thrown around design concepts. People will listen new ideas are created logical arguments are made and something great will come out the other end. Unfortunately most people in the industry seem to be Software Developers they argue for what they know don't really care about design or documentation and in those environments it's much better to have a dictator who listens to arguments and hands out dictates. Basically I think collaboration should be used when appropriate.
I'm a big fan of scrums they bring a team together help everyone understand what every else is doing. I just like quiet and being able to work for 2 - 3 hours without interruption.
It's hard to get a word in edgewise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Balance. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's why there isn't a cookie cutter approach, and why good managers are needed - and often hard to find.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet my new job requires me to commute and be an Office Space drone. Why?
Manager Insecurity.
Re:"Work well with others" is the lie of the centu (Score:4, Insightful)
You forget another, more glamorous possibility: I would very much enjoy putting "capable of concentrating long and hard on any problem, able to work on my own at a problem until it's fully and properly solved" in my resume. In this day and age, where most people seem to glorify short attention spans and teamwork (which is usually just a way dividing the individual brainpower required to perform a certain task, and diluting responsibility when things go wrong), this would seem like a worthwhile skill to offer to an employer.
But no, if you don't pretend you like teamwork and you work well with others in your resume, you can be sure it'll be chucked out in the trashcan right off the bat. It's almost automatic, so much so that it's almost impossible to find a resume *without* that line.
1/3 height cubes do not boost productivity. (Score:4, Insightful)
My job about a year ago switched from full height cubes to 1/3rd height cubes where even when sitting you can see everybody and everything. The thought was that it would increase group thinking and productivity as you would be able to communicate with more people in a "group" setting while still being at your own work station.
In reality noise went up greatly, productivity went down greatly and communication consist of mindless jabber and gossip. It's fun for about half an hour until you realise that you have deadlines and metrics to meet. No I need to put on a good pair of isolating headphone just to get the same amount of productivity as I was able to before with "trips to others cubes"
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Work well with others" is the lie of the centu (Score:5, Insightful)
Because as Marti Olsen [amazon.com] points out, the majority of people are extroverts, and assume anyone who is not like them is defective. So extroverts love brainstorming, group think and other social work environments, so they think everyone should enjoy it and demand it in others.
The right answer is, as other people have said on this thread, balance. Sometimes we should work together, but also sometimes we should leave each other the f--- alone.
But because extroverts tend to be disconnected from facts and experience, they instead remember when they were happiest which was brainstorming sessions or other team activities. Thus they demand it.
To be fair, that's only about 30% of the hiring managers out there. The other 70% actually want people with political skills. The ability to negotiate with people they disagree with, to get people to go along with an idea, to contribute to the group when required instead of being a lone wolf causing problems or sniping. Introverts make excellent politicians in this regard--usually the Karl Rove backroom operator or chief-of-staff. But it's somehow off-putting to state: "Don't be an obstinate asshole who has to get his way and bullies others to achieve his goals -- yes, that means not you, John Bolton [wikipedia.org]." on the job posting.
So just look at "work well with others" and "enjoy team work" to mean you're not a douchebag or a dickhead. It doesn't necessarily mean you are a people person.
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
When dealing with people, you feel a need to understand how they think, and you basically change how you think for a little time, doing that hundreds of times for every person that walks into your office can get tiring. Think of how brothers or twins or some very close friends that spend a lot of time in each other's company think very much alike, they might not find each other's company tiring.
Re:"Work well with others" is the lie of the centu (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Everybody knows it, head hunters know it, employers know it, so why do they carry on asking those "skills"?
It's a submission ritual. By asking you a silly question and evaluating your answer, they judge how much you are willing to play by the rules, no matter how ridiculous.
Re:Balance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you just committed the ultimate faux pas of the go-go team getters. You must always work as a team, and if you don't, you're not a team player. And as such, you should go find another job.
Really though, most people with a couple of firing braincells already knew that some people are better specialized to working in groups, and others to solitary tasks. The brain specializes itself to it's situation and needs. Leave it to the idiots of psych to think that if you jam people into a group, that it will always result in the best actions and solutions.
Good old Einstein... (Score:5, Insightful)
claimed that he liked working at the patent office as the quiet allowed him to think.
Think of management! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:2, Insightful)
Software Engineers are Software Developers. Don't make such a useless, artificial, "Us vs Them" distinction. If you don't give a damn about the architecture, you're not a very good Software Developer. If you don't have any input into the architecture, and just take orders, then you're a programmer and not a developer.
Re:Not sure about this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
I stay late because everyone else has already decided to show up early. Morning people think they're "getting more done", but really, they're just annoying the rest of us. :)
Re:You need to cultivate body odour (Score:4, Insightful)
My booger sculpture garden works well.
Re:"Work well with others" is the lie of the centu (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah - this is not balance.
But hey - I'm sure you'll do great hiring all the extroverted, group thinking types who copied each other's homework for your development team.
You know, the ones who were swapping media with the coding assignments on it 15 minutes before class instead of paying the dues of the late night hack sessions while in college.
I can already smell the stench of buggy, unmaintainable, inefficient, undocumented, crash prone expensive code from here.
But hey - at least you're creating jobs for us elitists. Because eventually, with an attitude like that, you're going to wind up on your knees, begging us to take your money and insane signing bonus to fix the mess you're going to create.
Re:Introvert (Score:5, Insightful)
I would instead say that an introvert defines himself through what he does. An extrovert defines himself through what other people think of what he does. An introvert thus always wants to do the right (as in, rationally correct) thing, because competence increases his self worth. An extrovert does not want to be competent; he merely wants to be thought competent. The easiest way to achieve that is to find some introvert underlings to do the actual work for which he can then take credit, and increase his self worth. Because having people do as they are told makes this easier, he tends to like conformity and obedience. Conversely, he assumes that being conformant and obedient makes others like him, because such behaviour improves their self worth.
When socializing in a group, extroverts brag to each other about their accomplishments in order to "purchase" the group's higher opinion, and through it a higher self worth. Listening is a valued skill because those who listen politely, increase the braggart's self value.
When socializing in a group of introverts, introverts exchange information that helps them become more competent. Intelligence is a valued attribute because it helps others raise their own competence, increasing the listener's self value.
When an introvert is in a group of extroverts, he tries to "help" them by giving out useful information. They don't understand why he does that, since useful information does not increase their self worth. Only positive opinions do that, and the introvert can't offer those because he values real competence, which they don't have. So, after a few minutes of unsucessfully trying to get some mutual back-patting going on, the extroverts move on, making a note never to promote this ungrateful SOB.
Extroverts try to "help" the introvert by telling him how smart he is, which frustrates him because he does not understand why they consider this information valuable enough to communicate. After a few hours of trying to find something valuable in the extroverts' small talk, he is stressed out from the intense concentration because he thinks he's not competent enough to find it, which then decreases his self worth. At that point the poor guy has to relax for a while or go insane.
For this reason, socialization can only work on homogenous groups, and hiring an introvert into an extrovert environment really messes things up for everybody.
Re:Balance. (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how team oriented the environments I've worked with have been, no matter how much everyone was encouraged to share design and algorithm ideas at design meetings, one thing has always been true:
I wrote the code sitting at my desk, alone, either with or without the headphones blaring.
I know some have tried to do team coding, but I've never seen it in action, and the idea of someone snatching the keyboard to code a few lines would really piss me off.