Here's to the introverts

Yesterday I received a valuable reminder of the importance of diversity and inclusion in any successful team. Not just in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social background or age, but in terms of personality types and different ways of thinking.

During a much-needed team day that gave us chance to regroup after losing a few colleagues over the summer, Natasha Mahmoudian ran an excellent session based on some previous profiling work we'd taken part in, using the Insights colour wheel methodology.

As if to prove one of the main points she would go on to make a bit later, I felt an instant connection when we realised we were both 'yellow' - that's to say sociable, positive and persuasive (on a good day). "Of course," I joked, "all of the skills and confidence you'd expect in brilliant comms people." And the yellow table went on to have an emotional, friendly and demonstrative discussion about how much we appreciated face to face communications and a personal touch.

It was only when we were asked to find a colleague on the opposite side of the colour wheel, blue in my case, that I got a nudge on just how brilliantly different people can be. While discussing how we would go about resolving conflict with another individual, I was struck by the stark contrast in attitude between myself and my partner. Whereas I was gung-ho, passionate and suggesting I'd immediately look for ways to find common ground, my counterpart talked of needing time to analyse the situation, to formulate the best, most considered approach - and also alluded to the likely use of calm, written communications, tact and logic.

It's hardly the first time I've been involved in such profiling work and I've always been an advocate of diversity in all its forms, but our chat - and the subsequent contributions from right across the spectrum of the team - really did remind me of that age-old piece of wisdom: take time to understand people's motivations, personal style and strengths, and adapt your behaviour to suit, to get the best from any team.

The 'quieter', more analytical people may need a bit of encouragement, or even just time to think, but they can contribute just as much, if not more, as the confident, outspoken ones. So if you're a bit like me, remember to zip-it from time to time and listen. The experience prompted me to find this TED Talk on The Power of Introverts which I hope you might find interesting and entertaining too.