Not All Engineers Are Introverts

There is a stereotype of engineers floating around: “don’t like to socialize, have poor social skills and are reserved”. This is the opposite of me.. and I’m and engineer.

Years ago, I was talking with someone after knowing them for a few weeks and when talking about work she exclaimed: “YOU’RE AN ENGINEER? I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED?!?!”

This stereotype needs to stop because it’s probably hurting your team.Let’s start with decision making:

Inclusive decision making for both types

In meetings, people will have different levels of comfort to speak up:

Introverts generally don’t like to speak up in meetings, and prefer to take time to think about ideas before sharing.

Extroverts generally like to speak in meetings and they do best working through ideas by talking it through with others.

How can we be inclusive of both types of people?

• Record Meetings — Record the meetings for those who want to process the content again.
• Don’t Decide in the Meeting — Gives everyone (but especially introverts) time to process and think it through, to share their ideas later BEFORE a decision is made.
• Encourage people to work continue meeting to work through the problem — This helps the extrovert accelerate their processing of ideas.
• Allow for synchronous time — Extroverts work through their ideas by talking with others. Facilitate times they can do so

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