# 75: Introverted Output
Story behind the Passage
I am running the risk of repeating myself by being a bit critical about the current status of social, political, and business affairs. Still, I have to talk about all this again. Someone today mentioned that he used to be a strong introvert when he was younger and then his job somewhat transformed him into a more outspoken person. He took on several leadership positions when he was quite young and learned how to communicate very successfully with people he was responsible for.
Of course, introversion and extraversion are all about communication — at least from the outside. You cannot look into the head of someone but you can observe how he/she interacts. Somebody speaks quietly and appears to be shy — and this makes others think that this person is introverted. People who know a lot about all this also know that introversion is much more than being quiet or shy. Above all, it means recharging your energy resources by pursuing activities alone instead of being surrounded by a huge crowd. But Cain’s title Quiet is certainly very useful for pinning introversion down to the most basic and visible characteristic.
I cannot remember in which context I bought the book. It was probably at a time when I thought a lot about personality types and my own inclination to be either an extrovert or introvert. Of course, there is no such thing as a 100% extrovert or the opposite. But there are definitely some criteria that differentiate one from the other; in spite of the fact that we all act differently in different social contexts. In the end, I cannot give a clear answer. What I can and want to speak about is not related to any personality types in particular. I do not even care that much about helping introverts get heard today, even though this is an issue. I simply want to talk about the bigger picture again.
My Learnings
“When collaboration kills creativity.” Today in times of co-working and co-living and whatever else — one hesitates to even bring up the issue that collaboration might in some way be destructive. And, as you know, in general I value and harness all kinds of networking activities and approaches because they do trigger important processes between human beings, above all communication, social bonding, and inspiration. But is all this the same as “creativity”?
We live in a world that tends to be very emotional when it comes to certain buzzwords. Disruption is one of them and agility is another. Whatever you can think of, you can add to the list. What I simply want to say is that whenever some terms are very much in fashion, people take them very seriously but they also tend to forget to take a second look. That is the case with creativity, I think. Creativity is such a powerful concept in my life, I can hardly appreciate it enough. But the thing is: creativity is NOT just sitting around chatting with each other and being so inspired and whatever. It means: CREATING SOMETHING — something tangible — real products and real art. Get that?
“The Rise of the New Groupthink and the Power of Working Alone.” The reason why I believe in the power of working alone is actually because of a very simple reason: Actual RESULTS are usually produced by one person only. Yes, many people participate in the process of getting there and nowadays even entire crowds of people are involved. But the problem is: the real creation of whatever needs to be done, is carried out by individuals. This even holds true for group publications, to take a simple example. Yes, there might be several names on the cover in the end. But the writing itself, the creation of the different text parts, is done by individuals who are punching letters into the computer.
When Cain talks about the “rise of the new groupthink,” she obviously hints at the fashionable aspect of the concept. Of course, currently, we live in an age in which technology allows us to connect in unprecedented ways with people around the globe. So, for sure, the concept of communities and collectives of any kind has been promoted by this. But it has also gotten so loud and powerful that we — at least many — tend to forget about the fact that things actually need to get done. And this is what makes me worry.
Yes, it is one thing to understand that the loud ones are not necessarily the smart ones. As Cain rightly mentions:
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
But it is another thing to understand that we might be on the way to forgetting about results altogether. Because of the groupthink and group-everything mentality, people grow up with the belief and even the personal conviction that spending your day talking about stuff — ‘brainstorming’ — is what WORK is all about. And, yes, I know about our value shift and the redefinition of work, the balance between life and work, the purpose-driven career choices of the generation Z, etc. Still, in the end, it comes down to the simple fact that some work will be left and it needs to be done by someone. And by work I mean: results, actual outcomes, things that people can see or even touch.
“Full well do I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person should do the thinking and commanding.” It is always a bit risky to quote Albert Einstein. People think of him as the genius in history and therefore an exception that can hardly be replicated under different historical and social circumstances. But that is exactly why it is important to learn from people like him, I think. One thing I at least know about Einstein is that he was a physicist. And the one thing I know about physicists is that they work in groups a lot. So, is this a contradiction to Einstein’s quote itself or to my general thesis?
No!
I think, it powerfully underlines Einstein’s point. Even though he might have worked in small teams a lot, as physicists still do nowadays, he knew about the power of individual intelligence and, even more importantly, individual “thinking and commanding.” As you can see in my words, I do believe in the thinking more than in the commanding. But that might be a mere vocabulary issue on my part. If I replace commanding with ‘leadership,’ I do agree on this part as well. Even in the era of collective decision making, we still end up with very few people carrying the burden of decision making. Think of Covid? Who makes the decisions on shutdown measures for 83 million inhabitants? Answer: 16 prime ministers of the federal states in Germany. Yes, we elected them, still…
Of course, when I say “burden,” you might interfere by arguing that this burden of commanding is self-created because people decide to take over leadership positions. And that exactly is my point. They decide to think for themselves and this thinking might lead to the fact that they are also considered capable of leading others. Usually, at least in the pre-groupwork world, this happened on the basis of some visible, i.e., actual, achievements that could be seen or even measured. Today, my question is: Where are these results that make people climb the ladder of organizations?
The example of Einstein as a scientist perfectly makes clear that results, “definite” goals, do not always have to be economic goods. Knowledge and scientific papers are also results; at least, if they have some problem-solving potential for society. But we need people to actually claim these. This is the only chance to not fall into the trap of ending up with loud people who have zero brain and skills to implement anything that is useful for society. I know, this sounds pessimistic but I am simply saying all this to encourage each and everyone individually:
What are you currently creating that can actually be used by someone?
Reflection Questions
1) Did you ever experience situations in which your own creativity was killed by group collaboration?
2) Which specific tasks do you prefer doing by yourself?
3) Do you think that our current age has people like Einstein? Where do you see them? Which things do they “create” that you consider important?