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I am going to start this with a confession – I am, in several ways, an Introvert. This may come as a shock to some who know me, but functionally I am very much an introvert. I get tired quickly when I spend time around people and need peace to recharge and recover, I also like to have time to myself during the work day. Unlike many of my extrovert friends and colleagues, I am not always comfortable picking up the phone to ring people either.
That said, my introversion is relatively small and balanced by me being comfortable speaking to large groups – hence things like podcasts – similarly I am comfortable with media engagement and many of the other things that terrify others and equally terrified a younger version of me.
Introverts and extroverts come in all shapes and sizes, there are the extremes of both scales, people who are highly introverted will on occasion struggle to engage in even simple one on one conversations and anything larger can induce a sense of panic and fatigue. Similarly extreme extroverts can rely so much on external stimulation to charge their batteries they end up draining everyone else around them.
So, how can introverts best fit into virtual teams and remote work without their introversion leaving them completely disconnected?
Having spend 35 years of my professional career as and working around engineers, a profession noted for it’s introverts, I have definitely seen my fair share of quiet and introspective soul’s. Amazingly talented people who like nothing more than to be left alone with their data and calculations. Many of these folks are absolutely wonderful to work with and some lovely humans, but ask them to communicate with others and they will often fold in on themselves. Many of the introvert engineers (and you can substitute any other profession here, I am just using them as an example) will do almost anything they can to avoid conversations, particularly with groups, except where the topic is technical and one they feel worth their time. Sadly, for many of them this means that on line calls are technical only and miss the human sharing that is so important to build relationships.
Making it work
If you find yourself with a number of introverts in your team you often need to be the one to do the reaching out, to call them individually or in small groups for discussions and alignment conversations. Don’t leave the communications to them until you can see that they are engaging without your involvement. Once they get to that point though you should be able to step back and just monitor things, but you will need to remain vigilant as only a few missed calls can rapidly lead to a longer term communications breakdown.
Essentially, particularly with deep introverts, the tendency is to revert to what they find comfortable, which is to maximise time away form others to conserve energy.
I’d also caution against pairing deep introverts and strong extroverts too often. They will drive each other to distraction through the mismatch of personality. The introvert will not want to engage and the extrovert will need to engage so that each of them can maintain their energy levels. And, when things go wrong you will be the one left to fix things.
In a virtual team, where you will have a mix of personality types in a team, introverts and extroverts will find a natural balance. The introverts will be able to focus on their tasks, internalizing their energy levels, while the extroverts will be able to engage more externally and charge their batteries through conversations and communications. Where things get harder is if you have deep introverts working alone, whether as part of a virtual team where they themselves are alone or with only introverts in a small team, or in a simple work from home arrangement where the introvert is offsite working from their kitchen table for an extended duration. In this situation the risk of disconnection and marginalization between the individual and the team, and consequently from the project, increases.
So, absolutely, introverts can work and definitely thrive in remote work situations, but like everyone else, they and the leaders of the organisation need to be vigilant to make sure they remain connected.