There are plenty of reasons to read this well written book. It’s a great history of the rise of the personal computer. It’s a recap of lore about Steve Jobs. (Remember when The “Lisa” was supposed to have been named after one of his girlfriends? It was his daughter!) There are some compelling character sketches; I liked the ones of Bill Gates and Woz. It’s a great book about what Lexus calls “the relentless pursuit of perfection.” (And with Jobs “relentless” takes on special meaning.)
I was a bit put off at first by Isaacson’s psychologizing: adoptee scarred for life by birth parent abandonment. But I think in retrospect Isaacson was trying to balance the story of the person with the story of the business phenom.

There’s a great section about Jobs’ desire to hire only the best players and insist on his underlings doing the same thing. Isaacson almost underplays the importance of Jobs’ insight that A players seek out other A players, while B players gravitate toward C players. This is a profound insight about what it takes to build a consistently high performing organization. But it can get lost in the stories about Steve’s tantrums. Sure Jobs was the deciding factor at Apple and Pixar. But he had damn good people around him who attracted damn good people.

If you’re going to read the book for how to be a better leader, don’t try to match Jobs’ behavior; match his business acumen.

Thoughts after reading “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking”

I keep coming across books about introversion, all with the same message:  the culture makes introverted people feel inferior to outgoing people. I thought three things in this book make a positive contribution to the discussion:

First, from a historical perspective, American Culture (and perhaps Western Culture) has gone through a transformation over the past 150 years. In the 19^th century good character was essential. You didn’t need to see good character to know a person had it. In fact, many people demonstrated character by the accumulation of quiet deeds. By the end of the 20^th century, however, personality has come to be valued over character…and a certain type of personality. People who speak with confidence, have a steely stare and iron-clad handshake—the extraverts. It’s not that character is unimportant; it’s just that personality trumps character nowadays.

Second, the author argues that a mix of introverts and extraverts is preferable in social and business settings. While the culture of personality values the outgoing, it is the inward looking who can get undervalued. According to the author, introverts comprise more than a third of the population.

A different book, The Introvert Advantage, by Marti Olsen Laney, is written as a pep talk for introverts. Quiet is focused on the leader: make sure you don’t miss the contributions introverts can make to your team. I see the books as complementary.

Third, there is an extended discussion about how parents and teachers can support introverted children and stop trying to “fix” them. This section includes some interesting case examples.

The journalistic writing is reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell and Joshua Foer. It’s fast paced and full of colorful anecdotes—Tony Robbins seminars, or a visit to an evangelical church campus. The chapters read as if they could be free-standing articles. If you’re a stickler for research discipline, it might bother you the number of times she uses the phrase “research has shown”. And if you’re a stickler for spelling, you spell extravert with an “a” not an “o”. But hey, sometimes we introverts get bogged down in the damnedest things.