Quiet

Key takeaways:

- I liked this book. It helped me understand my style, why I am the way I am, and how to use my personality to be successful.
- This book started out really well, then I feel like the back half lost a lot of steam. I think this is probably a consequence of publishers requiring books to be a certain length. I understand why they do this, as I would probably have a mental block against buying a book that was only 50 pages, yet it is unfortunate because this book would have been more powerful if it was only 50 pages and left out some of the other ‘fluff'.
- The plane crash game seemed really powerful. 1. You have a list of 15 or so items recovered from a plane crash. You have to rank them in order of usefulness. 2. You get into groups to rank them. 3. Compare your individual and group rankings against the ‘answer key' created by a wilderness survival expert. If any individual scores higher than the group, you lose! It helps teach the importance of getting everyone's ideas and making sure to include the quieter group members.
- Presentation skills vs ideas. It is easy to get swept up by a good presenter even if their ideas aren't good. At the same time it is easy to ignore someone has good ideas but bad presentation.
- Right Solutions is a tech company that has employees submit ideas through an online portal. This helps offset the good idea/good presenter problem.
- The bus to Abilene: If someone suggests an idea because they think it is what someone else wants, and everyone else agrees because they think it is what the first person wants, you are on the bus to Abilene. You don't want to go to Abilene.
- “I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.”
- When Jim Collins was writing Good to Great, he found all of the companies were led by a quiet, unassuming CEO. The people who worked with these CEOs described them as “quiet, humble modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated.” Collins says, “The lesson 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.”
- Re-read 2:04:30 for about five minutes. Good conversation about CEOs.
- Open floor plan offices don't seem to work. They lead to lower productivity, impair memory, high staff turnover, sickness and hostility.
- Since reading Range, by David Epstein I have been a big believer in innovation and groups of people from diverse backgrounds working together to solve problems. I had always assumed doing that as a group was the answer. This book suggests that it would be far better to give people time to consider the problems ahead of time, then after they have had a chance to brainstorm privately, you should get them together in a group.