Ep 288 - Personality Dynamics for Powerful Leadership with guest Jennifer Selby Long

How can understanding personality dynamics transform the way you lead and collaborate at work? In this insightful episode, host David Hall sits down with executive coach Jennifer Selby Long to explore the power of embracing both introverted and extroverted strengths within teams and organizations.

Listeners will gain valuable strategies for leading change during times of uncertainty, learn how personality patterns can be leveraged for greater team effectiveness, and discover actionable tips for optimizing communication between introverts and extroverts. Key takeaways include:

• Why every leader needs to focus on their “inner game”
• How to support introverts in voicing their ideas early and confidently in meetings
• Practical approaches for preparing teams for disruption and change
• The underestimated value of consistency and one-on-ones in leadership
• Ways to celebrate successes and build morale, even in challenging environments

Whether you're a leader facing rapid workplace changes or someone seeking to bring out the best in yourself and your team, this episode is packed with wisdom and encouragement. Tune in to boost your understanding of personality dynamics, enhance your leadership impact, and be strong.

Episode Link: QuietandStrong.com/288

After 10 years in organizational development and learning & development, Jennifer Selby Long started Selby Group to help leaders, teams, and companies thrive in a fast-changing world. Though it wasn't broadly accepted at the time, Jennifer could see that the long-worshiped approach of performance-driven leadership was beginning to crack. It simply didn't mesh with changes in the culture and the shift to a global workforce. Ironically, it didn't elicit the best performance, either.

This inspired a deep, ongoing study of how leaders can do both: get great results and build a dynamic, resilient, emotionally mature, inclusive and lasting organization. And it’s more relevant today than ever, as rapid change and ongoing uncertainty affect people and businesses everywhere , and the remnants of old control-based leadership behaviors quickly fall apart in a world of remote and hybrid work.

Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn

Transcript

Jennifer Selby Long [00:00:00]:
So, there's no reason you can't apply this performance psychology to your work as a leader. And to me, this focus on the inner game was very profound. And I recognized my problem was my inner game. My hangups were all about my outer game. I never thought I was good enough at what I did. I was certain there was, you know, it was just a matter of time. Such imposter syndrome, right? It was just a matter of time before someone who was actually really good Would boot me out of my seat and off I'd be, you know, out in the street, bag lady. And so, you know, it was so powerful for me to see, oh my God, it's my inner game that's the problem.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:00:47]:
I do have a bad attitude. I gotta fix this.

David Hall [00:01:01]:
Hello and welcome to episode 288 of the Quiet and Strong podcast, especially for introverts. I'm your host, David Hall, and the creator of quietandstrong.com. This is a weekly podcast dedicated to understanding the strengths and needs of introverts along with strategies for success. Introversion is not something to fix, but to be embraced. Normally, we will air each episode on a Monday. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform, leave a review or a rating. That would mean a lot to me and help others find the show. Tell a friend about the podcast and help get the word out there that introversion is a beautiful thing.

David Hall [00:01:35]:
After 10 years in organizational development and learning and development, Jennifer Selby Long started Selby Group to help leaders, teams, and companies in a fast-changing world. Though it wasn't broadly accepted at the time, Jennifer could see that the long-worshipped approach of performance-driven leadership was beginning to crack. It simply didn't mesh with changes in culture and the shift to a global workforce. Ironically, it didn't elicit the best performance either. This inspired a deep ongoing study of how leaders can do both, get great results and build a dynamic, resilient, emotionally mature, inclusive, and lasting organization. And it's more relevant today than ever as rapid change and ongoing uncertainty affect people and business everywhere. And the remnants of old control-based leadership behavior quickly fall apart in a world of remote and hybrid work.

David Hall [00:02:35]:
All right. Well, welcome to the Quiet and Strong podcast, Jennifer. Jennifer, it's so good to have you on today.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:02:41]:
It's my pleasure, David. I've really been looking forward to this.

David Hall [00:02:44]:
Yeah, we're going to get into the great work that you're doing. So before we do that, tell us a little bit about yourself and the journey to the work you're doing. Oh, wow.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:02:52]:
Well, I am an executive coach who has had her practice now for 29 years this year. No one's more surprised than I that that's how things turned out because it certainly didn't start that way. I named the company Selby Group in the beginning because I felt awfully lonely by myself. There was no group.

David Hall [00:03:18]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:03:20]:
And today, you know, it's, it's myself, 2 other coaches who also have some specialties beyond my own, and we have a dedicated client services coordinator. So we really are a group today. It's, it's truly Selby Group. And where we really focus an awful lot of our attention is working with leaders and with leadership teams and who need to lead in environments of a lot of disruption, a lot of change. 9 times out of 10, they themselves need to drive considerable change or transformation. And so, that is super, super, super hard. And it became our specialty almost by accident when early on, you know, rejection actually led to this. And I wanted to be a coach who coached through HR and was part of a cadre of coaches who went out and was assigned to different high potential leaders.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:04:20]:
And I thought that would be the most wonderful thing in the world. But guess who had no interest in me whatsoever? HR. Nobody in HR had any interest in hiring me. And so, you know, I had to pay the rent and it was actually business leaders. who kept hiring me to help them with these thorny, complicated, tension-filled situations. And I would be so exhausted at the end of every project to think, well, maybe now is when I'm going to get that other gig. But eventually, it became our specialty and the space where we play. And because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Been, you know, working in Silicon Valley for all those years.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:05:08]:
And so not surprisingly, many, many, many of our clients are introverts. And I took a super early interest in introversion and extroversion and in personality type dynamics in general and how we might be able to leverage those to optimize teams, to optimize leaders. And interestingly, in the end, to help work through an awful lot of things that aren't what they appear.

David Hall [00:05:35]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:05:35]:
And to come to the real solution.

David Hall [00:05:38]:
Absolutely. And so we had a chat before this not too long ago, and I was so excited to learn about your expertise in personality type. And you are an extrovert. We do allow a few extroverts on the show.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:05:51]:
I'm honored.

David Hall [00:05:54]:
But especially when they have such a solid understanding of the gifts of introverts and the gifts of extroverts, and that neither is good or bad. So I normally ask introverts, you know, what are your strengths as an introvert? So I'm gonna ask you both, what are your strengths as an extrovert? And what strengths, you know, there's many, there's many for introverts and extroverts, but what strengths are some of the common strengths that you see in the introverts that you work with?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:06:19]:
Okay. So I think that it's a super interesting question, and my answer is gonna be just a little bit of a reframe around it in the sense that what we tend to see with introverts and extroverts are patterns of behavior, and we absolutely see patterns of thought. And so, is that pattern a strength or is that pattern a weakness? The answer is always, it depends. Every single one of these things can be a double-edged sword. You know, the right tool used for the right job is an incredible strength, the right tool used for the wrong job, wrong tool for the job, that strength winds up being overused and actually not helpful for that leader or for that team member. And so, when I think about the sort of typical patterns or what extroverts tend to lean on and feel are our strengths, it is often that we are pretty fast on our feet. We can be thrown into a situation and all kinds of random crap comes up and we're just going, oh, new stimulation in the environment. What is this? Let's work with it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:07:35]:
And so, that certainly has its advantages. I think that extroverts tend to be comfortable in many business environments. I don't give credit to extroverts for that. I give credit to that to American business culture which tends to be a little biased. Toward extroverts, except in tech. Tech tends to be a little more biased toward introverts. And so I think extroverts, in the same way that, you know, anyone in an environment where there's bias in their favor, you know, you're going to go in and probably feel more at ease there and not even be aware that you feel more at ease than others. And so I think that in those, those business environments, extroverts tend to come in and feel pretty comfortable.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:08:16]:
Those are a couple biggies. When I look at introversion There is something that I consider to be such a strength, but I'm also going to talk about the double-edged sword of it. And it's that what we see— it's early days in neuroscience. Don't let anybody kid you into thinking neuroscience is some mature science like, I don't know, biology that's been around and studied for millennia. The neuroscience is new and it's growing fast. And one of the things that neuroscientists are showing us is that If someone has this preference for introversion, we call it a preference or style that comes naturally, that stimulus data, it comes into the brain and it gets processed in a portion of the brain that's taking in that data, and then something comes out of the mouth. For the extrovert, the stimulus comes in, but the processing is done through speech. through verbalization.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:09:17]:
And so, when we think about that pattern or habit of the introvert that can often be a tremendous strength is that extra processing time. You're gonna love this. Makes everyone think the introvert is smarter. There was even a study a number of years ago. I can't tell you if it's been replicated but it really stuck with me. Because the people who were being observed in the study weren't who they said they were. They were, I don't know, drama majors or actors or something. And so, they essentially conveyed the same message but once in the style of an introvert and once in the style of an extrovert.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:10:06]:
And the observers were asked to say what they thought the IQ was of each of these people they just heard speak. And they guessed their IQ. And the consistent pattern they found was when the introvert was speaking, or the alleged introvert, I guess we could say, they gauged the IQ to be higher. And so, it's a pattern. It is a strength in the sense that people will think you're smarter, will give you the benefit of the doubt on IQ. Now, where does it get a little risky for you as an introvert? I will see very much it's in these environments in which that stimulus comes at you and it came out of nowhere and you want a moment to process it. I dare say many introverts feel it is their moral and ethical duty to take a moment to process it and not just blurt something out. But then the meeting charges ahead of you and you process it and then it comes to you later.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:11:08]:
And now in many ways, the moment has passed. The other people in the room are jarred by wanting to go back. They're going, wait, the topic from— what was that? Huh? And so I think there's where there's this wonderful pattern. And it's a question of saying, where is this pattern helping me? And where do I need to just try a slightly different behavior? As a leader, it's even in terms of How do you create spaces and dynamics in which you're leveraging the natural style of both the extroverts and the introverts? Because you never really want to design your communication for one or the other. In that regard, you're not getting everything out of the team that you could, right? You're not optimizing for the team. And so, we can talk about that as well if you'd like. How the heck do you optimize for both introverts and extroverts?

David Hall [00:12:00]:
Yeah, that's a very good question because most of our teams are made up of introverts and extroverts.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:12:08]:
Sure, sure, absolutely. So there are several things to keep in mind. One is if you find that it feels like there's a lot of politics on your team, what you may have is not politics at all, but something very, very simple, which that is that different extrovert-introvert dynamic. Let me give you an example. Extrovert, something comes up right before a meeting. They go, team's got to talk about this. Boom, they bring it right into the meeting. All right, extroverts on the team are going, holy cow, boom, we got to talk about this.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:12:40]:
We got to decide on this right now. And that may be true in certain professions, in certain environments. Yeah, you got no choice. You got to do it now. You'd be crazy to wait. But for 99% of conversations, You don't actually have to finish it right that moment. The introverts meanwhile are going, whoa, that's big. We need to reflect on it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:13:02]:
But they rarely say it. Again, in the US in particular, we have an extrovert-biased culture. And so, the introverts feel like they ought not say, whoa, we should step back and give this a little time. And so, if you want to design to optimize for both, You're going to, A, send as much out in advance as you can. Because for the handful of extroverts listening to this, when you send stuff out, your introverts will read it. They will actually read it. Your extroverted employees may not. They might skim it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:13:42]:
But again, think about how people do their best thinking. Your extroverted employees aren't They're not disrespecting you. It's that they know they do their best thinking in a group. And so, they're gonna skim and wait to do their best thinking in the group. The introverts are gonna go, ooh, this requires my attention now. I wanna be familiar with it. I wanna come prepared. And so, they're going to read it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:14:03]:
So then, you're going to have, you know, people with varying degrees of preparation coming into the room. If you need to hit the team with something new that came up since then or there really is nothing you can send in advance, Yeah. Then, you need to be able to press pause and say, the goal in this meeting is to understand and explore. The goal in our next meeting, which might be just in an hour, it might be tomorrow, right? Our next conversation is going to be the decision conversation. All right? Because otherwise, what happens is boom! New stimulus comes in. Extroverts go, holy crap! We got to deal with this now!

David Hall [00:14:39]:
Ah!

Jennifer Selby Long [00:14:40]:
And, Then, the introverts go think about it. And then, the introverts are going, oh, I don't know if that was a good decision. That's probably not a good one. It's my moral and ethical obligation to raise this issue. But how is an introvert going to raise the issue? In a large group or one-on-one? The introvert's going to go one-on-one with each of the people in the meeting. To which the extrovert who called the meeting in the first place goes, well, that was really behind my back. 2 different styles, and you can see how each would be interpreted as hostile when in fact each of those people are doing what they feel is morally and ethically right. It's just that it's driven by a style they don't understand because it's unconscious in them.

David Hall [00:15:24]:
Yeah, it's very natural.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:15:26]:
Very natural.

David Hall [00:15:27]:
That's, that's probably one of the biggest differences is the way we communicate and process information, which you described beautifully. And if we don't understand that on either side, there can be conflicts that don't need to exist. And, you know, you described how introverts prepare. And the idea is that you fully participate in that meeting. And I, I tell people, speak up early, make your presence known, make it known that you have something to say, that you're engaged, you know, don't wait. Um, yes. And Do your best preparation. You can't prepare for everything, you know, but do your best.

David Hall [00:16:07]:
Do your best. Ask for time when you need it. Sometimes, like you said, maybe, maybe there's something that just has to get decided and that's, that's how it is. But where possible, allow for time for, you know, people to revisit the topic if you can. So yeah, very well described how things are different. Or if you're an introvert, understand that your colleague might need to talk things out more than you do.

David Hall [00:16:30]:
Yeah. Yes.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:16:33]:
I've told my introverted clients a couple of things. One is give yourself an assignment. So now I'm putting on 100% my coach's hat. To grow, you need to take action, not just reflect. And give yourself an assignment and pick a friend or a colleague who can hold you accountable and be supportive of this. But I want this assignment to be that within the first 5 minutes, of one of your meetings this week, you're going to say something. And give yourself a deadline. It's got to be the first 5 minutes, David.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:17:10]:
It can't be, I'm going to get in there somewhere.

David Hall [00:17:12]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:17:13]:
That just layers onto your stress through the whole meeting as you're going, when am I going to get in there? When am I going to get it? I don't want you to get more stressed out about it. I really want you to go in there and say, my fun target for myself, for my own growth, for me to contribute more is at the— by the 5-minute mark, I'm saying something. Even if all it is is, how was your weekend? You know, it doesn't matter.

David Hall [00:17:39]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:17:40]:
I'm going to contribute something by the 5-minute mark. It's an assignment I gave, believe it or not, my first ever coaching client. He was a deep introvert. He was actually quite good at what he did. Everyone on his team that he worked with was an extrovert except for him. And perception of the quality of his work was starting to go down. And I said, well, I don't know technically. I can't help you technically with what you do.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:18:12]:
Only you know if the quality of your work is actually down. But what I can do is say, I've watched you in action and I have no idea where you stand on anything. And that does make you a lower quality team member to be harsh about it if nobody knows where you stand. And if you're not talking with them after the meeting at least, they don't know where you stand. They're not getting the benefit. And he said, well, I don't know. If somebody's already saying it, why do I need to say it? Well, you have a different specialty. You bring a different angle to it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:18:49]:
You— a lot of my introverted clients who, who can lean in comfortably to the introversion and not be fearful about it become everybody's favorite thought partner because they'll patiently sit with the extrovert, to your point, and be the thought partner while the extrovert's going, I don't know, here's what I'm thinking, here's how I've got it laid out, what do you think? Really often become everyone's favorite thought partner. And so So give yourself the assignment to contribute by 5 minutes into just at least one meeting that you normally wouldn't this week. This week, please. Don't put it off in the future. And know that there is this wonderful quiet command to an introvert who is at ease with their introversion and also at ease with adapting to the needs of people who are different with them. It is the most wonderful quiet command.

David Hall [00:19:48]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:19:50]:
I admire it greatly. As an extrovert, I don't know that I'll ever have quiet command. And it really is wonderful. It really is just so wonderful to see.

David Hall [00:20:07]:
Yeah.

David Hall [00:20:07]:
And I can only imagine, you talked about a team that only had one introvert. If that person's not careful, they can be very misunderstood. If they're thinking and processing while everyone else is talking. Yes. You know, so you can build a reputation that you are engaged, that you have great ideas, that you have great thoughts, and you just gotta do it. I've heard people give advice to wait till the end. I'm like, oh no, you're— that's not gonna work.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:20:35]:
No, no, no, no. Because, you know, people need you when they need you.

David Hall [00:20:41]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:20:42]:
They need you when they need you. So they just do.

David Hall [00:20:45]:
Yeah.

David Hall [00:20:46]:
Do your best preparation ahead of time, you know?

David Hall [00:20:48]:
Yeah.

David Hall [00:20:48]:
Can't prepare for everything. Like, like we said.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:20:51]:
Yeah.

David Hall [00:20:51]:
So Jennifer, you were talking about your coaching hat. Let's talk about that. Like, how did you decide to become a coach and what's the benefit of working with a coach?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:21:00]:
Oh gosh. Well, I really fell in love with coaching when it hardly existed. You know, bearing in mind, I had an entire career before I started this business 28, 29 years ago. And I just fell in love with it because, you know, once again, hilariously, me and HR. I was an organizational development manager. And so, I was tasked with analyzing the organization with leaders and helping them determine their gaps. assess where they needed skill development. How might you best fill that gap? What's the way that's going to give you the most bang for your buck? Loved it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:21:41]:
And my boss said to me— he was really one of the most wonderful bosses I've ever had because he was so forthcoming— he said, you know, you're my successor. I've been in this role a while. I need to be able to move on to my next role, but you aren't ready. Because HR people don't like working with you. And you need to learn how to lead HR people. Because once you're in my role, you're more and more leading and influencing HR people. And I went, oh, okay. And he goes, I'm sending you off to the Center for Creative Leadership for their week-long coaching and development session that is for HR executives.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:22:27]:
Now, you're far from being an executive. You're going to have to struggle a little bit to keep up. You'll be the only one in the room who isn't. But I really want you to work with top HR people for a week and really talk with them and understand what makes them tick and understand how they lead HR teams because you have to close this gap. Like, you're great at everything you do, but HR people don't like working with you. Okay, clarity. And so off I went. And so my first coach happened to be Dr.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:23:02]:
Roberta Krause, who is the, the director, the head of the Center for Sports Psychology. She's a sports psych who coached top athletes, so athletes who went from no medal to gold medal after they worked with her. And, you know, I was like a sponge. I picked up every technique she taught. To this day, we still have a ton of sports psych in our practice because her belief was very clearly, you know, you all have the same brain. You all have the same nervous system, whether you're a leader who wants top performance or you're an athlete who wants top performance. So, there's no reason you can't apply this performance psychology to your work as a leader. And to me, this focus on the inner game was very profound.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:23:54]:
And I recognized my problem was my inner game. My hangups were all about my outer game. I never thought I was good enough at what I did. I was certain there was, you know, it was just a matter of time. Such imposter syndrome, right? It was just a matter of time. Before someone who was actually really good would boot me out of my seat and off I'd be, you know, out in the street, bag lady. And so, you know, it was so powerful for me to see, oh my God, it's my inner game that's the problem. I do have a bad attitude.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:24:32]:
I gotta fix this. And it was so profound that, you know, at that point I was coaching people in the organization that I worked for. He had also sent me off to a certification program, which I also found quite powerful, around how do you, with science, know that you're a good leader and where you need to get better through measurable indications. And so, I took those 2 things and I started to run with it. I started this practice not terribly long after when my employer relocated the company I worked for to a place that I really tried to love and just found I just really didn't want to go. I just really, really didn't want to go. And I'm very proud to say, at that point, my old boss introduced me to someone who was a head of HR to interview with her to do a project for her. And I got the project.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:25:24]:
So that right there tells you the coaching worked. I didn't turn her off. I didn't alienate her. In fact, I connected with her. I was able to demonstrate the respect she deserved. And I was able to land, land the gig. And that's how we started. That's how we started.

David Hall [00:25:42]:
Yeah.

David Hall [00:25:42]:
And that's fascinating that principles in sports psychology transfer to the business world.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:25:48]:
100%. 100%. They very, very much do. I think when, you know, looking for a coach or, you know, if your listener wants to work with a coach, I do, you know, I obviously use sports psych a lot. It's also referred to today as performance psychology. I think you want to look for that if you're looking for a coach. And if they're not using performance psych, what are they using that is action-oriented and that is about translating the inner game to the outer game? Because coaching, I hold a very strong opinion, should not be therapy. It is not corporate therapy.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:26:31]:
Your employer certainly shouldn't be paying for it if it's therapy that you need. Your insurance program should be paying for it and it should not take place in the workplace. And so, in looking for a coach, you first and foremost, you want to look for someone who has experience working directly with people like you. And like you in as many ways as possible. One of the reasons we've done a lot of work with tech leaders is that we've done a lot of work with tech leaders. And so, tech leaders go, ah, you get our world. You get our environment, you get our pressures. One of the reasons we work with a lot of introverted clients is that we've worked with a lot of introverts.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:27:10]:
They go, oh, wow, yeah, you've been there, you get it. And yes, and let me introduce you to some of those clients so you can support one another out in the world. And so do look for a coach who has the very closest experience to what you need that you can possibly find. It is a very new profession. It's kind of the Wild West. You really need to dig to find that good match for you. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I want to work with a coach that works with executives, but you know, they're a first-time manager. I'm going, well, I think you probably want to work with a coach who also works with first-time managers because that's a whole different world.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:27:50]:
Interestingly, we can find similar edges or areas that those individuals need to grow in, but they're just functioning in very different worlds and they're in different stages of their career. So you're, you're, you're best off to find someone who's worked with people as similar to you as possible in a similar situation with similar goals.

David Hall [00:28:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. So what kinds of things are— what are the common things that you're working on with people or that people are bringing to you?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:28:20]:
I would say that we have several that have been up for a while and are maybe even more up today. The first one I would say above all else is how to lead change and transformation in an environment that is constantly changing and disrupting. That's huge because, of course, our clients are leaders at various levels. And they're— by the way, our clients that we're working with actively are rarely the CEO. who has the final stage. It's that next level down that has to make it happen. And the level below them really has to make complex change happen. Those VPs and directors have really hard jobs.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:29:06]:
And they've got to convince each other and make decisions together, right? And influence one another. And that is really, really, really tricky. We tend to try to influence people through the means that influence us. And we each have a gate that you need to walk through in order to convince us. And that gate's different for different people. And so, we spend a lot of time in that space. What are those core values that those various stakeholders have in your environment? And how can you adapt your style to connect? with that core, that fundamental motivator, right? Or what my colleague Linda Behrens calls essential motivators. We each have them.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:29:57]:
And by the way, those interestingly are not connected with introversion and extroversion. And so merely reading that someone is an introvert or an extrovert won't necessarily give you that kind of information around what will influence them. It certainly will indicate a little bit about your style and interacting with them. Obviously, if you're getting a lot of reads that this is an introvert and you're an introvert, beautiful, roll with it. This will be effortless. But if you're getting those clear signals that this person's an extrovert, be ready to do a heck of a lot of listening and focusing on— remember, with the extrovert, focus on the last thing the extrovert says, not the first. Opposite for the introvert. The introvert might talk for a very long time.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:30:46]:
It's a myth that you guys don't talk. When you start talking, we hear a lot, right? The introvert might talk for a long time, but I find generally introverts start with the most important thing and then back it up to the evidence. The extrovert, unless they've had the time to prepare and they've already had this conversation, Flips that script. They're working their way up to the most important thing. And so, it's a little secret I'll tell you. If you're trying to influence an extrovert and they're going on and on and on and on and you're not sure what the point is, if you're getting exhausted, it's okay to not listen to every single word because they're needing to process, right? And you're there to help them process. Don't worry if you miss some of it. It's okay.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:31:34]:
their main point is probably going to come at the end. And so it's okay. It's okay. So those are some things to be aware of, you know, in those conversations with introverts and extroverts. But there are other portals that are super important to understand. If I could, I'll share one.

David Hall [00:31:52]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:31:52]:
It's one of the most common.

David Hall [00:31:53]:
Yeah, definitely give us an example.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:31:55]:
Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, somewhere between 38% and 50% of the population is, is, uh, has a, an essential motivator that we would call traditionalist or stabilizer in their core nature. And about half those people are introverts and half those people are extroverts. So again, you're not going to pick up that through just that IE style. Those traditionalists or stabilizers are the original risk mitigators, the original planners. They like to see a detailed plan, and if there isn't one, they like to build one. They like to think of everything that can go wrong in advance and see if it can be mitigated and find a way to mitigate. They have memories that blow my mind because if you say, I think we might try, you know, doing A, they'll go, yeah, tried that in 2018.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:32:55]:
I believe the launch was April 13th and these are the 5 things that went wrong. Here's the data to back it up. Just the classic memory like an elephant. The bigger the organization you're in, the more traditionalists you have. So, that's where it's going to be closer to 50%. So, if you're in doubt as to someone's sort of core fundamental motivator, that's a safe one to start with.

David Hall [00:33:22]:
Right.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:33:23]:
Which is someone who doesn't want to hear kind of like big ideas. They don't want to hear a lot of criticism of the organization. I think this is a mistake a lot of people make. They're like, this is messed up or inefficient and I'm here to fix it. I'm hired from this other company because you want me to do here what I did there. No, no. You're hired from the other company because we're assuming you figured things out there and you can figure things out here. But things won't be identical here.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:33:53]:
And so, really respecting what came before is extremely important even if it needs to change. Really listening. I think a lot of times, the traditionalists get stereotyped the same way introverts get stereotyped as resistors of change. They're risk managers. That's very different. Once you get why would you care about getting these people on board? Because everybody looks to them first. That's why. And so if they're looking at, you know, Brenda, and they're watching Brenda closely, and then Brenda goes, I'm on board, everyone's gonna follow Brenda.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:34:36]:
Now you might be a little hurt because they're like, why didn't they just follow me? Because Brenda's the traditionalist. Brenda's the one who's gotten their butts out of hot water in the past. Brenda's the one who protected them. from making mistakes in the past. So, they don't want to go through any more pain than they have to. There's going to be plenty of pain with any change. And so, they're all looking at Brenda. And once Brenda says, it's going to be some pain but I understand it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:34:59]:
Let's go.

David Hall [00:35:00]:
Okay.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:35:01]:
I'm in.

David Hall [00:35:02]:
I'm in.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:35:03]:
And so, it becomes super important to really listen instead of going, this person's resisting my change. Going, how can I harness Brenda's energy to actually mitigate the risk? How can I harness this for good? You better listen to every single thing she says, and you better be writing it down, because I'm telling you, Brenda's watching you closely. She's a risk mitigator, and if you're a risk, she's going to make sure she gets you out of the way.

David Hall [00:35:32]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:35:32]:
So Brenda's noting, are you writing down what I'm saying? Are you really going to address these problems? Now, she might not say it out loud. If she's an introvert, she's thinking it to you.

David Hall [00:35:42]:
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:35:44]:
But you better be writing everything down. You better be listening. You better be saying back to her, okay, Brandy, here's what I understand to be the risks. You said this, this, this, and this. Is that right? Yes. Yes, David, that's what I think the risks are. So, really think, you know, I've gone beyond the topic in introversion and extroversion, but I do think that understanding this temperament in particular is Every bit as important.

David Hall [00:36:10]:
Oh yeah, of course.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:36:12]:
Every bit as important.

David Hall [00:36:13]:
Yeah. And we talk about all these different factors. My focus is introversion and extroversion because it's still very misunderstood.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:36:20]:
Oh, absolutely.

David Hall [00:36:23]:
Absolutely. So when you were talking, I've been in so many situations where somebody new comes in and they do want to change everything, but they're not listening to Why, why things are the way they are. And that's very important to many people. It's like, yeah, we're, we're willing to change, but understand why we are where we are. Mm-hmm.

David Hall [00:36:45]:
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:36:46]:
Very common. It's, it's one of the most common mistakes I see when people come into an organization from outside. Yeah, 100%.

David Hall [00:36:56]:
So what are some other keys to leading people through change?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:37:00]:
Oh gosh! So, one important thing that I think is underrated and yet, in my practice, I see it. And we even have some evidence from some research out there, which is when you're leading change, there's a lot of— you're introducing unpredictability into the environment. Humans need a certain degree of predictability. Even you as the change agent need a certain degree of predictability. You may not realize that you're working from a place of more predictability because you've done something like this before. All right, you're introducing more unpredictability, so it is extremely important for you to be personally predictable. And by this I mean be consistent in who you are. Now I'm going to tell you something which just makes it that much harder, which is my best clients manage the very tough polarity of being personally predictable and consistent where it's helpful, but staying open to changing and growing where they need to change.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:38:07]:
So what I mean by that— personally predictable. Are you a stickler for details? Carry on. Don't be a stickler for details for with one person but not with another. Don't be a stickler for details for one type of project but not another. And if you are, explain why. Explain why this one doesn't need your involvement anymore, right? Be transparent about that. Are you someone who needs people to go to the big picture first? If so, be very consistent in asking for that. People need a certain predictability.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:38:42]:
Do not cancel your one-on-ones, right? That's the first thing that goes. By one-on-ones, I mean the one-on-ones with your direct reports.

David Hall [00:38:50]:
All right.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:38:51]:
Keep those preferably every week, maybe every 2 weeks if it's a long, long, long-term relationship and they work independently. But keep your one-on-ones. Be steady and consistent. Be sure to ask the same questions every time. Don't just get to work on projects. All right? You want to be that rock, right? That person who is consistent for them even as you're introducing so much change into the environment. It's very easy as a leader of change to get into your own echo chamber the higher up you go because there's not much incentive for people to tell you the hard truth. It's one of the reasons coaches exist, right? We're funneling in the hard truth.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:39:35]:
And so, find ways that you can get the hard truth coming back up to you for how this is actually going. How are people responding? Face the hard truths about yourself. You know, the inner game, the 6 inches between our ears, is often the biggest barrier to effective leadership. And so, what is your inner game? What is your own relationship with change? What is your own relationship with your own growth? How do you feel about the things where you're getting feedback you need to grow or change? Are you resisting that? Are you open to that? And, you know, As you can imagine, working in tech, a lot of our clients are very analytical people. You know, you say self-reflection, they're like, ah, where's the door? Get me out of here. But, you know, it is what it is. The leaders who do that tough self-reflection and continue it, don't just go, okay, I did my self-reflection at the launch of the change, I'm done. But continue steadily with that and with adapting their behavior accordingly while maintaining what is steady in rock.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:40:44]:
Those are the ones that succeed at leading change. It's them. It's not others. And a lot of people think it's so much about having a good change management plan and a good roadmap. And it is. But if that's all you have, you're probably going to fall short of what I call change leadership, which is keeping people hopeful and productive through significant change. If you're leading software engineers right now, you better be good at change leadership because you just changed their jobs 100% in the last 6 to 8 months? How do you keep them— keeping them hopeful and productive? Being able to effectively deal with the massive amount of conflict that goes on between organizations and between people when you have a lot of change. We're not built to be in a lot of endless interpersonal conflict.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:41:34]:
But there's going to be a lot of conflict. So, how effective are you at managing people through that, at working that out with others? That is a key part of change leadership. Helping people get new skills, supporting them in developing new relationships. Every significant organizational or technology change means a change to relationships. You're probably working closer with some people you didn't work with before. Maybe people you didn't know very well, but you heard weren't trustworthy. Ah, so all of those elements are, are key to being an effective leader of change.

David Hall [00:42:18]:
Yeah. Something you said a minute ago was about the one-on-ones and why sometimes are those not prioritized and what is an effective one-on-one? What should be happening there? Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:42:30]:
Yeah. Those get deprioritized, in my opinion, it is entirely because in order to get promoted into leadership, you have to be a good problem solver. And that's usually who gets promoted into that first level of management. So what do you get really oriented toward if you're getting rewarded for it? Solving problems. If it doesn't seem to be a problem, are you going to pay attention to it? Probably not. It's just, it's just a natural human failing. We go toward where the reward is. We don't pay much attention to what's working because we get rewarded for solving the problems, right? Our brains also tend to go toward the negative anyway, right? Remember, we're descended from people who survived because they went, the rustling behind those beautiful flowers is probably a cougar that's coming to kill me.

David Hall [00:43:29]:
Right.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:43:30]:
Not, aren't those pretty flowers?

David Hall [00:43:32]:
Hmm.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:43:33]:
And aren't they pretty rustling like that? And so, we're a little bit hardwired to notice the negative. But the problem is, if the working relationship is great and if you're pleased with someone's work, that's not a problem. You don't see it as a problem to be solved. And so, you get into the bad habit of going, well, we don't really need to sync up this week. And then, they get really busy because they're great at what they do. So, they get busy. A lot of demands on them. Well, they're like, can we cancel this week, boss? I'm really busy.

David Hall [00:44:05]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:44:06]:
So, you just sort of slip into this bad habit and you get a little bit out of touch. And they're slipping into the same habit. So now, they're a little bit out of touch with their teams. And so, you lose this natural feedback loop.

David Hall [00:44:21]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:44:22]:
that would happen if it were steady. If it were steady. And that's super dangerous if you're in high pressure, lots of disruption, big change. Boy, you wind up in a little echo chamber from your own organization and from your own people. And then you can be stunned. You can have a really bad surprise.

David Hall [00:44:44]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:44:45]:
Almost as bad, you can have a really good surprise and now you have no idea how to replicate it.

David Hall [00:44:51]:
Right.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:44:51]:
Because you got out of touch. And so, a good one-on-one to me includes questions like, what was great this past week? What'd you love? What was happy? What was not good about this past week? What support do you need to help you with the stuff that wasn't great? Have we acknowledged enough the stuff that was great? You know, did we get a note out about that team's accomplishment?

David Hall [00:45:24]:
Yeah, I love that. We need to hear it. We need to hear it.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:45:27]:
We need to hear it. We need to hear it. You know, there's ample negative feedback that naturally comes to us, right? When the lines of code don't run or the bot goes rogue or— sorry, my examples are all pretty techie. We get plenty of negative feedback that comes to us. Oh sure, I work with a whole product group in publishing. Subscription rates go down or ad revenues go down. There's ample negative feedback in the environment. And so, ensuring that on a weekly basis, you're asking your directs, hey, you know what? What was great? Hey, while we're at it, should we celebrate this? Should we be public about it? And if so, how might we be public about it? One of my wonderful introverted clients came up with something terrific in the organization he walked into.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:46:16]:
He had a 40% attrition rate, which means 40% of people were quitting every year.

David Hall [00:46:23]:
Oh, wow!

Jennifer Selby Long [00:46:24]:
Horrible, right? One of the things he did— he did many things to turn it around. We worked intently. For example, the first 3 months I worked with him, all we focused on was influencing your boss and your stakeholders so that you can get the money you need to hire the replacements at a higher level. That's all we focused on. But meanwhile, he was thinking about, you know, like I said, is there anything that can be celebrated here? I mean, they're leaving because it's bad. Is there anything? So, he came up with this idea of the Friday Five. And I love it. It first just went out to his organization.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:46:58]:
He'd ask his directs, the VPs, hey, send me something good that happened, an accomplishment to highlight. He picked 5. And he put them in an email that went out every Friday afternoon at 3 o'clock. The Friday Five. 5 great accomplishments of this week. 5 things to celebrate. 5 things to commend. Well, this Friday Five got so popular that eventually it went out to the whole company.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:47:23]:
Everybody wanted to see the Friday Five. I think even seeing someone else's success was encouraging to others, right? It triggers a positive neural network.

David Hall [00:47:33]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:47:34]:
And so, I do think those one-on-ones habitually slip into problem-solving around stuff that isn't working. And there's so much value you can unlock in your organization if you don't fall prey to that temptation to spend your time on the thing you do well, which is solving problems and addressing challenges and fighting fires if you push yourself to the thing you probably don't do as well, which is asking, what did you like about last week?

David Hall [00:48:07]:
What did you love?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:48:07]:
What went great? Should we celebrate any of that? What's our commitment to do that? How are we going to do it? You get so much return and your investment is exactly $0.00. But I will admit it's an investment of time, right? And we all feel pressed for time.

David Hall [00:48:24]:
Yes.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:48:25]:
So, the way that my clients have had the greatest success at implementing this type of approach is they're adamant that those are the first questions in the one-on-one. And then you get to them. You have to get to them. They're the first questions.

David Hall [00:48:40]:
Yeah, that's great advice there. Do it first. Jennifer, I have one more question for you.

David Hall [00:48:45]:
All right.

David Hall [00:48:46]:
So, I'm sure in your world, especially working in tech, I'm sure AI is a topic that comes up about change.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:48:53]:
Yes.

David Hall [00:48:54]:
What do you have to say about the change that occurs rapidly with AI?

David Hall [00:48:59]:
Wow.

David Hall [00:48:59]:
Wow.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:49:00]:
So it's a huge question, and I'm gonna take it a little bit more down to the individual level here and, and a little bit less at the leadership level. Because at the leadership level, I would say it's everything I said on steroids.

David Hall [00:49:14]:
Okay.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:49:15]:
All right. You, you have to be that much more aware of your own habits and assumptions and your own relationship with change, or you're going to steer the boat wrong because it's not going to be driven from a self-aware place. So all of that stuff on steroids applies. But at the individual level, I would urge some caution in terms of what we're seeing in terms of cognition and AI, which is be very, very thoughtful about how you use AI. If you try to use it to do the hard thinking for you, we are seeing that people's capacity to do the hard thinking deteriorates, and it deteriorates fast. This is an important muscle to keep strong, and it is a muscle that, just like a muscle you gotta work out, you know, you want your biceps to be strong, you know, you can't ask AI to exercise your bicep for you. And if you do for a month, you're going to be weaker. And you're going to be noticeably immediately weaker.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:50:16]:
And so be very careful about it. So for example, if you need to write things for a living, write your stuff. It's really hard. I know I have to write stuff for a living. I hate every minute of it when I have to write it because it's so hard to take everything going on in your brain and put it out there in a way that's going to work for others. And so it's tough. It's so much easier to say, here's a couple of things I'm thinking of, AI, write it for me. But your cognitive abilities will go down if you do that.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:50:51]:
Sure, if you look at your writing, you go, this is so boring, I'm falling asleep, then you feed it to the bot and say, can you make this more provocative?

David Hall [00:51:02]:
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:51:02]:
Or, can you make this edgier? Or, can you make this more fun-filled? Whatever Whatever you want, fine. Use it to give you feedback, right, as an editor. But do not slip into letting it do your hard cognition for you, because writing isn't really just about writing, it's about thinking, isn't it? And so be very careful, depending on your role, of what you give to it. Now, if you're a software engineer, you know, Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're going to tell the 5 bots to do 5 things you used to do. But what is the cognition, the hard cognition that you need to do that the bot can't do? It's usually around complexity. Bots are fabulous swimming in their own lane, right? But it's about complexity. Often, it's about the messy things, right? The hard cognition, the judgment, the values.

David Hall [00:51:58]:
Right.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:51:59]:
deciding what's important and what isn't important. These are all very much human things. And so, unfortunately, those are the human things that are hard and that we would be most tempted to say, can a bot just do that? Don't let your cognition slip. Don't let your cognitive skills slip, right?

David Hall [00:52:15]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:52:15]:
It's the same thing we're discovering with excessive phone use. You know, don't even have your phone near you if you can. If you're supporting live ops, I get that that is really tough. But is there a segment of the day where you can literally put the phone in another room? We're seeing cognition is impaired even by having it sitting next to you upside down. And so social skills drop considerably. Now, work is nothing if not social. And my introverted clients have already told me many times over the years, That could be part of the challenge. It's getting out to the social element of work.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:52:57]:
Don't make it harder for yourself. Don't make it harder for yourself by like having the phone nearby as a temptation, right? Make it easier for yourself. Set the phone away. Make it easier for yourself in the long run by doing the hard cognitive work and the judgment calls and the analysis that the bot really can't quite do yet.

David Hall [00:53:20]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:53:20]:
Does that help?

David Hall [00:53:21]:
Oh yeah. So Jennifer, this has been a wonderful conversation. I could talk to you all day.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:53:27]:
Um, oh, thank you.

David Hall [00:53:27]:
Is there a thought you wanna leave us with?

Jennifer Selby Long [00:53:30]:
Oh gosh.

David Hall [00:53:31]:
Wow.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:53:32]:
First, I would just like to say I am just so honored and so thrilled to be on your show because this is one of my most favorite topics in the whole wide world. I've, I've conducted a deep study of personality dynamics and type for 33 years now. And I was just so excited when you called to be able to talk about this. So thank you very much. I, I would like to encourage anyone who wants a lot more resources or who just wants to reach out and book 15 minutes to bend my ear on something, just go to selbigroup.com. Very simple. You'll see I have about 100 blog articles. You can search by subject.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:54:15]:
This podcast is posted there. Other podcasts that I've been on have been posted there, and you can just click on a little button to either send me an email or book a call, and you can reach me directly. So please don't hesitate. If you're, if you're a listener of David's show, you are more than welcome to reach out. So just head over to selbygroup.com, see what you can find that's of use to you. I think you'll find a lot of stuff that's really helpful.

David Hall [00:54:43]:
Thanks again, Jennifer.

Jennifer Selby Long [00:54:45]:
My great pleasure. Take care.

David Hall [00:54:48]:
Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you. I hope you take the time to explore other episodes and learn from other amazing guests. Remember, if you're interested in getting to know yourself better, there is now a free Typefinder personality assessment on the Quiet and Strong website. This free assessment will give you a brief report, including the 4-letter Myers-Briggs code. I'll add a link in the show notes. And I'd love to connect with you. Reach out at david@quietandstrong.com or check out the quietandstrong.com website, which includes blog posts and links to social media for Quiet and Strong and much more.

David Hall [00:55:24]:
Send me topics or guests you would like to see on the show. So many great things about being an introvert. And so we need those to be understood. Get to know your introverted strengths and needs. And be strong.