The Strong, Silent Type

A few weeks ago, I offered suggestions for how to handle extraverts in the work place: Dealing With "Chatty Cathies." I promised to give some insight into the introverts. That's today's topic.

Many of you know this joke, but I'll repeat it here because it is so fitting.

"How do you tell the extraverted engineer from the introverted engineer?"
"The extraverted engineer is looking at your shoes." (The introverted is looking at his own.)

Joke-telling is definitely not my forte, but I have a lot of experience with introverts. There are extraverted engineers out there, but they are the minority. The bulk of engineers I've met are introverts, and some are what I call raging introverts.

CHARACTERISTICS OF INTROVERTS

Introverts
* keep their energy and ideas inside, thus making it hard to get to know them
* may avoid (or run from) interaction with others
* hesitate before speaking
* thrive on alone time
* go deep on one or two areas of interest
* proceed cautiously in making decisions
* need to be asked for their opinion and input
* don't give much away through facial expressions

HELP FOR INTROVERTS

"The introvert is pressured daily, almost from the moment of awakening, to respond and conform to the outer world," according to Otto Kroeger and Janet Thuesen in their book "Type Talk." If you are working with introverts, here is how you help them be more comfortable in a typical business situation.

* Give them questions and agendas ahead of meetings so they can think about the issues ahead of time. Do NOT ask an introvert a question and expect an immediate answer.

* Help them learn to interrupt others. This sounds very strange to extraverts, who interrupt all the time so that they can get their thoughts out. One introverted client, who is very smart, has been thought of as "not real bright" by an executive in her firm. He wants her to interrupt him, and she simply isn't going to do that. I suggested she let him know that about her. She will wait until he is finished, then she will talk.

* Give them lots of prep time before any presentation. One introvert told me he was OK doing presentations, as long as he felt that he was fully prepared and knew what he was going to do. His version of fully prepared was much more extensive than an extravert's version of fully prepared.

* Since introverts have to interact with others, suggest an introvert select a couple of topics that they are comfortable talking about in social settings or networking events. Again, give them time to prepare and to get comfortable with sharing. For men, this topic often involves sports.

* Allow introverts their alone time. If they don't get this, they will stress out. If you are an introverted manager, close your office door. Let people know when you will take questions and when you want to be left alone.

For lots more great insight and information on introverts, read "The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extravert World" by Marti Olsen Laney.

A SMALL REQUEST

I'm hearing from lots of you that you find these weekly missives helpful and thought-provoking. That is certainly my intent.

You can help us by spreading the word. If you found info in today's piece that was helpful to you, please forward the original email to ONE friend or colleague.

Just ONE. Help spread the word.

Not Everyone Thinks Like You

I don’t need to tell you guys this, but I will say it for those who aren’t engineers: Engineers are problem solvers. They see a problem. They want to fix it. And they tell you how to fix it if you don’t let them do it themselves.

That “fix it now” mentality popped up last week with a client. Here is what happened and how it could have been handled differently. Read, learn, and definitely share with others, particularly young engineers who haven’t learned the lesson yet.

Situation

Tom, a well-meaning principal, saw a problem and told June, the office manager, to deal with it. When Tom came in the next day, the problem hadn’t been fixed. He wanted to know why. That didn’t go over well with June, who now resents Tom and is unlikely to help him in the future.

A Better Way

Tom needs to remember that not everyone thinks like he does. And not everyone is comfortable confronting a situation head on. Tom says he apologized, sort of. I doubt that June would agree.

By telling her what to do, Tom “dissed” her, and June likely feels he doesn’t think she knows how to do her job. She probably also took the “deal with the problem” command as an insult to her intelligence.

Had they had a conversation about the situation, June would have had a chance to admit that she knew the problem existed (saving face) and that she was prepared to address it. She could have offered her solution, which may have been the same as Tom’s. Even if her solution was different, they could have talked it out. She would have felt more respected and probably would work well with Tom in the future.

What’s to Be Done Now?

Bob, the managing partner, needs to sit down with Tom and June. He can educate them about what really happened.

Tom is a problem solver, and he takes action when he sees action is needed. His style is direct and can offend others unintentionally.

June, being female, has a 66% likelihood of being a Feeler, using personality type language. She puts great stock in being respected and considering others’ feelings. Feelers also want to avoid conflict and will take comments personally.

Tom didn’t mean to offend June and didn’t realize how his style would affect her. June also needs to accept Tom’s need to solve problems when he sees them and not take comments so personally.

It’s going to be tough on each of them to change their thinking. Share this article with them to help out. Focus on Communication Styles To Reduce Misunderstanding.html

Characteristics of Leadership

I could use your help identifying the characteristics of leadership. I am presenting at the summer conference for ACEC Georgia next month. The title of my presentation is Identifying and Developing Your Future Leaders.

While I could create the presentation on my own, I thought I would ask my friends (that’s you) for your ideas on leadership. What do you consider the key characteristics of leadership to be? How do you identify your leaders? What makes you a leader?

My Oxford Dictionary defines leadership as a quality of a leader, one who leads. Duh. Among the many definitions of lead (v) are: cause to go with one, especially by guiding or showing the way; direct the actions or opinions of; guide by persuasion, example or argument. I’ll buy those as characteristics of leadership.

How do you define leadership?

But how do you define leadership? What qualities, experience, and skills do you look for in the leaders you follow? And in the leaders you develop?

Please help me out. Take a minute right now and send me an email with your thoughts. Email me to let me know what characteristics of leadership you look for. I will share the results with everyone in a week or two.

You’ll also be helping out by giving me ideas about what to include in our Future Leaders online coaching program, coming up soon. If you haven’t signed up to get details on that, send an email to: futurelead@aweber.com That service sends an email to me to let me know that you want info. You won’t end up on some remote site that sends you tons of spam.

www.WeKnowEngineers.com is live!

I almost forgot: The new website is up! Visit www.WeKnowEngineers.com to see what we have for you. Be sure to check out the Free Stuff page for articles on communication and leadership, historical engineering case studies, and—of course—jokes.

D’oh! I Broke Key Rules

I find it amazing how life reminds us that we are human and subject to the same mistakes other folks make. Please use this example of my own mistakes to help you avoid them in the future.

We recently sent out a 1-question survey to 277 folks, using Survey Monkey, a free online survey site. The response has been fantastic—over 10%—28 of you responded and told us what the two toughest things are that you have had to learn as a CEO or manager. I would love to share the responses with those who responded, but . . .

I was a dummy!

When we set the survey up, I didn’t read the directions. I just ASSUMED I would be able to see who responded. Wrong. You have to format the survey a certain way to capture email addresses of respondents. I didn’t read the directions and ASSUMED things would go the way I thought they would.

KEY RULE: Stop making assumptions!

We all make lots of assumptions every day. And, as I proved, our assumptions are often wrong. Ask questions. Read directions. Get clarity.

So, I’m sitting here with all the great responses we received, and I can’t tell who I need to thank for responding and I can’t share the responses with those who participated. Short of sending another email to 277 people, and we don’t really want to do that. Thus, I broke another key rule of communication.

KEY RULE: If you do a survey, you must share the responses with participants.

You don’t have to share every response, but you do need to tell them collective responses, what percent said what, the response rate, etc. Even if the responses are not what you wanted.

This is actually a key rule for building trust between employers and employees.

If you’re one of the 28 who responded to our survey and are interested in the results, please let us know. Send an email to pam@WeKnowEngineers.com with “Send me survey results” in the subject line.

If you didn’t participate but wish you had, send us an email and we’ll share the results with you as well. But you have to promise to participate next time.

COMING UP

How to get introverts to open up (as promised in last week’s blog).

www.WeKnowEngineers.com is reportedly going live on May 6—my birthday. Check us out.

Watch for news on an online coaching program for your Future Leaders. The survey responses showed a significant need for helping engineers understand the business of the business—how you make money, how you deal with people, and how you market. If you want to be sure you don’t miss news on this program as we pull it together, please email futureleaders@weknowengineers.com and you’ll get the info as soon as we know it.

Whatever form the program takes, it will be very limited in the number who can participate. And it will be on a first come, first serve basis.