You can lean into your introversion, now.
Even (and perhaps especially) in the corporate world
I posted the following note yesterday and it got me thinking about the various pressures an introvert can encounter in predominantly extroverted spaces, like the corporate world:
As an introvert, I used to feel tremendous pressure to speak and “be seen” in meetings. But I rarely spoke well when those moments came, because I was checking a box. Now, I rest in knowing that eloquence follows competence, and attention follows conviction. Speak when you have something valuable to add.
When I got my first corporate job, I didn’t like answering phones, dreaded the idea of someone walking in with a question, and generally preferred silence. Oh, also, I was the receptionist. But my dad was gearing up for retirement and my thirties were still before me. So I took the job and figured I’d figure it out.
Well, that was over five years, two firms, and a couple titles ago, and I can honestly say that I have figured out a thing or two about surviving (and even thriving, dependin’ on yer metrics) in a fast-paced setting as an introvert. Also, while I wouldn’t consider a corporate job the end-all or be-all for a human, it’s worth noting that some of the biggest entrepreneurs you read or read about on Substack and elsewhere spent up to a decade working in a corporate setting. As they say, you have to learn the rules to break them.
#1 - Lean into your slowness.
Maybe your team is perpetually short-staffed. Maybe it is just the busy season. Maybe every season is busy. Well, whatever it is, learn to let things breathe. Rushing ends in obvious errors, confusion, and overlong email threads that everyone hates. You can prevent most mistakes, and make helpful connections, by giving even the most cut and dry requests just five minutes before responding. Your cognition needs time to process and identify patterns anyway, so be the cool kid with a cool head. Crush the rush virus.
#2 - Lean into your sparse, intentional speech.
You have likely already discovered how much talking for the sake of talking goes on at every organization. Some lovely people really do have to externalize their thoughts to form them properly, and that is valid. But a lot of grandstanding comes along with this, and there is no escaping it, sorry. The trick is not to get sucked into the rat race of appearing to know or appearing to do more than you actually know or do. To repeat the conclusion of my note, speak when you have something valuable to add and, for the love of humanity, speak when you know what you’re talking about. That discipline will become your calling card.
#3 - Lean into your pattern recognition.
The corporate world (unlike the entrepre-verse) is built on a set of absolute laws, which is well suited to introverts’ penchant for trend recognition. For example, your first task in any role is to suss out which laws you absolutely cannot break—or “cliffs,” as I like to call them. I spend the early days in a new job or on a new process figuring out where the cliffs are. Some are quite obvious, like sending one client’s information to a different client. Some are less obvious and more specific to the company, but also viewed with high importance (like whether to CC the whole email distribution or just your intended target).
If you quickly identify these cliffs, you reach Non-Liability status and everyone can take a sigh of relief. This is where everything starts. Then, if you can abide by the cliffs consistently and communicate the cliffs accurately you become competent and trusted, respectively. So pattern away!
#4 - Lean into your love of reading.
Assume that all the information you need is in the email thread, article, etc. that was just sent around. Sometimes you won’t have the knowledge / experience to recognize a hint within the email or document, but viewing every email as comprehensive is an excellent starting point. Yes, I’m telling you to scroll all the way down. Yes, I’m telling you to read the thread twice. Yes, you should note tiny differences in verbiage—it’s your moment to be Sherlock Holmes, so be him. Someone with six scheduled calls, three kids at three different schools, and a doctor’s appointment selected those words, so treat them like breadcrumbs in a good murder mystery. Then go home and read a real murder mystery, please.
#5 - Lean…back. Yes, actually.
This last one might be very unpopular, so I am now going to speak very specifically for myself. Over the last few years, I have learned that grinding to chase titles ends in sleepless nights, unhappy mornings, and strained work relationships. Having started in this industry in my late twenties and with no related degree, I tend to feel behind and want to “catch up” by working longer, harder and smarter. This has been misinterpreted (unpleasantly) as competitive to colleagues, which is what it is. Now, I won’t tell you not to work hard, because it’s easy to say “relax” once you’re on the other side of your perceived mountain. But I will say that, if you hope to have a long career, at some point you must pay homage to your native state and let things be. The work will always be there.
Go for lonely walks. Max out your PTO. Dare to dream and take a long lunch.
If you are in a healthy company (key point) with a good team / manager (another key point), and you produce good work for a good amount of time, people will notice and advancement generally follows. If it doesn’t1, you can take everything you learned as the spoils of war, and either jump ship to another company or jump ship to your own. At least you didn’t sacrifice your peace of mind to a fickle god.
To conclude, when you focus on your strengths, you have a chance to become excellent.
As put in a great Harvard Business Review article titled Identify—And Develop—Your Natural Strengths, “when you fail to recognize your innate strengths, you also fail to see what makes you inimitable. When that happens, you miss out on opportunities to leverage your greatest skills in ways that can benefit your work, team, and society. You need to understand what sets you apart in order to use those skills [and] truly shine in your role” [emphasis mine]. Further to the point, if you don’t develop and use your natural strengths in a job that you spend 40+ hours performing, how can you hope to squeeze any satisfaction or purpose out of your days? People who use their strengths at work are happier and more engaged, and I think it can apply to traditionally more personality-derived strengths, too.
And that’s all I’ve got for you today! If you are an introvert in a corporate setting, I hope this post gives you the courage to lean into what comes naturally to you. :)
With love,
AIAL
Organizations that don’t give clearly deserved recognition are likely never going to give you yours, no matter how hard you work. Or they will make you wait so long that, when it does happen, it doesn’t even feel good. So get what you can out of the experience and skedaddle, sweetpea. Another rant topic for another day!
Ashley, what excellent points you make! So helpful for anyone working in a corporate environment! So glad you took the time to share those ideas!