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environment and the people that are around you at that time. No one is
truly an introvert or an extrovert all of the time. Now in 2012 Susan Cain
gave a TED Talk called the power of introverts. She inspired my talk.
She said when she was growing up she felt like her quiet, introverted way
was wrong - wrong. Like, imagine that, imagine growing up thinking that
the way that you are is wrong. She also said that we live in a world
where the extrovert ideal is desired and as a design leader this certainly
feels true to me because when people paint a picture of what they expect
a leader to look like it often looks something like this. A leader
commands the centre of attention, a leader is outgoing, talkable and
confident. A leader is able to deliver charismatic speeches, rallying large
audiences at a drop of a hat. A leader is, in essence, an extrovert. Now,
I am not saying that this is a bad way to lead, I am saying it is not the
only way to lead and certainly not all the time, which begs the question; if
we can accept that the world is the way that it is, a world that desires
extroverts then how can we, as introverted designers and design leaders
operate successfully within it. If you are an introvert and you are happy
in an individual contributor role you can probably get away by focussing
on pushing pixels but if you want to lead, especially people leadership,
then your pixels are now people and you can't push people the same way
as you push pixels so how can an introverted design leader succeed?
Now the answer to this question is not be more extroverted. Now
I've tried that, it's lame, it always felt unnatural and instead the
techniques that I'll be sharing with you have allowed me to remain my
true authentic self, or, in other words, how can we use our introverted
ways not as a flaw, now as if there is something wrong with us, but to use
our introverted ways as a super power?
Now I want to take a moment to acknowledge the world that we live
in today. You know, I've given this talk before, but those talks when I