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 19th 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 20th 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.









