Introvert vs Extrovert – The 2nd part to my interview with James Powys. What are the strengths of an introvert vs an extrovert? is one better than the other? let’s find out…
Episode 8 Transcript
Martin Rodgers:
I recently saw your LinkedIn profile. You’ve done a brilliant series talking all about introverts and I think , introverted people are often not talked about.Or the strengths of introverted people are not talked about. In fact introverted quite the opposite, they’re not often not talked about. In fact, quite the opposite. You know, the extroverts are the people that make great sales people, make great leaders because they’re bold and they’re energetic and they’re passionate. A few years back now book by Daniel pink called to sell, is human. And in that book very much talks about how buyers behaviour changed and actually starts to make the case for he calls ambiverts, which is these people in the middle. I’d potentially position myself as an ambivert and maybe I’m more over to the introverted state. And, um, with that, I’d be very interested in you sharing directly with the people. Um, what you tips are all about. And, and what can people learn from that is one is an introvert good and extrovert bad, what’s the benefits of them ?
James Powys:
yeah, brilliant. Thank you for, for, for mentioning that. So, yes, I think the first thing is it’s a, it’s a continuum, if you like, our level of sort of extroverted, introverted energy.No one actually likes to put into a box or very few people like to be put into a box and therefore it’s by understanding a natural attitude or, our level of introversion, extroversion can, can help us understand how we think, how we communicate, how we make decisions and how others experiences us, so it can be really helpful to, to get a feel for, um, how introverted versus extroverted am I And I think you’re right and you know, and, and I can, you know, and, and what I’ll do here is I’ll poke a bit fun at extroverts and I can, because as an extrovert, I may be able to do that.
James Powys:
So I’m, I’m not sort of a singling people out, but you right it. You know, extroverts, Um, um, well actually why, why did I choose to do this first of all So with my business coaching hat on, what I did is I, I, outside of the corporate world, what I experienced was a lot of SME owners or micro owners and micro businesses. Um, we’re more towards the introverted side of the scale of. Yeah. And I found that, I find it fascinating and, and, and a number of them suffered with a limiting belief that actually, um, could they be successful as an introverted business owner. Um, and, and, and that added to, um, when I was in the corporate world, a view that more, people with more introverted energy felt that they couldn’t be successful in that culture or in that business because it wasn’t in wasn’t valued in the same way as more extroverted to people.
James Powys:
So it became a real, um, interesting topic for me to, to play with. And again, it plays into the, the insights discovery tool that I use to, to, to help people, um, understand more about themselves and others. So, yes. So the, the extroverts. Yeah. So you know as extroverts we’re not shy about talking into how great we are and telling anyone who will listen. Um, you know, you’ll, you’ll hear our opinions, um, you know, will make, will potentially be quite bold, uh, will sometimes take a level of risk. Um, and so therefore I thought I don’t need to talk into to extroverts, because they, they, they probably do it, are doing a good enough job in themselves of, of sharing all of strengths and probably over inflating and exaggerating their qualities and strengths. So I thought actually let’s talk into people who, um, may gain a level of self assurance or confidence through getting great clarity on what it is that, that they might bring to the party.
Because actually, again, until you do something like, personality profiling or indeed seek or receive a good level of feedback, we can very, very much just take for granted the qualities that we have and think or assume everybody has them and therefore we add no value to them or we, we, yeah, we assume no value to them. So, the first thing, um, I would say and your happy for me to bring out some of those. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So the first one I would say is, is, uh, whereas an extrovert will make, um, decisions or judgements based on emotion or gut instinct. What you’ll often find is people in more integrative energy will be more, um, with more logic and objectivity. So the benefits of that are they will make the right choices rather than the choices that feel right to them.
Yeah. So what I mean by that, so if we were in a business, and unfortunately we had to look at redundancy, um, I would expect someone with a higher level of, of, um, of introverted energy to maybe take a bit more objectivity and look at it as a level playing field as opposed to someone with more extroverted energy may potentially, um, use a make a emotional decisions, um, that are less, if you like, fair and equitable.
Martin Rodgers:
Okay. So from that, what I’m hearing is the introvert may take longer to make the decision, but that decision will be more objective and the extrovert, um, we’ll be quick to make decision. However, it might be more subjective to their personal opinion as opposed to database, which is the two like depending on which perspective you’re looking at. That can be a good or bad thing depending on the context of the times. But that is the kind of the way to look at the strength from each perspective. Absolutely, absolutely.
James Powys:
Equally, um, yeah, connected to that. And then, um, your extroverts, people with high extroverted energy are likely to have forward momentum. So prep, looking at progress and, and, and, and making forward momentum maybe at pace and we’ll try and we’ll try new things. People with more introverted energy, um, will have a little bit more patience and potentially a little bit more consistency in focus. So what does that mean then in terms of then the benefits for someone with more introverted energy means that they are more likely to, um, continue to see through the initial challenge or initiative that was set. They would likely less likely to get distracted by something that’s shiny new, um, and stay true to what it is. They’re also, uh, more likely potentially to be realistic about how much they can take on. So they may protect the two or three things that are really important, whereas potentially someone with higher extroverted energy might, um, say yes in, in haste and look back, um, look back with regret in terms of how many things they’ve agreed to do or, or perhaps taken on. And um, it may be that someone with higher level of introverted energy will see something through and are less likely to quit or give up. Um, especially if it’s something that’s, um, that’s kind of something they might not be enjoying doing.
Martin Rodgers:
Okay. So introvert stick at it for the long term. Um, extroverts may get distracted by new shiny objects. Um, and one of the things I love, and I try more and more to adaptive because I’m a big believer of yes, absolutely. There’s a lot of labeling, pigeonholing, generalizing in terms of all the various models that around that uh, I hope people listening and watching and picked up; James uses very specific language. When you’re talking about these people, you talk about people who have a higher introverted energy, not a introverted person. Um, it’s a way of being, is not who they are. Absolute. Does that mean that you could be, you can change on that scale or do you have a more predominant energy genuinely throughout your life
James Powys:
Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s a good question. So I think all of the, all of the personality profiling tools are based on, um, um, jungian psychology from the early twenties, early 20th century. Um, and insights discovery. The one I use talks into two, um, two personas if you like. Um, one is our conscious persona, which is our adapted or learned behavior. And the other is our more or less conscious, which is our, if you like is natural or our start point and it defines the two and you can see the difference because yes, absolutely. You, you can adapt, you can find strategies. Um, that allow you if you want to or it’s required of you to be more introverted or, or more, more, more extroverted. We can hold things in or we can try harder to find ways of, of, of, of, of external externalizing things. So yes, you know that with we’re still likely to have a preference, um, and hold that preference. But what we’ll do is we’ll become more comfortable adapting and find strategies to adapt to learn as we, as we become more experienced.
Martin Rodgers:
Okay. So if I’m a business owner and I know I have a naturally; a general preference, let’s say to a higher introverted energy. However, I know that, um, there’s a new product you service I could launch and money loves speed and if I’m the first one to market, et cetera, so I need to increase my extroverted energy actually. What you’ve just, yeah, potentially to move faster I gas but I still need to balance out the risks you mentioned earlier, but I can be a bit like a stretch Armstrong in essence, I can stretch myself out from my general preference into another preference to help launch that might be all be more successful like that. And from what you mentioned earlier, just in the reverse, if I need to assess, I might want to assess that deal a little bit more and go, should I be launching this product now I can go back to my potential more natural introverted. Um, rather than, I think some people may have been led to believe that if they’ve had a personality profile done in the past around if it says, well, you’re naturally an introverted person. You know, I can’t move at speed. I know I can’t do this quick and I can’t go and talk to those people cause I’m an introverted person. Actually. I have got the flexibility to move and bend as it requires me to.
James Powys:
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, they’re in insights users to two dimensions based on introversion, extroversion. And then the second is, um, our decision making preferences. Do we make logical decisions or an and act on, um, more, more logical, do we work more on more gut feel instinct and feeling and, and basically, um, there’s two things you can do once you have a level of self awareness around, you know, how do I, what is my relationship with risk How do I make decisions How do I do I communicate What am I, um, tendencies and traps. Then you can do one of two things really. One is you can make sure that you have people around you who have different strengths, qualities, preferences, so they can play devil’s advocate and you can get a more rounded perspective. Or indeed, insights uses four different color energies, balance of introverted, extroverted people and task.
James Powys:
Um, and what can be really helpful is to, um, almost spend, you know, a period of time consciously as you’re exploring this, looking at it, trying to look at it through the perspective of the lens of each of those, each of those four, four perspectives, right Saying, you know, what, what is my natural preference But what would, if I had a bias for another preference, what would they be thinking What would they do What questions would they ask What would they do differently How would they look at this in a different perspective from me So you can always self self coach you and, and work through through from different perspectives.
Martin Rodgers:
So once I’ve had an insights profile and I understand what my natural kind of preferences are and then I’ve got two kinds of choices. I can either put my mindset in a, what if I was in this quadrant and this color at this time How would I make a decision h ow would I look at it from that point All potentially wants to have some good insights, um, and feedback on who I am as a person. I can then understand that there’ll be about who people are around me and I can probably go, actually I need a more naturally extroverted type person or a different color type person. You know, the blue, the green, the yellow and the red and ask for their opinion. So I either try and to put myself in a different position or try and find people that are naturally in that position.
James Powys:
And I would say it’s an and rather than an or . So I think what I’ve,
I’ve learned is, um, that there is a law of diminishing returns on trying to do the things that we’re not naturally built too. So it’s a no, no, none of us, um, have everything that’s required to be, to be successful in we have things in diff, different levels and diff, diff, different measures. Therefore it’s, it’s, it’s, you should always have second opinions and other perspectives around you to give, to play devil’s advocate, to wrestle and challenge, um, and also give confidence to, to what you’re doing. But also, um, I liken the natural qualities of strengths that we might have as individuals, as muscles in your body. And, and my view is, you know, if we are very pronounced and have strengths in one area, um, it might be harder for us to, to, to flex. Um, those other strengths or energies, but I like it into a, you know, a bodybuilder that has, you know, huge torso and chicken legs that, you know, they, they, they want big and strong legs. They can, but they, they might need to find a time and put the energy and effort into, into working those muscles. So, uh, introverted, extroverted people task, however you look at it. Um, I know that with focus and effort, um, I can be okay or good in areas that aren’t my natural strengths. Um, so rather than a assume that I can’t be, I need to try to round to try to round myself off as best I can, but equally, um, getting the perspectives of others.
Martin Rodgers:
Okay. So that you have the most rounded different view of the situation as possible and, and you’re able to make better decisions and commit to actions in a better way. You very much reminded me, cause you could pretend to trick yourself into thinking that you looking at it from that perspective, but you still looking at it from your natural perspective. One, thought that came to mind there was. Remembering to try and play chess by myself. You know, people often do and they do, they play back and then they turn the ball around and play white. And I always thought you know, I’ll try and play an equal player on both sides, but I wasn’t when I turned the board around like I know what move that person is going to make next. So I am going to make this move to kind of allow myself to win from that side, which potentially could happen. And if you’re lazy, you get that different perspective from different people around will combat that kind of thing. Not only you, exercising your whole different body you wanting for that, um, connection, but you’re also getting a range of real, true, different perspectives as well.
James Powys:
Absolutely, absolutely not. And I think, I think what is, is; useful is to think about how you make decisions. So never best to make the big decisions in your business on your own, um, and rush, rush them through no matter how much thought you’ve put into it. Because you know, you will, you can find that you, um, you shape the data to fit the outcome you want. Because you know what, again, the two, two biggest issues I found with small businesses, micro businesses, it is not actually the reason or the reason they go out of business , isn’t to do with, with, with cash flow, it’s to do with avoidance and fear, which aren’t unrelated but avoidance. So, um, I found it myself, once I stepped out of the corporate world , right, I can do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it. And that to a point is true, but if I want a sustainable business, then I need a business that is balanced.
James Powys:
Um, and therefore I was conscious of the things that I was likely to over-focus on and the things that I was likely to push off or avoid. Um, and at your peril. So there’s a case of, again, forcing time into your calendar to do the things you don’t want to do and making sure you don’t avoid them. Um, or having, uh, outsourcing them to someone who’s great at that, who can do it in a more efficient way than anything you can, but not ignoring it and letting it not happen. Um, and the second one is fear, fear of change or doing something new that they’ve not done before. And by not having a go and testing things, things become redundant. Uh, we are less likely to be meeting needs as needs evolve and develop. So it’s having that courage to try new things. Many pilot things taken a measured level of risk rather than just sticking with what we know and clinging to it because, um, things are evolving and changing it an ever increasing pace
Martin Rodgers:
Cool fab. So I think from the conversation we started talking about the introverts versus extroverts and this is what we’ve learned is they both have strengths and weaknesses and they can both help, um, in different ways at different times. And in terms of some of the stuff taken action, maintenance decisions, et cetera, the, there’s a definite strength from both angles. Absolutely. But actually one of the things that was the common thread there as you come in today, it’s first of all is you need to understand that itself. Yeah. And then once you understand yourself, you can then make decisions and choose who you need to speak to when you need to and understand why you’re making that decision in the right way. And how some of those decisions might be faulty decisions based on based on your natural preference. So I’ve been um, one of the best ways for people to understand themselves is what, how would you get, where would you start and recommend to people if they want to understand more about themselves
James Powys:
Um, well there are, if there are free online personality profiling tools, so that might be, that might be a good start to have a look at that and see what level of in sight start there would actually, the first thing I would ask before that is to embrace, you can still learn a hell of a lot more about yourself. Um, I’ve never met anyone or might’ve met very, very few people who, who, who say I’m not self-aware. Everybody thinks their self-aware. And actually there’s a brilliant Idris Elba campaign through, through Purdeys actually, which talks about, you know, what are you going to be when you grown up and that we’re all still growing up and all have . And if you’re not learning about yourself on a weekly basis, the question would be, are you pushing yourself hard enough where you’re getting out of your comfort zone enough
James Powys:
So the first thing you get to embrace is, is, um, is that there’s more I can learn about myself, the why I feel the way I do in certain situations, why I have preferences for certain things and do more of this and less of that. How I do make decision and people consume me. You know, how people see us because we are looking at it from our level of comfort and people who are very different to us. We’ll, um, take us in or see us, uh, in, in, in, in, in very different ways. So the other way would be to get some insight to get some feedback from, from people around what are the things I do well, what are the things I do differently, um, what could I do differently to help myself be better at what I’m doing and what are the things that, that, that um, edear you towards, you know, what are the things that frustrate you, uh, with people you know and trust that we’ll give you honest, honest feedback and you can’t invest in personality profiling tools such as my, as Briggs or disc or insight discovery. Um, they use, um, you know, specific tool to give you a, a profile report , which is, you know, incredibly accurate in terms of, um, it also looks at things like motivations, how you manage, how you like to be managed or the environment that you thrive in, how you communicate, um, as well as decision making. Um, how you approach relationships, um, and how people are likely to see you as well as actually it insight into how people will see you, who are your opposite type or or different to you as well as hints and tips for development and growth.
Martin Rodgers:
But so number one I think is listen to yourself and learn yourself through your own internal dialogue. I mean one of the most, the best ways to do that I’ve discovered is journaling. Even if it’s just writing. Um, you know, for five minutes at the end of the day about what kind of day did you have, what was your grateful in the day, what could I have done better. How are you going to do better tomorrow To some simple questions like that to self journal and over that period of time you learn so much by yourself, by writing it down, it has such different impact to kind of mulling it over in the head. Second is ask people for feedback. How do I come across whats my strengths and weaknesses was and third, the probably the most structured and in depth way is to probably get something like an insights profile and then work from there on developing yourself and understanding how can you build better connections and better network and better relationships with other people as well, not just with yourself. Absolutely. Brilliant. I think we’ve covered just about everything in that short period of time. James, thank you so much for coming along. Really appreciate it. If anybody wants more information about insights, coaching I’ll leave some links in the comments below. Um, and I’m sure James will happily answer any questions or queries or support you might have in some of the topics that we’ve discussed today thank you very much everybody. Bye. Bye.
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