Transcript
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Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Price Writer podcast with Catherine Townsend and me, Jeremy Keating. Join us as we explore and discuss the world of insurance related books, offering our insight and recommendation.
Speaker: And today we are talking about Quiet, The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. Alright, and first off, can I just say that not all introverts are awkward, socially lacking, boring, or plain weird.
Speaker: We're just people who recharge by being alone or by being quiet, rather than recharging through social activity. And we can impact and influence others. And I love that this book is really clear about that from the very beginning.
Speaker: Yes, that's right. It is a book all about how introverts are just normal everyday people. And in fact, about 50% of people are introvert in surveys in the USA.
Speaker: And the USA is known as being a fairly extrovert nation. So it's possible quite a few countries are majority introverted people. Many of us are introverted. And in fact, we've had probably around 50 to 100 years of people thinking that the ideal person is an extrovert person.
Speaker: And many introverts being pushed into feeling like they're not right or sadly, there's something wrong with them because they're not just after social contact all of the time. And somehow we've got this idea that the core people are the really extrovert ones, when in fact the introverts are often achieving an awful lot in the world with science, nature, maths, music, and so on.
Speaker: And you can be very good at a lot of different careers, including things like sales and marketing and being an introverted person. So it's really opening up introversion is not a strange thing. It's a common thing and that we need to rethink how we structure the world around people to ensure that it's comfortable and we get the best out of our introverts.
Speaker: And did I just hear you describe yourself as an introvert, Jeremy? He casts, indeed. i mean, I've many times described myself myself as an introvert. I well named that I am an introverted person.
Speaker: And it's something I've kind of become comfortable with at the age of 45. But certainly growing up, I certainly had an idea that it wasn't normal to be introverted. It wasn't okay to be an introvert.
Speaker: Yeah. When have you felt most aware that you didn't fit the dominant extroverted energy in the room? Yeah, so as an early teen, I can remember quite distinctly, I did the gang show with Scout. So it's kind of a medley of songs for a couple of hours and it's performed on stage at the local playhouse. I to rather enjoy doing performances and so on, but in the run-up to it, we had a lot of days of rehearsing and the actual performance.
Speaker: And these were days that involved spending hours with hundreds of people. And I found that hard. And you know what? At lunch, I was like, ah i I'm worn out. i just want to eat my lunch, sat quietly. And that is certainly an age where it's just not kind of acceptable to be the odd one out. And nowadays, I'm like loads of people in that room felt the same as me and were worn out and just wanted a break and stuff. But actually, at the time, I felt like that was the wrong way to behave.
Speaker: And so I found the whole thing really exhausting. Oh, I totally get you. When you walk into a room and there's like, you just want to recoil. There's like a wall of noise, a wall of people. I even had that recently. I walked into an office, not a pricing team's office, but an office with about 20, 30 people in It was all open plan. Everyone was sitting together. everyone was chatting.
Speaker: The radio was on. The coffee machine was in the same room. So there was this constant like noise from that. The fridge was, you know, being open and shut. And I just thought, how does it? anyone get any work done in here i i i was all out for working in the stationary cupboard to be honest but i was thought wow i this is i just what we did and i just i wanted to walk right back out again so you are introvert as well in fact i've heard you describe yourself as an introvert catching many a time so how has that felt for you
Speaker: It was always known in my family that I was an introvert. And i have an older sister who is very sociable, very good with people, with words. And it was always just very apparent to everyone that I wasn't like that.
Speaker: Fortunately, having a sister who is good at all the things that you're not meant that when it came to writing school presentations, what to say, what not to say, that's equally important. And I spent a lot of my childhood trying to work that that part of it out. She would always help me Conversely,
Speaker: I would help her with her maths, even though she was five years older than me, or I would be quite happy writing out flashcards for her to revise. So we' we're always described as these opposites. Like we look very similar, but personality wise, we were always described as as total opposites.
Speaker: It was like living the very embodiment of introvert, extrovert, even though those words were never used as I was growing up. I think the words growing up were social and antisocial. the stuff But I don't think that's genuinely what an introvert is. Do you think that the introvert, extrovert framing is still useful today?
Speaker: or do you think it's too binary? Because, you know, we are both introverts and yet... We run conferences, we do speaking situations. There are some social situations that I find really affirming. I come away buzzing from it. I'm excited and I want to be there.
Speaker: There are also some social situations that I find totally draining. And in a world where there is that constant social connection online or otherwise, is is introvert, extrovert too binary or just another label?
Speaker: I think it is a useful label and I think it is useful to be aware that different people introverted or extroverted. What I think is really unhelpful is all of our preconceived baggage that goes along with these labels and you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker: Introvert, antisocial. It's just not true. Extrovert, social. Also, not necessarily true. You can actually be someone who gains energy by being around lots of people and actually not be kind of...
Speaker: get on with everyone and I think maybe we've all encountered some people like that who are absolutely they want to be with everyone all of the time and actually don't have the best social skills and you can go to the other side and have introverts very cool incredibly clever with people will make you feel super comfortable being around them. But when they recharge, they do so alone or with a very small group of people.
Speaker: So it's just not true to say that social skills goes along with being introvert or extrovert. There is correlation there because as particularly as young people, the more social you are, the more you will pick up those skills.
Speaker: faster, but that does kind of disappear as a difference. Particularly as you get to being a grown up and get settled into your life and work out who you are as a person.
Speaker: So I would say, i think it's good that we can say that there are some people that introvert and extrovert and we ought to make spaces good for them. But I think it's not very good to label people and then assume a whole thing, a list of things about them. I would happily hop up on a stage without any notes or anything. And I would give a talk.
Speaker: I could happily just, I could just do it. I've done plenty of talks. I've got several in my head. I could literally just go ahead and give a talk right now in an auditorium, several hundred people. I would not feel uncomfortable at all, but i would later want to be on my own or maybe with one or two people only. And I would need that time to just socially recharge and be okay again.
Speaker: And that I think is the key difference. We need that time on our own or with a small group of people rather than having constantly being around lots of people.
Speaker: And I think a key place really is at work where you see this. So our workplace is designed with extroverts in mind or are they designed with introverts in mind? And I think we probably had 50 years to maybe even a century of plowing towards workplaces being very much designed for extroverts.
Speaker: i think there's a habit from a lot of the consultancies to be back in the 80s and 90s to push the ideas that they should be open plan. So what would workplaces look like if they were genuinely designed with us introverts in mind?
Speaker: Well, firstly, please turn the radio off. Please put the coffee machine somewhere else. i think firstly, there's just a lot of extra distractions in terms of noise that can definitely be minimized or moved.
Speaker: I mean, i know that it's a bit controversial now from hybrid working and work from home versus working in the office. Everyone wants their office days to be really sociable and meeting heavy, that kind of thing.
Speaker: But I also think that if you're asking people to come into the office more than maybe one day or two days a week, then there need to be quiet work zones that have really great kits. You know, so for pricing teams, that has to be two screens.
Speaker: if not more screens, really quick internet and not like nice chairs, just comfy stuff like that. So it has these quiet work zones where people can get stuff done, but then also have chatty zones. And I think most offices have chatty or collaboration zones, but they don't zone the space in a soundproof way. They tend to zone using like carpets or plants,
Speaker: or a bookshelf that has big gaps in it. I don't know who designs these things, but they don't actually build a partition wall. So it's just silly because the noise then from the chatty zone just echoes around this quiet zone. So what's the point of that?
Speaker: I think. Oh, so that would be the first thing, built on walls. Secondly, probably lunch breaks that you can actually break away from people, whether that's for a walk,
Speaker: Or in the past, I've been part of craft clubs in the office. So we've met at lunchtimes in one of the spare meeting rooms, just a small group. But that group of people are actually still so dear to my heart. So many of them came to my wedding, which was lovely. It was a genuine friendship, even though for that hour, we weren't always talking.
Speaker: And I know that other people as well, you know, if any of us were having a day when we were feeling just really overwhelmed or we had lots of stress, food or you know email each other and say does i know anyone want to do craft club this lunch time just really need the calm so those kind of activities it doesn't have to be crafts obviously whether that's you know board games or just even like reading a space where people can read by themselves without feeling the need to to people I think being able to use your lunch break in the way that you actually want to break and that actually refreshes you I think that makes your afternoon so much better
Speaker: When I worked in France, the culture is quite different in a lot of ways to the UK as I know a lot of people will appreciate. But interestingly enough, at work, I had an office. So I had my own space. I shared it with a couple of people, but we all did a lot of traveling. So I was very regular on my own I was actually in the office.
Speaker: But it's the culture that you pretty much always go to lunch with your team. And it's downstairs in the canteen or out to one of the restaurants. But you spend that hour, usually an hour and a half, actually, with your team. You have lunch, you have coffee, and then you go back to work.
Speaker: And in a way, I found that much more comfortable, actually, even though there's the... kind of culturally enforced socializing with your team, I did find it a more comfortable way of working. And it's somewhat the opposite of the UK because you can often feel like you get no private time at work to actually work in the UK.
Speaker: Whereas it is something I was very comfortable with in France and genuinely rather enjoyed.
Speaker: Yeah, it doesn't have to just be the way you build an office though, right? It can also be how you structure your day. So I'm a big fan of 25-minute meetings or 50-minute meetings as the default instead of 30 minutes and one hour.
Speaker: And this is helpful for a whole load of reasons, whether it's, you know, time to actually go to the bathroom and get a drink between Teams calls or and not having to magically teleport yourself across the office to try and get to another meeting room. It actually gives you a bit of time. Or maybe you can write up your actions or do some, emails quickly in that time.
Speaker: But I think for introverts, it's really, really helpful as well, because I know that when I've had days when it's just back to back calls, at the end of it, I feel totally drained. And they've done studies that show that Part of that is because you're looking at your own face all the time, which is very distracting, apparently, and really hard work.
Speaker: But also because you're trying to infer quite a lot about people's feelings just from their shoulders and their head, which which is quite mentally taxing.
Speaker: Unlike you when you're there in person and you can feel like the energy they're giving off, you can see how they're sitting and all the rest of it. So i think having 25 minute meetings or just giving yourself a little break between meetings just gives people a moment to take a deep breath, do what they need to do and not talk or listen for three minutes. That's all we're asking, but it's always made a big difference to me.
Speaker: And I think similar to that, if you can enforce some kind of Teams downtime or whatever messaging app people use, but have just one hour a day when you your team doesn't send any team's messages, doesn't send any emails. You can write them.
Speaker: Feel free to write them or feel free to note them down in bit of paper by all means, but just don't send them until the end of that hour is up. Mm-hmm. Not only is that a benefit in terms of you're not getting those distractions for the one hour you can really focus in, but also it's, there's no social expectation in that hour. You know that not only will you not be interrupted, but you don't need to be on socially during that hour. And even just having that expectation is lovely.
Speaker: I've been in teams that enforced this in the past and that hour without that constant communication is just total bliss for me. Yeah. Yeah, I really relate. actually did a contract once and the pricing team i had a big open plan space with fairly small desks. So it really felt like they were on top of each other.
Speaker: And actually found an excuse to move down and work in the project area. It's a much quieter space down in the basement. ah So I much preferred being down there. I could actually focus on what I was doing.
Speaker: I think that's why some people find WeWork or, you know, those kind of offices that it's not on your team. and That's why people quite like them, because there's still the feeling of you're not in your own home. So you don't have your distractions of home, but you also don't have the social expectation when you're you know of being in office you're in an office environment.
Speaker: But you're not really expected to socialize and be constantly in contact with the people around you in those situations. so I think maybe that's part of the appeal. i don't know.
Speaker: We actually have built our conferences around people being introverts. We know most people in pricing are introvert or or at least in the belly in the middle. we do make it spaces where people can feel it's and a conference you can go to as an introvert because we are sociable people, but kind of spending seven hours of a day with a hundred or so people can be very tiring.
Speaker: So we do, for example, set and start that if you just want to go out for a walk at lunchtime, no one is going to mind. We are not going to think you're unsociable or like the difficult person or whatever.
Speaker: Just go for a walk. If you want to sit on your phone in the break and play a game, it's fine. You don't have to look like you're doing emails or a super important piece of work or whatever. You can just chill for a bit.
Speaker: That's okay. And we're still sociable. still have lots of people talking. There's still a good buzz in like breakout rooms and at lunch and everything. But we also have that quiet space for people so they can just recharge ready for more time spent with people.
Speaker: And I find that just even being in a small group compared to a big group makes a big difference for me. And I know that, you know, our conferences were always very mindful of the maximum number of people that can come, the maximum number of people that we can have on each table.
Speaker: And that really, really informs kind of the limits of our conference because walking into a room of 500 people is iss really daunting and my energy gets depleted pretty quickly, whereas even just being sitting around round tables in in groups of eight to ten, rather than just all sitting in an auditorium with 300 people loan for me, just makes a big difference in how comfortable I feel relating to those people. i think it's madness a little bit that some...
Speaker: companies would run conferences for introverts that are like thousands of people I but I think that's really interesting and I think speaks to the fact that we do feel a lot of expectation that extroversion is the ideal I think that's actually something that comes across in the book a lot, that environments are not made for introvert and that there's too much of a societal push towards people being extrovert when they're just not really comfortable with it.
Speaker: there's a good example in the book of a child who's taken to a psychologist because he's quite quiet and thoughtful when both his parents are extremely outgoing and in quite high profile business jobs.
Speaker: They're worried he's not tough enough and not outgoing enough and not like them. It's interesting. So there's a discussion in the book about child parent fit, which the concept of actually haven't caught before. But there is this idea that you can have like extrovert parents with an introvert child and it to actually quite difficult on the child see to be forced into those expectations.
Speaker: I thought interestingly enough in the book, we talk about a lot of quite famous people who are actually introverted and you might not realize it, but i mean, a couple of examples she goes to are Gandhi and Rosa Parks.
Speaker: They're actually quite quiet, thoughtful people who changed the world. When you realize that about them, it actually connects with the way that they changed the world in a fairly quiet way.
Speaker: um i She talks about Eleanor Roosevelt as well, who is in politics. And you think, how can someone in politics be an introvert? But actually, Eleanor Roosevelt's influence made very people-focused policies.
Speaker: during that time. it really is amazing. ive really enjoyed a lot of those examples in the book because when we think about introverts doing great things to society, we often think about people like Isaac Newton, who you know did come up with some great stuff. I love gravity and calculus.
Speaker: But it was a very solitary change and we just don't have those kind of scientific breakthroughs anymore. Most scientific breakthroughs now are part of a team.
Speaker: So I found it really encouraging that introverts can influence and change the world despite and because of their introversion.
Speaker: That was wonderful for me. But I do want to, for people who lead teams, you Obviously, you want a great space for your introverts to do their best work, but we know the team connection is super important as well for the team to run smoothly. And that collaboration really runs off people knowing each other well.
Speaker: So how do we do team activities for introverts? How do we achieve that without it being awkward or being forced fun? Yeah, i think it's a good point. I mean, if you have a team that's quite comfortable with each other and been together for a long time, then some of the traditional extrovert activities like playing articulate and things can work quite well.
Speaker: But I would say, actually, if you are a new team or you've gathered people together that don't know each other that well, You can still do team building activities, but try and focus on ones that are a little bit more individual. So it's something you do together in an individual way.
Speaker: Oddly enough, escape rooms are actually quite a good way to work together in a small team with people and get to know them quite well. So it is still an extrovert activity, but it's something that you do in quite a methodical way.
Speaker: Or we have played the game GeoGuessr quite successfully at our conferences. So it's a game you play with people that you individually on your phone work through the particular puzzle, which is finding your location somewhere in the world.
Speaker: so that's something you feel like you're doing as a team and it is a team building activity and you can have a good conversation afterwards. How did you know it was here? Where did you go? All of that in sort of small degree, but you're not felt like you're having to deal with a hundred people at once or being caught on the spot in front of a large crowd.
Speaker: I think things not to do is something like charades, where it's like all the attention is suddenly on one person, only one person. And you're dreading your turn, aren't you? You're just you're not playing the game. You're sat there working out when you have to do it Yeah, so i think that's the key thing. So things that are tailored towards that, because we can't be entirely social people, but we also don't necessarily have the energy to be sociable with 100 people for several hours.
Speaker: One thing I've seen work really well on big team calls or big team events is like a drawing challenge. So everyone has to draw the best picture they can of a frog in paint, you know, on the computer and stuff like that can be really fun because, again, you are working individually. You're all going chat about it afterwards and be like, why do you know how to draw such a good frog? Like, can we talk about...
Speaker: that as a skill that you have but ah it also means that no one has to actually speak you know you do the the drawing individually you vote individually and it is fun and team building but without putting a lot of pressure on people so the big question though would you recommend this book
Speaker: No, I wouldn't. Although i think it's an important book and I think it's good that it's been written and I'm glad there are materials out there that are highlighting that introverts are not odd to people. It is really common and normal.
Speaker: The book is overly long. I think it goes too into too much depth in a lot of the examples. And it's very anecdotal, not terribly statistically back.
Speaker: There isn't a lot of information from, say, large studies. It's more individuals that are picked out and described. And that, for me, just doesn't feel like it's got the depth.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a long book, to be fair. I listened to on Audible and it started at 11 hours, think. I was amazed. Introverts are still busy people, you know.
Speaker: I can see why it is not on because it is very descriptive. She talks about lots of different situations, work, school, church, universities. business leaders, political leaders. She really does cover a lot of spheres, but it's very descriptive.
Speaker: And I didn't find it prescriptive at all. She highlights the problems in a lot of depth, but doesn't really tell you what should be done as a result. Or...
Speaker: how to make the changes without extroverts feeling out of their depth, right? Because if we move towards quieter spaces, more individualized spaces, what about the extroverts, you know? So I would always be very cautious about swinging the pendulum too far back the other way.
Speaker: And maybe that's not quite such an issue in pricing teams. Yeah. because we are mostly, if not all, introverts, but certainly at schools and more general workplaces. She didn't really talk about how to make things work for both the extroverts and the introverts in your life.
Speaker: That, for me, feels like a big tension that is still left unresolved.
Speaker: So not a recommend from me, but I'm glad it exists in the world. Yeah. I definitely agree that that's my view as well. I'm glad it's out there. I'm glad people are reading about it, but I wouldn't recommend it to people. In a way, it's good for people who are extrovert to learn about what it's like to be an introvert.
Speaker: Yeah. right. So next time. Next time on the Pricewriters podcast. Next week, we'll be exploring We've Got You Covered by Liran Inab and Amy Finkelstein.
Speaker: So it's by the same people that wrote a book about anti-selection and why anti-selection is really at the heart of how insurance products are designed. And this time, it's a book about how to redesign the American healthcare care system so it works for everyone. It certainly is a big, knotty problem to rise about. So I'm looking forward to this one.
Speaker: Yeah, we talked about their previous book on a previous episode of this podcast. So I find that link below. Thank you so much for joining and we'll see you next time.
Speaker: Pricewriters transforms pricing professionals into the most respected leaders in insurance. Find out more about our Pricewriters Pro platform by visiting pricewriters.com.
