The Introverted Employee and Meetings - A Manager's Guide

Our world is ruled by the extroverts, and the workplace is no exception. While many introverts naturally gravitate towards jobs that allow them solitude and privacy when they concentrate on work, the sheer number of introverts in our society (25-50%) means that many find themselves in an office full of people, doing their best to cope with the rules -- often arbitrary and artificially imposed -- that interfere with their productivity. And even those who work in relative seclusion at least occasionally have to attend meeting and perform other duties that involve communication with others. Many introverts are unnecessarily stressed out by their work environments, which means that they are less happy and less productive as employees. Fortunately, a manager who recognizes that introverts are part of his workplace can drastically increase his employees' productivity, enthusiasm and job satisfaction. By implementing a few relatively minor modifications the organization can tap the previously stifled creative potential of a large part of its workforce!

Even the most solitary professions often require employees to attend meetings on a regular basis. Meetings are often frustrating and counterproductive for introverted employees. Here are a few guidelines on how to make meetings a more manageable affair for the introverts in the workplace, allowing them to contribute ideas and suggestions without feeling overwhelmed.

1. To Meet or Not to Meet

There is no questions that meetings are an essential and important management tool. However, like any other tool, it can be overused by a unduly enthusiastic fan. Before calling a meeting, consider whether that's the most efficient way to achieve whatever goals you have in mind (e.g., getting progress reports, brainstorming for ideas etc.) Some of the questions to ask yourself in determining whether it's a good idea to have a meeting in the first place are:

• Are you calling a meeting out of a genuine need for one or out of habit? Or perhaps because you have set up an unnecessarily rigid staff meeting schedule? If you are an extrovert, you may find it comforting to regularly gather your underlings and have everyone talk face-to-face -- otherwise you may feel disconnected from your subordinates and losing track of the work they are doing. If that's the case, be mindful of balancing your preferences on keeping updated with the effect of frequent meetings on employer productivity.
• Will the information discussed during the meeting be relevant to all participants at all times? For example, it may be convenient for you as a manager to call a meeting to hear reports from various teams working independently on unrelated projects. However, while every team's report will be meaningful and valuable to you, will it be a good use of everyone else's time to listen to the minutiae of the projects that have no relevance to them?
• Is the information to be presented or discussed at the meeting shared just as (or even more) easily and efficiently via other means of communication such as e-mail? There is often benefit to requesting input via e-mail even if you do call a meeting to talk about it later -- this allows employees to start a meeting with some kind of a framework and a few ideas on the topic, rather than having stuff dumped on them without a moment's notice.

Give this an especially careful consideration if a large proportion of your employees are introverted. Because managers are required to work with a lot of people, they are more likely to be more extroverted, even in professions typically populated by introverts (e.g. software development). So they tend to use extrovert-style management techniques even if it is not what works best for most of their employees. If you think that's the case, consider some alternatives to calling a meeting, such as:

• If the purpose of the meeting is to inform employees of anything (new policies, procedures, rules, goals) -- consider sending the information in an e-mail. If you wish to emphasize it in person, reinforce it during the next meeting that does take place -- but unless it's a matter of great importance and urgency, many of your employess will be grateful to avoid a disruption to their day.
• Similarly, if you want information (such as progress reports) from your employees, request it via e-mail rather than in person. This allows employees to choose when to prepare and send off their reports, minimizing disruption to their work week. This also saves them training and meeting time. Be clear and specific about what type of data you are looking for in the reports, so no time is wasted on modifying or clarifying them.
• Have one-on-one meetings when appropriate. This allows you to focus on a specific employee, keeping the encounter highly relevant and thus more productive. It's also a format that most introverts far prefer to large gatherings, which means they will be more relaxed and possibly have more ideas to share during such one-on-one discussions.

2. When to Meet

If you've determined that a meeting is necessary, give some consideration of when you are going to hold it:

• Don't "Chunk" Their Day - If the employees in your organization are doing work that requires deep concentration over long stretches of time (the type of work introverts are typically drawn to), consider scheduling a meeting first thing in the morning or at the end of the workday. A late morning or an early afternoon meeting may ruin their entire workday, splitting it into two parts both of which are too short to do good creative work in. Paul Graham explains it well in his essay on what he calls Makers' vs. Managers' Schedules.
• Don't Do Too Many - Frequent meetings waste more time, both directly (it takes time to transition between "regular work" mode and "meeting" mode, as well as time to actually physically get to and from the meeting) and indirectly (by introducing numerous workflow interruptions that can vastly reduce efficiency and productivity).
• Give Advance Notice - Impromptu meetings are especially disruptive, as they break the introverted employee's concentration on the task. Another serious drawback is that such a meeting may require him to talk about ideas before he's had a chance to consider them carefully. Now, it's not as though introverted people are dumber or slower when it comes thinking about things. It's just that extroverts tend to think out loud by bouncing ideas off people, so they are always ready to jump right into a conversation and explore the topic by talking about it. Introverts generate ideas just as readily, but tend to hold off on talking about them until they've had a chance to consider them for a bit and formulate their thoughts and opinions more concisely. This leads us to our next guideline:

3. Set Up for Success

• Give Them a Heads-Up - Prior to a meeting, send out an agenda to all involved. Any good manager worth his salt knows the agenda should not be merely a list of topics, but include time to be spent on the items, speakers, goals to be achieved etc. etc. -- these are the basics of management and I don't want to spend too much time on them here. However, here is a critical tidbit that is particularly crucial to an introvert: if you will be asking for any kind of feedback, input, ideas on any of the topics -- state that in advance! This allows the introver to prepare to speak about these topics in front of the group, enabling him to provide a well-formulated well-informed well-researched input, as opposed to vague half-baked ideas that introverts are often hesitant to share.
• Give Them a Chance to Present Their Ideas - An introvert who feels that she has to be constantly fighting for a chance to speak up with the more loquacious members of the group may soon give up on trying to participate in the meeting and simply shut down. Ensure that there is a chance for everyone's ideas to be heard. This can be done by implementing a protocol for taking turns in disucssion that allows one to talk without being interrupted. Or -- and I know many introverts will love this -- by allowing people to present their ideas in writing or in a one-on-one discussion after the meeting.
• Recognize the Introvert's Contribution - Many introverts will thrive if you give them a chance to provide their ideas and feedback in a more private setting as described above. You may find that a person you previously considered slow and not too bright because she never says anything is amazing you with her contributions that are both creative and thoroughly thought through once you allow her to express them in a context she is comfortable with. However, that creativity may fizzle out if the introverted employee is not given as much credit for her ideas as her extroverted counterparts who present their ideas in front of a group. The person you need to start with is yourself. It is easy to be dazzled by an enthusiastic speech by gregarious people's person and assign more value to it than to a more subdued and detail-oriented discussion with a quieter, introspective type -- so try to be aware of whether you are impressed with the essence someone's idea or merely with its delivery. And, if you think the introvert's contributions are valuable, ensure that she is publicly recognized for those, even if the exchange of the ideas occured in private.