A recent New York Times article entitled The Rise of the New Group Think by Susan Cain gave me – an uber extrovert – trepidation. Cain is the author of newly published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. The gist of the article is about how important solitude is for innovation and how introverts may have an advantage in creative thinking. The current trend in work, education and religious institutions is to congregate in big groups. Think brainstorming sessions. And it’s this lack of alone time that causes people to “create fake meetings in order to avoid a real one.” Although I personally thrive with a high volume of interaction with people (as an extrovert it is how I am wired to I give and get energy), I also find that I am most creative when I am alone. I have had some of my best ideas and moments of clarity during a solitary jog. For me, the key is often to have the right balance of time to think alone (less time as a percent of the total) and time around other people (more time). When I have too much alone time, I am actually less productive and certainly less creative. But what I realized through reading the article is that that is the trick for everyone – it is just that for many people the need is to have more time alone to be creative and productive but that the current trend is for that time to become harder and harder to find.
-Amy
