Quiet Quotes

“There’s only one problem with Osborn’s breakthrough idea: group brainstorming doesn’t actually work. One of the first studies to demonstrate this was conducted in 1963. Marvin Dunnette, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Subtractor,” a boxlike contraption of wires, knobs, and gizmos. But the awkwardness of those years didn’t deter him from pursuing his dream; it probably nurtured it. He would never have learned so much about computers, Woz says now, if he hadn’t been too shy to leave the house.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Teens who are too gregarious to spend time alone often fail to cultivate their talents “because practicing music or studying math requires a solitude they dread.” Madeleine L’Engle, the author of the classic young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time and more than sixty other books, says that she would never have developed into such a bold thinker had she not spent so much of her childhood alone with books and ideas.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“What’s so magical about solitude? In many fields, Ericsson told me, it’s only when you’re alone that you can engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful—they’re counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place. It has many powerful advocates. “Innovation—the heart of the knowledge economy—is fundamentally social,” writes the prominent journalist Malcolm Gladwell.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explores the influence of “Connectors”—people who have a “special gift for bringing the world together” and “an instinctive and natural gift for making social connections”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Since it had to happen,” King told the crowd, “I’m happy it happened to a person like Rosa Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character. Mrs. Parks is unassuming, and yet there is integrity and character there.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Intuitively, she had engaged in an act of passive resistance, a precept named by Leo Tolstoy and embraced by Mahatma Gandhi,” writes the historian Douglas Brinkley in a wonderful biography of Parks. It was more than a decade before King popularized the idea of nonviolence and long before Parks’s own training in civil disobedience, but, Brinkley writes, “such principles were a perfect match for her own personality.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“.” But with their natural ability to inspire, extroverted leaders are better at getting results from more passive workers.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Extroverts, on the other hand, can be so intent on putting their own stamp on events that they risk losing others’ good ideas along the way and allowing workers to lapse into passivity. “Often the leaders end up doing a lot of the talking,” says Francesca Gino, “and not listening to any of the ideas that the followers are trying to provide”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Because of their inclination to listen to others and lack of interest in dominating social situations, introverts are more likely to hear and implement suggestions. Having benefited from the talents of their followers, they are then likely to motivate them to be even more proactive. Introverted leaders create a virtuous circle of proactivity, in other words. In the T-shirt-folding study, the team members reported perceiving the introverted leaders as more open and receptive to their ideas, which motivated them to work harder and to fold more shirts.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“But in the case of this commander, says Grant, people respected not just his formal authority, but also the way he led: by supporting his employees’ efforts to take the initiative. He gave subordinates input into key decisions, implementing the ideas that made sense, while making it clear that he had the final authority. He wasn’t concerned with getting credit or even with being in charge; he simply assigned work to those who could perform it best.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“But when he analyzed what the highest-performing companies had in common, the nature of their CEOs jumped out at him. Every single one of them was led by an unassuming man like Darwin Smith. Those who worked with these leaders tended to describe them with the following words: quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated. The lesson, says Collins, is clear. We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“I worry that there are people who are put in positions of authority because they’re good talkers, but they don’t have good ideas,” he said. “It’s so easy to confuse schmoozing ability with talent. Someone seems like a good presenter, easy to get along with, and those traits are rewarded. Well, why is that? They’re valuable traits, but we put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The “Bus to Abilene” anecdote reveals our tendency to follow those who initiate action—any action. We”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“You see this all the time. People ask, ‘How did this happen, how did we pay so much?’ Usually it’s said that they were carried away by the situation, but that’s not right. Usually they’re carried away by people who are assertive and domineering. The risk with our students is that they’re very good at getting their way. But that doesn’t mean they’re going the right way.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“One of Don’s classmates was in a group lucky to include a young man with extensive experience in the northern backwoods. He had a lot of good ideas about how to rank the fifteen salvaged items. But his group didn’t listen, because he expressed his views too quietly.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Our action plan hinged on what the most vocal people suggested,” recalls the classmate. “When the less vocal people put out ideas, those ideas were discarded. The ideas that were rejected would have kept us alive and out of trouble, but they were dismissed because of the conviction with which the more vocal people suggested their ideas. Afterwards they played us back the videotape, and it was so embarrassing.” The Subarctic Survival Situation”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“If you’re an introvert, you also know that the bias against quiet can cause deep psychic pain. As a child you might have overheard your parents apologize for your shyness. (“ Why can’t you be more like the Kennedy boys?” the Camelot-besotted parents of one man I interviewed repeatedly asked him.) Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell”—that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
—MAHATMA GANDHI”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“if you were staffing an investment bank, management professor Kuhnen told me, you’d want to hire not only reward-sensitive types, who are likely to profit from bull markets, but also those who remain emotionally more neutral. You’d want to make sure that important corporate decisions reflect the input of both kinds of people, not just one type. And you’d want to know that individuals on all points of the reward-sensitivity spectrum understand their own emotional preferences and can temper them to match market conditions.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured. If an introverted child needs help with social skills, teach her or recommend training outside class, just as you’d do for a student who needs extra attention in math or reading. But celebrate these kids for who they are.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“BOSS TO TED AND ALICE. Ted, I’m sending Alice to the sales conference because she thinks faster on her feet than you. TED. (speechless) … BOSS. So, Alice, we’ll send you on Thursday— TED. She does not!”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Words are potentially dangerous weapons that reveal things better left unsaid. They hurt other people; they can get their speaker into trouble.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Imagine you work hard to prepare a talk on a subject you care about. You get your message across, and when you finish the audience rises to its feet, its clapping sustained and sincere. One person might leave the room feeling, “I’m glad I got my message across, but I’m also happy it’s over; now I can get back to the rest of my life.” Another person, more sensitive to buzz, might walk away feeling, “What a trip! Did you hear that applause? Did you see the expression on their faces when I made that life-changing point? This is great!”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Some people are more certain of everything than I am of anything.
—ROBERT RUBIN, In an Uncertain World”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“But if our entire population consisted of warriors, there would be no one to notice, let alone battle, potentially deadly but far quieter threats like viral disease or climate change.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“mighty personality, to impart his salesman’s touch. He wants us not only to feel great but to radiate waves of energy, not just to be liked, but to be well liked; he wants us to know”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“you speak firmly on the basis of bad information, you can lead your people into disaster. But if you exude uncertainty, then morale suffers, funders won’t invest, and your organization can collapse.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“The rise of industrial America was a major force behind this cultural evolution. The nation quickly developed from an agricultural society of little houses on the prairie to an urbanized,”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking