You've probably been there before, stuck in a room with opinion slowly gravitating toward the most insistent or loudest voice, despite your strong argument - unspoken, alas - that it's a rotten idea.
In this exceptionally brief RSA Animation, Susan Cain, the author of the best selling "Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World the Can't stop Talking," wants you to know that it's our culture's extroversion bias at work.
There is no correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas. I mean, like zero.
She targets that bias with this bit of gentle sarcasm from her book:
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), the psychiatrist’s bible of mental disorders, considers the fear of public speaking to be a pathology — not an annoyance, not a disadvantage, but a disease — if it interferes with the sufferer’s job performance. 'It’s not enough,' one senior manager at Eastman Kodak told the author Daniel Goleman, 'to be able to sit at your computer excited about a fantastic regression analysis if you’re squeamish about presenting those results to an executive group.' (Apparently it’s OK to be squeamish about doing a regression analysis if you’re excited about giving speeches.)
Cain, Susan (2012-01-24). Quiet (p. 31). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
We need every kind of mind.
Wayne