Unlocking the Power of Introversion in Leadership & Workplaces with Tim Yeo

Gerry Scullion: [00:00:00] Hey folks, and welcome back to another episode of This is HCD. My name is Jerry Scion, and today we're gonna be talking about leadership. Introversion and the invisible emotional toll of workplace dynamics. I'm gonna be speaking to the wonderful Australian VA poet leader and is the author of The Quiet Achiever and a Design Leader is Beta Mission to help acquire people thrive.

Gerry Scullion: Our work. Now, something a little bit more personal on mice. My take in this over the last number of years, I really have learned that a lot of the tension that was in my life came to the fact that I too am an an, an introvert. Many people, uh, who got to work with me kind of like look me funny because I do mask an awful lot of my introversions.

Gerry Scullion: We discussed this in great detail with Tim. Tim's really remarkable leader in this space. Now, if you've ever felt drained after a day of meetings

mm-hmm.

Gerry Scullion: Uh, struggle to be heard in noisy environments, but wondered whether leadership is one for loud and bold. This really [00:01:00] is a great episode for you.

Gerry Scullion: There's three key takeaways in this episode that I want to focus on, and then we just, we really did focus on this quite a lot. Introversion is not shyness. It's about how we manage our energy, and Tim shares how understanding this has reshaped how he works, and also how we can work and lead teams in organizations.

Gerry Scullion: The second of the three key takeaways I wanna talk about is the leadership doesn't have to have one voice. And this is something I saw many times over the decades that I was working. Um, as a full-time employee, there seems to be a very macho, kind of, uh, male dominated conversation or behavioral type that, that persists an organization.

Gerry Scullion: And myself and Tim really challenge this myth of the extroverted ideal and offers a more inclusive vision. Of what great leadership looks like. You talk about tactical tools for introverts, so if you are sort who identify as an introvert, [00:02:00] we want to make sure that what you get outta this episode is actionable.

Gerry Scullion: So please stay listening. Um, I think you'll find there's lots of great tools and tips in there from Tim in that book. Again, the quiet achiever encourage you to get it. For preparing for meetings to reclaiming time for recovery. Recovery, Tim shared practical ways to thrive without burning out. Now. Um, folks, if you are listening to this podcast and you've listened to it more than once or twice, you really would appreciate it if you liked and subscribe to the podcast.

Gerry Scullion: It helps those magic algorithms. Really play some more emphasis and shine a light on the great work that we do here at this is a TD. Again, this conversation really with Tim is, is really about honor honoring how we as human beings are wired and designing work and workplaces that actually support human diversity.

Gerry Scullion: I. It really underpins a lot of the work that I've been focusing on the last couple of years. And again, big shout out to Megan Dell before I forget who introduced or reintroduced himself. And Tim, we met many, many years ago, um, was I lived in Australia, [00:03:00] so I know it's gonna be a great episode. I know you're gonna love it.

Gerry Scullion: Before we jump into that, just a quick shout out. If you're looking to create a more inclusive and human-centered environment to your organization, sign up for a free five day email course on kick starting a human-centered service design approach. The links in the description below if you go to this is hate cd.com.

Gerry Scullion: You will note out, stumbled across promotional link. Go and get into it. I think you'll find it very valuable. Let's get into the episode of Tim. Hope you enjoy it.

Gerry Scullion: Tim Delight, just have you on the podcast. For our listeners, maybe start off, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do.

Tim Teo: So my name is Tim Yo, and last year, some of you might have seen that I wrote a book called The Quiet Achiever. Um, I'm a designer and a design leader, and I've been doing that for I think the last 20 years or so.

Tim Teo: Half of that time was probably spent in consulting [00:04:00] and the other half was working in house. And when I say working in house, most of that time was probably working for startups in Australia that you probably never heard about.

Tim Teo: Except for Jerry. I think he at least knows one of the places I worked there. But the common thing as a designer and a design leader working in those environments throughout those 20 years, there was one common thread, which is I always found myself working in environments, being in meeting rooms with people with strong opinions and loud voices.

Tim Teo: And as my own personal journey, I didn't really even know or come across or fully understand the word introvert until the year 2012 when I first saw Susan Kane's Ted Talk, uh, called The Power of Introverts. And it was really the first time that I understood or had the language to describe, uh, who I was and how being me felt like.[00:05:00]

Tim Teo: Before that, I just thought I was shy, always thought I could do more to be like other people at work who seem to be doing things so much easier, they could do public speaking and at the drop of a hat. Um, all these role models for leadership, whether it's in design or in business, it always seemed to fit this kind of a extrovert ideal.

Tim Teo: The picture of an extrovert ideal. The truth is, for a long time I always felt like I wasn't good enough. I felt like there was something wrong with me. So for a long time I pretended it's a very common story when you speak of introverts. They pretend, and for a while, for me it worked, but I was exhausted because I was always trying to pretend it felt like I had was wearing a mask.

Tim Teo: Then one day I, the masters got so heavy that I just couldn't put it on anymore, so I had to find my own way. Um, during the course of that time, [00:06:00] I was at the stage of my career where I felt I could give back and I put everything into a talk, which ended up being design leadership for introverts. And it contained many of the pieces of what finally ended up into the book, the Quiet Achiever.

Tim Teo: Um, and that's in a nutshell, uh, uh, short introduction of who I am.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. Really, really impressive introduction. Um, so let's talk about what we mean by introverted. So you mentioned there that it was in 2012, you heard TED talk. Um, what does it mean to be an introvert?

Tim Teo: Well, first of all, the first thing I'll say is introversion is not the same as being shy.

Tim Teo: Being shy is a fear of social judgment. So an introvert, an extrovert can also be shy. Really, um, introversion, extrovert is how we actually respond to stimulation. So stimulation could be working in noisy [00:07:00] environments or open plan office. So if you spend a day for an introvert like myself, if you spend a whole day in meetings where you're talking or interacting with people, then at the end of the day, you're gonna be losing energy.

Tim Teo: Whereas if you talk about an extrovert in that kind of environment, those interactions actually give them energy and chances are by the end of the day, they might have even more energy than they started with and wanna go do more social interactions. Yeah. So it's really about. What kind of activities give you or take away energy and in particular for quiet people like you and I, Jerry, I learned earlier you shared that you an introvert yourself as well, but

Yeah,

Tim Teo: I find have you found yourself after long days of meetings or if you are leading workshop activities, how, how's your energy level by the end of those sessions?

Gerry Scullion: So. Maybe a couple of years ago, I would've been absolutely exhausted, but I've put things in place that I try and prevent [00:08:00] that it used to be the case at the end of the day that have nothing left in the tank and I mean nothing. And I, I probably wasn't very enjoyable to be around when that, and you got two young kids as well.

Gerry Scullion: Um, so I had to make that change. I didn't want to be that. Kinda irritable, you know, not being able to be present, scrolling doom, scrolling, just trying to, just trying to get out of my mind.

Mm.

Gerry Scullion: Um, and I had to take those, those measures. But yeah, to answer your question, exhausted, like, not, not at the point of like, oh, I'm tired, I need to go to bed.

Gerry Scullion: Mm. Proper exhaustion.

Hmm.

Tim Teo: Mm. And it's got nothing to do with, so it's really everything to do about how we manage our energy. Mm. It's nothing to do with our ability to perform certain roles at work, whether it is lead teams, whether it's to do certain kinds of work. It's really about energy levels, and I find as I talk to many introverts over the years.

Tim Teo: People have their [00:09:00] own techniques. Yeah. They have their own, um, ways of actually managing their energy levels. I think the problem is that they don't talk about it. Um, yeah. A lot of times people don't even publicly identify themselves as whether they're introverts or extroverts, because a lot of times people see introversion as a flaw.

Tim Teo: Sometimes people see introversion as a problem to be fixed. Yeah. My hope is with, with the book and with more people stepping out and standing up and religious saying, yeah, I'm a leader. I'm a leader in business, I have a reputation, I. And I am also quiet and introverted in nature, and that doesn't mean that I can do all the things that I can.

Tim Teo: I can't. I can, I've been able to do, and I think the more of us actually stand up and stand out this way, then the future people who are entering the workforce. Have better role models to look up to, because even today, if you look around, well, at least [00:10:00] when I look around and we look for role models for us to, to mirror, a lot of them still end up being extroverted in nature.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, that is very, very true. There's a, there's a lot to unpack in that, Tim, because, um, I'm playing the devil's advocate here in terms of. A lot of org, a lot of people step up and say, actually, you know what? I identify, I'm an introvert, and they mention it and work. What's the change that we're hoping an organization to provide when that happens?

Gerry Scullion: So what does it look like from an organizational perspective or a leadership perspective to encourage this to happen? And there's lots of things that could probably and should change as a result of this, and I'd love to.

Tim Teo: I think the first thing that comes to mind is really understanding that, or accepting that there's more than one picture of what good looks like, of what good [00:11:00] leadership looks like, because. A lot of times, even today, when you ask the people what, what a leader actually looks like. The picture in my head is a picture of, have you seen the movie Braveheart with Mel Gibson?

Tim Teo: Where he's got his Oh

Gerry Scullion: yeah. Of my neighborhood in Ireland. There you

Tim Teo: go. He's got war paint on his face. He's riding his horse. He's rallying his, his army before they charge into battle.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: I wouldn't be too surprised if you speak to people and they have that same picture of what a leader looks like in their heads.

Tim Teo: If I wanna be a leader, that's the kind of person I have to be. So I think if people can accept that there's more than one picture of what a leader looks like and um, that, that's already a huge shift already on its own. Number two is to realize that all of us are different as much as we like to.

Tim Teo: Homogeneous teams because they are like us. We feel like we fit together. The reality is that if you look around the world, everyone from [00:12:00] every country is different. They have their own culture, their own way of behaving.

Mm-hmm.

Tim Teo: If we can accept that all of us are different, then we can actually spend a lot more time and energy into creating ways of working together so that we can get the best of each, each other.

Tim Teo: It's not about hiring same, same people. I find that when you're hiring same, same people, you get same. Same ideas.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: And. I remember when, whether it was in school or before, it's all about trying to fit in. But then we find, I found in my experience in the working world, fitting in doesn't get you ahead.

Tim Teo: Oftentimes, it is being different from your competitors. It's having an advantage, and that can translate to people as well. If you wanna stand out, if you have different ideas, if you have teams that are made out of different kinds of people with different kind of experiences. Then I think you do. Diverse teams do stand to have a much better chance of actually creating dvantage for the team.

Tim Teo: They work in the [00:13:00] company they work in. If you have same, same people, they will probably work in the same, same way. But if you have different kinds of people working together, then naturally there'll be four points of friction. Quiet people learning to work with louder people. People who tend to talk to think, whereas some people tend to think before they talk.

Tim Teo: Yeah. How do you find ways to be able to get all these different kinds of people to be able to work together Well? And not to talk over each other all the time, but really investing and thinking about how you can actually work better together when you do have a diverse team so that the best ideas can win.

Tim Teo: Not just the loudest idea, but the best ideas from your team can win. I think that's the second key thing. So the first thing, accepting that there's more than one picture of what a leader looks like and really focusing on how people who are different can actually work better together as a team so [00:14:00] that the best ideas can win.

Gerry Scullion: Ab, would it be fair to say that the, the most likely scenario there is, um, introverted people working with loud people, um, is that something that you see more and more, uh, of the people that are coming into your community? People are struggling with working within loud environments now that like most offices that I walk through are open plan.

Gerry Scullion: It's harder to find that little cave that I often cave like this is, this is like a cave where I am, folks. This is like my converted attic. Close the door. All I hear is the birds. It sounds idyllic. I kind of love it though.

Gerry Scullion: You lose all that when you have to go back into the workforce, into the workplace and you're in those open plan offices. Is that something that you're seeing, uh, being one of the main pain points of for people who are introverted working in those working environments? [00:15:00] Hmm. What can they do about it if they're in that space, rather than bringing noise, cancel and headphones in.

Tim Teo: So a lot of the people that end up working with, whether they're designers, product managers, or or engineers, they end up being tech, which is the industry that I've worked in. And whether you are writing code or whether you're pushing pixels, it tends to be a very solitary activity. Yeah. And it just seems to have a lot of people who are quieter in nature.

Tim Teo: People like myself, right? Yeah. 'cause if your job is to be quiet, writing code, pushing pixels for long hours in the day. And you tend to be more extroverted in nature. Yeah. Then maybe this might not be a job you enjoy doing for very long, or it might be doing it in a much more extroverted way. So naturally working in tech, a lot of people end up being quieter.

Tim Teo: The strange thing is as you start looking upwards in your organization and you start looking at the managers and you start [00:16:00] looking at the leaders, they tend to be louder in personality type or maybe in the, in the way that they present themselves. Yeah. And you know, uh, at first, in the beginning again.

Tim Teo: Is it because there's a picture of what the leader looks like, that's how they're going into those positions. Is it how people think leaders should look like? So they get hired in? Yeah. Or maybe it is just, or maybe it's something else. Um, I have a controversial theory, um, and I'll share it. Dun, dun dun.

Tim Teo: Well, it is, it's also based on my own experience. But the reality is that as the higher up, you get promoted. There are fewer people who have simply walked those paths. There are just simply fewer, right? Yeah. People start on entry level roles. They get promoted, they get higher up, higher up. But as you get into roles higher up in those organizations, the number of people who have actually walked [00:17:00] those paths and know how to do those jobs are just fewer.

Tim Teo: Right. There are fewer yard sticks to measure what's good or or bad for a person that's in those roles. So then what happens then if there are fewer people? Some, what I've seen from my own observations is a lot of leaders that end up in those roles actually get there through the sheer force of their personality.

Tim Teo: You can see the effect of this in the way that they operate at work. Yeah. The way that they behave. And it tends to suit a certain kind of person who is very happy to be loud, is very happy to share their opinions. It's not strictly an introverted or extroverted thing, but perhaps they also prefer to think as they talk.

Tim Teo: So if you start looking upwards, you start seeing that there's a certain model of what I've also seen of what leaders look like in organizations. And it tends to be the extroverted picture. [00:18:00] Yeah. Which is weird because it's either they are extrovert themselves or perhaps they've chosen to adopt extroverted behaviors that present themselves to have that executive presence as they go.

Gerry Scullion: Exactly. That's what I was gonna say. It's, it's. We're seeing the mask in leadership and. I know like the reason why I was smiling when you were talking there was because I was having sort of like flashes before my eyes of all these leaders that I'd experienced, especially in Australia. 'cause it just seemed to be a very, um, SMO or sort of male dominated, loud ex extroverted, uh, sports, chest thumping atmospheres and lots of organizations, mainly the banks.

Gerry Scullion: Actually, when I.

Gerry Scullion: It's really interesting when you hear that, like, and I, I, I can imagine how difficult it must be to be around that. [00:19:00] Now, one of the things that I said to you before, which I actually haven't disclosed and I was chatting to you before was, and not many people know that I'm an introvert when I train. I was explaining to you there before, like when I fly around and it was only recently that Mark, who I, who I do a lot of training with, that said to me he is like, I overheard him saying to one of my other friends when we were in London saying, ah, that's really surprising, like how quiet Jerry is when he's at home.

Gerry Scullion: Like he's very kind of like in his room, just kind of we're in the corner just reading or any of that kinda stuff, and that's me trying to rebuild my energies. I'm lucky in that sense when I go away to work, I have, you know, really cool people that are, are around me, but what are the things that people can do who are introverted, who are in the workplace at the moment, and they're looking to find those little bite-sized moments to recharge their energies.

Gerry Scullion: Um. Is that something that you've personally experienced when you're in those [00:20:00] environments? Well, what, what are the, the tactical things that you could maybe suggest for people to reclaim some of those moments of clarity?

Tim Teo: Mm. Um, some of the things when I'm coaching and working with introverts, they struggle with things like public speaking.

Tim Teo: They struggle with being able to talk in front of a large audience. Large is relative. It could be a small group, it could be four people. It could be 200, a thousand people. It's relative.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: But one of the things that people can do to reclaim their energy in some ways is to actually practice beforehand.

Tim Teo: Um, how many times have we actually, when we're preparing for an important high stakes meeting, how many times have we actually practiced out loud rather than practicing in our heads? Mm-hmm. I think a lot of times when you talk to people and they say, yeah, I've rehearsed it, I've practiced, I. And really the rehearsal is really just in their heads.

Tim Teo: How many times have they actually used muscle memory to actually [00:21:00] say the words leaving their mouth and just saying it for real before they actually go on stage, before they are actually in the spotlight? I find that when you actually do those things beforehand, even if it's the start of what you're about to say, even if it's the first one or two minutes

Gerry Scullion: that's right,

Tim Teo: it actually lowers your anxiety and it gives you a lot more energy.

Tim Teo: In the moment that you're doing, let's say, public speaking because it gives you back energy because now you don't have to worry or be anxious about forgetting your lines because you have practiced them beforehand to the point where it's muscle memory. You can just say. Earlier on when we started this podcast interview, you asked me, Hey, Tim, why don't you introduce yourself?

Tim Teo: We introduce ourself all the time, but how many of us actually prepare introductions beforehand? We know that when we meet new people, it's always something that's gonna happen. You're gonna have to introduce yourself.

Gerry Scullion: Small

Tim Teo: talk how? How many introverts listening to this podcast will have [00:22:00] that feeling where they are in the working on their first day in a company, for example, and they're meeting their team for the first time and they know it's gonna happen.

Tim Teo: They know it's gonna happen, but how many people actually practice? Hi, my name is Tim, and they're introducing themselves and what they do, most of the time, they feel a cold bead of sweat coming down the sea. Side of their face as everyone in the room is just staring at them and they feel like a deer in headlights.

Tim Teo: Yeah. So the first thing you can do to reclaim your energy in those moments really is to practice beforehand. Really practice for real. Yeah. Um, if you know that you're gonna have a big day, a couple of bottom meetings, make sure that you book time to. Re regain your energy. Literally book blocks of time within your calendar.

Tim Teo: Yeah, so that nobody else can actually book over them. How you choose to use that time is really up to you. However else you can refill your well of energy, it might be that's right, going out for a walk. It might be [00:23:00] taking a moment to do a quiet activity, like replying to emails, whatever it is, that's a quiet activity that will regenerate your energy consciously.

Tim Teo: Plan and book those times into your meetings.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: And don't give that up. Yeah. I think that's the thing. Um, a lot of times, especially in fast paced environments, if you see white space and calendars, people are in a hurry to fill them because they are eager to, to appear busy, to feel like they are working.

Tim Teo: But at the same time, you have to recognize that in order for you to show up as your best version of yourself. These moments between meetings or between high energy activities, they're important and you have to protect them, and you have to do that in order for you to be able to go on and do the next thing well, because you need to recover the energy.

Gerry Scullion: I love that. Um, I love that. Can I just say, when you, when you play back that scenario of starting in a [00:24:00] new business and having to introduce yourself. I think, I don't know if I've dreamt this or if it actually happened, but somebody printed out, I think in one of the places I've been in, when they started and handed out an overview of what they did, it was in a bank, just so you know, this is, this is who I'm, and kind of like, you know, made, made, made a joke out of it, and we all just read thing, ah, cool, whatever, and got on with our day.

Gerry Scullion: They, they completely diffuse the situation. I dunno if it's a tactic. One of the things that I really don't miss is the small talk. That, um, with people, the, the bit, when you work for yourself, I get to choose who I'm having my goals with and, you know, the, the clients that I get to work with, obviously I don't get to choose them nearly all the time, but I'm very, very lucky.

Gerry Scullion: All my clients that I have, um, are really super cool, but generally speaking, I get to control what's coming into my ears and, you know, what's on my screen here. I don't have that or I didn't have that when I was working in organizations that bit where you're walking to the toilet and you [00:25:00] see somebody coming towards you and you're like, oh.

Gerry Scullion: This person's gonna wanna talk and I'm gonna have to fill that. Hmm. What, what do you advise in those situations? I'd love to get your thoughts on, on what's that like, um, for others? Hmm.

Tim Teo: Nobody really teaches you soft skills. I mean, when you look at education in general, everyone focuses on the hard skills.

Tim Teo: Yeah. The hard skills have so much structure. Frameworks, things that you can follow. In some ways, when people talk about soft skills, they talk about hard skills and soft skills. In some ways, I think of them as hard skills and harder skills. I was gonna say, yeah, in some ways soft skills are not easy.

Tim Teo: They're not soft at all. They are hard. They are harder than hard skills because when you ask people. You know, how do you speak up in meetings when you're a quiet person? Just say, just speak up more. How do you get to know more people? Just go and network. It's easy. I'll show you. I'm an extrovert. Just come along with me and show you [00:26:00] how to do it.

Tim Teo: So I think a lot of. A lot of, um, the work that I do these days is really about making soft skills, hard, uh, giving a lot more structure, a lot more frameworks, a lot of things that you can practice. And one of those things that you can practice is how do I actually make small talk For context, I was born and I came from Singapore and it's.

Tim Teo: You might be surprised to know that, uh, we don't really make small talk in Singapore. We start work, we meet someone new. We just get to it. We just talk about work.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: But when I moved to Australia, like you said, you could be with in a queue, waiting for a bus, a train. A train. Small talk just creeps out on you.

Tim Teo: And I had to learn how to make small talk. And one of the ways that I made sense of how to make small talk was we have a, um, a framework, I'm sure you're familiar with it, uh, called muscles hierarchy of needs. So within muscles hierarchy of needs, [00:27:00] you have different kinds of needs starting at the lowest level.

Tim Teo: You have physiological needs, and then you have things like food and shelter, and then you have love and belonging. And then I forget what the fourth level is, but then the top level is self-actualization. Yeah. When you're making small talk, you can use muscles hierarchy of needs as a framework to come up with small talk topics.

Tim Teo: Focus on the lower levels because the people you are talking to are most likely going to be humans and people who at the lower levels, you have the maximum amount of chance to build a connection with people to have something that you can talk about. You don't really need too many topics. You just need two to three that you enjoy, that you like, that are really genuine to you, really authentic to you.

Tim Teo: So for example, we can talk about, I'm sure you would know this, but in the UK people talk about the weather. They talk about the weather all the time. If it's a good weather [00:28:00] day, they talk about how sunny it is. If it's a bad weather day, it's raining for two weeks nonstop. You can talk about the weather complaint, how bad it's, if you enjoy food like I do, you can talk about the food that you're gonna have for lunch, what you have for, you're gonna prepare for dinner tonight, or maybe the barbecue in Australia that you're gonna be having over the long weekend.

Tim Teo: Maybe you might be talking about sports, maybe you might be talking about your kids. All these things, the lower level in muscle hierarchy of needs, the more likely you are going to find a connection with the other person they're going to talk to. And that's really all you need. Really small talk. Small talk is the thing that happens before real talk happens.

Tim Teo: And if you, in some cultures, it's kind of like sticking your hand out and the other person not shaking it back, it just feels awkward. So if you don't have the ability, if you don't make small talk with some people in some [00:29:00] cultures, then it's as if you're starting a conversation and it's awkward already, and by the time the real talk happens, hopefully it's gonna be, well, maybe it's gonna be more awkward because of it.

Tim Teo: Yeah. So in some ways I had to learn how to make small talk and I had to use these frameworks, um, to give me the structure that I needed because it was something that I wasn't familiar with. It wasn't something that was used to it, not my structure.

Gerry Scullion: That's true. One of the things that was, uh, I remember years ago when you have a mask on, like I, I have done for most of my life, um, I felt that.

Gerry Scullion: If you played the role that suddenly everyone had access to that role. And what I mean by that is if you're the jokey kind of person with a bunch of people and then someone from outside of that circle comes to the conversation, they expect you to be the same. Like, oh, like, you know, make me laugh. And it doesn't work that way in my mind.

Gerry Scullion: So [00:30:00] sometimes I'd say something and I'd be like, okay. I, I don't really know who you are. Like, you know, so you can come across as being rude in that sense. And it's not intended at all. Like, you know, 'cause in my mind, most of the people in this world, I believe are, are kind and genuine and they don't want to offend.

Gerry Scullion: How can introverted people prevent that from happening? Like, if the small talk isn't. Um, on the table, so to speak. If it's not an option for them at that moment in time and you're in the workspace and someone comes up, like, what you really wanna probably say at that moment is, listen, listen, look. I'm just not in the mood to talk.

Gerry Scullion: I'm just keep on. And socially you're penalized for that. You're like, Hey, they're rude, I don't like them. And then suddenly you're in the bad book. You're in the sin bin. What advice do you have to people in that? Like it's almost like you want, I remember years and years ago, sorry. I know I deviate, but I love to [00:31:00] deviate.

Gerry Scullion: I worked at this phenomenal, super smart person I business with called in Australia and. We used to call ourselves the knowledge workers. Okay. We were, we were, we were knowledge workers and he used to say, he's gonna design a flag that goes up on the computer if, if I'm open to being, uh, engaged with today, that, that, that is, that is you're allowed to come over.

Gerry Scullion: And then if you're not, that flag goes down. And we used to laugh about it. And then we would stop laughing and.

Gerry Scullion: How do you replicate something like that? Or is that something that we should probably think about more about implementing into the organizations to prevent people from being penalized who are introverted when they don't wanna have small talk?

Tim Teo: Well, I don't have a good answer for not being able to make small talk on the spot, but I do have a good answer about a different scenario if you wish to hear it.

Tim Teo: Yeah. It's about being put on the spot in meetings when all of a sudden somebody say, Jerry, what do you [00:32:00] think? And maybe you are quieter in nature and you need a bit more time to actually process before you, uh, come out with something to say something meaningful to say. So I have two things here that you could do.

Tim Teo: One that you can, you are in control of, and another that's probably in the control of the speaker that's asking you that question. A lot of times, like people like myself, we need a bit more time to actually process our thinking because we think before we talk. The problem is we think too long and the whole meeting will go by and it's usually after the meeting, the idea is fully formed and then you share it after in an email that nobody reads.

Tim Teo: Yeah. So if, if you find yourself in that position, true. One thing that you can do quite simply, it's to give yourself permission and license to speak up. It might sound something like this, right? So look, everyone I. An idea in my head is not fully formed [00:33:00] yet, but this is what I have so far. Look, this idea might sound silly right now.

Tim Teo: I haven't really thought about it for a long time, but let me share it with you to see what you think and maybe you can make it better. Yeah. Now what those preambles, those pre, uh, things that I said before, I said the thing, it gives you that permission, that license to make it okay for you to speak up even before you're ready.

Tim Teo: Uh, you've made it okay because you've already just told everyone else that it's not fully formed. Don't judge me. But it also gives others the benefit of hearing what's inside your head. I. You know, you have to remember that you were invited to the meeting for a reason, and up until now, people still can't read other people's minds.

Tim Teo: So if you don't speak up, then no one will really know what you're thinking, even if what you're thinking is not fully formed there. So you have to speak up and find ways like this to speak up so that you can be a player on your team. Yeah, so that's within your [00:34:00] control. Something that's within the control of the person in meeting asking a quiet person could be to simply give them a heads up.

Tim Teo: You could say, Jerry, I'm gonna come to you and ask you what do you think about question B? For example, we're gonna ask you this question, question B, but before we come to you, I'm just gonna go to Jane first and I will ask Jane and after Jane, we'll come back to you next to see what you think. But if you've got anything, maybe you can talk about it now.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: So you've kind of given people that heads up that there's a question coming up.

Yeah. You've

Tim Teo: given them an easy exit to make it okay to actually take a little bit more time to think. Yeah. But also know that they don't lose their space, they don't lose their opportunity to talk just because they need a little bit more time.

Tim Teo: Yeah. Now as I'm talking, there was a third thing that came to my mind that's here. That's of. Many of the meetings that we do these days might be online, [00:35:00] but how many meetings, virtual meetings have we been in where the primary mode of communication is still video and audio? Somebody speaking.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: Over here on the right, you have a chat window.

Tim Teo: Why not start making acceptable and accepting chat as a first class citizen way of communicating? Just like speaking up verbally. Why not use chat and accept that as a first class way of speaking as well? Because you don't have to interrupt people when we are talking online like this. It is impossible.

Tim Teo: The technology makes it impossible to actually speak over somebody else. Everyone who wants to speak. There's only one person that can speak at a time. But then you can have threaded conversations that happen in the chat window so that people can see what other people have to say without interacting then mid-sentence.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: So I think earlier on in, in, in the, in the interview we were talking about. How to work better together, [00:36:00] finding ways to work better together when we're all different. I think in the last couple of questions that you asked, what I hope is I've shown a few ways about what I mean when I say ways of working together, and they don't take a whole lot of energy.

Tim Teo: They don't take a whole lot of change. They just small things done well. The effects actually compound over time. If you can do these small things in your day to day, there are things that you can do as soon as tomorrow, and they're gonna have an impact, not just on you, but also on the team that you work with.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, it's gonna sound really weird, but it's re soothing. Listening to you speak, Tim, you've got a lovely cadence and delivery. Um, I want talk to you about, it's a, it's a two directional, um, uh, question I'm gonna ask. One is the role. Of a facilitator. If you are, um, if you don't really align to what we're talking about here, maybe you're a facilitator, but you want to take a greater care [00:37:00] in including, um, introverted people into your, into your conversations and into your workshops.

Gerry Scullion: And then the second part of that conversation I'd like to have is around being introverted and running a workshop. Latter question is something that I do. I, I put the mask on, I wear the skin, I wear the clothes, and I assume it, and then I fall down in a heap. At the end of the day, I'm like, oh, I'm tired.

Gerry Scullion: First part of the conversation, how can people be more inclusive to the different conversation styles? And you kind of touched on it there a little bit around first class communication styles using chat. I'd love to hear a little bit more around that and what you advise. Um. The facilitator, uh, community out there and what they can take from this.

Tim Teo: If you wanna be more inclusive and you wanna be more inclusive tomorrow, or even for the next workshop, you're about to run the next day,

yeah,

Tim Teo: you can be a lot more inclusive by [00:38:00] just sending out the agenda beforehand. Don't just send, okay, tomorrow we're gonna run a workshop. See you guys there. Bye. How many meetings, how many workshops do we actually show up where that is all you know beforehand.

Tim Teo: Yeah. That really caters to people who can think on the spot, people who are able to come out, ideas on the spot. But how good will those ideas actually be? How much greater can those ideas be if people had time to prepare? I don't think it is strictly an introvert or extroverted thing where maybe introverted people need more time to prepare.

Tim Teo: But I think in general you would agree that the more time you have to prepare, chances are the ideas will be, will be better, rather than just coming up with the first idea that comes before to your mind. Send them up beforehand. Ask people to prepare their ideas. Maybe even write it down so that when they do come.

Tim Teo: You don't have to come up with ideas on the spot. You have [00:39:00] stuff ready to go. You have pros and cons analysis ready in your head or written down on a notebook ready to discuss and debate. And this is a much more effective way to actually running, running sessions where you wanna actually talk to people and discuss ideas to create better ideas.

Tim Teo: You don't want to use that live synchronous time to be thinking about those ideas. You do that beforehand. You bring those ideas with you, and once you bring them with you, you can debate, have interesting conversations about how you can make those ideas better. So the first thing right out the bed, definitely write those ideas down, get people to bring them to the, to those sessions.

Tim Teo: And the way you do that is to actually send out the agenda. What's the outcome that you're trying to look for for those sessions that you're facilitating?

Love

Tim Teo: to your second question about quieter people who, who wanna be [00:40:00] facilitators? How can they manage?

Yeah.

Tim Teo: I, I love facilitation. I. Because to facilitate, well, you have to listen Well.

Tim Teo: People think that facilitators are speaking all the time. They have to have all the answers. If that is what you think, then you are probably facilitating wrong. Your job as a facilitator is to get people from point A to point B and to get them outta the session on time and on on the agenda. To me, that's a definition of what good facilitation looks like.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: The ideas, the conversations, that's your attendees, the people you choose to invite, the people that you asked, they had the ideas in. In India, it's, I see your job or the facilitator's job has to be the driver of the bus, and your job is to make sure you get there on time and on agenda. That's your job.[00:41:00]

Tim Teo: And in order to do that, you have to be able to time keep, you have to be able to recognize when some people are hogging the microphone a little bit too long. Your job is to realize there's this quiet person over there who seems to have something he wants to say, but. Is struggling to get the attention of others.

Tim Teo: Your job in those moments is to read the room, to observe, to listen to the conversation, to pass the microphone along, to stop people when they're hogging the microphone for too long.

Yeah. To

Tim Teo: pass it on to other people who haven't had the chance to speak yet. If you do a combination of all these things, then the best ideas can win.

Tim Teo: The, the best ideas can see the light of the, and it's not just the loud ideas that I heard. It's the best ideas, even for the quieter ones from the people in the room.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, absolutely. I've got one kind of question that I. It's been burning for me to ask [00:42:00] for the last 15 minutes. If you're introverted or as you'd like to say, a quieter person in an organization, and you're surrounded by people who are either wearing a mask or who are, um, just loud by default.

Gerry Scullion: Okay. And how do you. How do you continuously show up in an organization like that? We met, we kind of covered off those pieces around, like, you know, making sure that you're blocking your time out and you're recharging your energies, but how do you, um, the reward systems in organizations, h how do you find, how do you, how do introverted people acquire people, play that game so they can actually become more visible to leadership to get the rewards and.

Gerry Scullion: If there's any advice you can give to people who, uh, who see an organization that rewards the loud people, how can you passively challenge that?

Mm.

Gerry Scullion: And, and ensure that they're, they're being seen, um, for their [00:43:00] merits and what they're bringing to the table?

Tim Teo: Well, two thoughts come to mind. The first things, as a leader, so many of my relationships, um, have been built one-on-one.

Tim Teo: Building those relationships, showing up authentically, telling people what they, you really think one-on-one is one is pretty much the best way for you to do those things. Mm-hmm. I remember, um, one of a leaders who was in a sales organization and the stereotypical salesperson, very loud, speaks over people oftentimes trying to sell you something and.

Tim Teo: In the beginning, when I first met this person, I kind of felt as if I had nothing in common with this person. It felt as if we were two completely different people, but a lot of our interactions up until that point was really in group meetings, in group settings. What I found [00:44:00] was, as I started visiting and chatting this person one-on-one, you know.

Tim Teo: We could actually have a conversation. We can talk about the idea. We can talk about how our department design could actually help them do their jobs better, how they could help us. I think over time we built this kind of mutual respect one-on-one. We understood what we thought beforehand. Oftentimes we might arrive in meetings together and actually be aligned on what we think is the right thing to do.

Tim Teo: I think if you can find ways of doing this in a way that feels comfortable and authentic to you, not political conversations where other people might be looking, and you might have to change what you want to say because of other people in the room. If you can have honest, authentic conversations one-on-one, you start building trust, you start earning brownie points, you start having a relationship with the people that you work with.

Tim Teo: Even if it's people that. You might in the [00:45:00] beginning think you have nothing in common with and couldn't see yourself working with them. I think if you can find those opportunities for one, to build those relationships and that trust, then you're gonna have a much better working relationship,

uh,

Tim Teo: going forward after that.

Tim Teo: Um. I wish I wrote this down, but I forgot the second part of your question, so if you wanna ask it again, I can answer it. Right.

Gerry Scullion: It was really like, if you look, look at the organizational reward systems, and I've seen it in toxic organizations firsthand where they, they reward, um, those people for maybe subconsciously.

Gerry Scullion: For being louder and for being what they would perceive fitting the mold. As a leader, how do you challenge passively those reward systems without looking like, um, you're, you know, kind of a spoke in the wheel or, or like a stick in the wheel, should I say? Like, and, and slowing things [00:46:00] down and being just difficult.

Tim Teo: I think the short answer is by showing people that there's a different way of succeeding. One of those ways. One of the things I really struggled with at the time was being put on the spot and having to speak and presenting on behalf of my team some of the work that was happening.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: The reason why this happened was because this was how things were done all the time.

That's right.

Tim Teo: Who said this The only way to do things? Yeah. A lot of times people feel as if they had to ask for permission to change the way of working, but you don't. Uh, one thing that I did was to actually start recording my updates every two weeks, whenever there was a new release, whenever there were those major update, I would sit down, I would record those things and would send it to.

Tim Teo: The company update channel on Slack, they'll be able to see all of the work that we're looking, whether we've done all the accomplishments that we've done, [00:47:00] and they can do this in their own time. As a quieter person, I get to practice beforehand. I can actually nail everything that I want to say, the way that I wanna say it, and people on the receiving end of those, um, team updates, for example, they can watch those videos in their own time.

Tim Teo: Not during a meeting that you can schedule for the us, the UK and Australia to be all online at the same time, which should be too early or too late for somebody on the call. If you can do these things, you can change these things to do things in a different way where you can be at your best. And for me it was really about recording short videos of myself, for example, giving a way that show people.

Tim Teo: Uh, different way of actually doing things, but have the same, if not more impact than the way things used to be.

Gerry Scullion: Yeah, I love that. And you can use, I dunno, what you were using for that, but Loom is, is a way that I've, I've often done that. Mm, you haven't seen [00:48:00] loom.com? I think it's part of the Atlassian suite now, isn't it?

Gerry Scullion: Mm. Loom was purchased. That's another way you can do it, Tim. You are, um, remarkable and it's a great, um, great to see all the work that you're doing. And I know you're working on a number of other things at the moment, like people can go to the quiet achiever com. No e at the end of or so, uh, you just Google Tim yo, uh, and you'll find the quiet achiever.com and I'll put a link to that in, uh, the description if you're on YouTube to show notes if you're anywhere else in Spotify and Apple and so forth.

Gerry Scullion: But generally speaking, um, the book. Out, and I'm gonna put a link to that as well. Um, put a link to the, the website 'cause you've got a great community over there for people, um, that wanna learn more about the work that you're doing, but you're working on other things at the moment. So tell us what they are and, you know, uh, what other exciting things you might have going on at the moment as well.

Tim Teo: Hmm. So very intentionally the year [00:49:00] 2025, uh, I wanted it to be the year of partnerships for me. I very intentionally went out there and looked for people to partner with for, I've been working on the quiet achiever since 2021. I coach, uh, grant courses online, but so far I've been doing everything on my own, writing the book on my own.

Tim Teo: Very intentionally this year. I wanted it to be a year of partnerships, and I can talk about two of them right now.

Yeah.

Tim Teo: The first one is a partnership with Ryan Ramsey, and he runs the Chief Design Officer School. And the thing that we're partnering on is something called Convince Your Boss. We are focusing on the problem in work environments where the best ideas don't always win.

Tim Teo: 'cause sometimes it's the person who actually tells the best story, even if the story is not based on fact. Or maybe sometimes it's the person that the most politically savvy that gets their ideas to win. You know? Or maybe sometimes it's your boss simply telling [00:50:00] you just go build this feature, right? And just do it even though you have good evidence to actually make something else.

Tim Teo: So we know even from speaking to senior individual contributors around the world that the bioscientist don't, don't always win. They spend up to 60 to 80% of their times in meetings talking about their work, trying to convince their stakeholders, and really only 20 to 40% of their time doing the thing that they were really hired to do.

Tim Teo: So clearly we think there's something broken in the system. We've seen it ourselves, Ryan and I in our time working. So convince your boss is really about how to build good convincing arguments, knowing when to argue, knowing where to argue, and also giving you some of these templates and ways of thinking about building arguments, uh, to help you, to help your best idea actually win more.

Tim Teo: So that's something that's coming up in May 20.

Gerry Scullion: Not too far.

Tim Teo: And the second partnership is with Dr. [00:51:00] Larry Cornett, who's a career coach with Invisible Career. And the thing we're looking working on together is called something called too valuable to Lose. How to make yourself so valuable that your boss cannot afford to lose you.

Tim Teo: It's something that is at the intersection of getting hired through interviews, getting promoted in your current role, and also staying off the layoff list. We find that at the intersection where these three things happen, the preparation and the things that need to do are largely the same. A few tweaks for each of them, so we're gonna put everything that we know from our experience into this one program.

Tim Teo: Too valuable to lose. It's also out in. And probably the last thing that I'll talk about will be the book if you wanna find me. The best way to find me will be to look for the quiet achiever. Tim. Yo, I should be probably the first result on your search engine. Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: Um, do you have a [00:52:00] newsletter? I'm just looking on your website for people to learn and stay up to date.

Gerry Scullion: What's the best way for them to do that? Is it LinkedIn or your newsletter? Maybe.

Tim Teo: Two ways. You can sign up for a newsletter at the bottom of my website, the quiet achiever.com. Just google for Timo, the quiet achiever. Second thing you can do is find me on LinkedIn. You can follow me or connect me with me on LinkedIn and we can chat there.

Gerry Scullion: Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, and I'll put a links to those as well into the show notes. I always wrap up my podcast by thanking people for their time, energy, and their vulnerability. 'cause like, as you said, um, really like coming on the show, let me go left and right and up and down is, you know, putting you on the spot an awful lot of time.

Gerry Scullion: And I know it's not easy for a lot of people, but I really enjoyed. And I learned an awful lot from speaking with you, so it's been an absolutely cracking weight to start my day off, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. I really, really, really appreciate it.

Tim Teo: No, Jerry, thank you so much for this opportunity and for the people that are listening in.[00:53:00]

Tim Teo: If I can leave you one final message, it is who you are is who you are is enough. You know, you don't have to pretend to be somebody else. Pretending will only target you. If you can accept that who you are is okay. Then everything else is just skills. You know, it's not part of your identity. It's not who you are.

Tim Teo: Being able to do public speaking. Well, being a leader, all these things are skills, and skills can be practiced. So if I can give you anything, just recognize that who you are is enough. All these things that you're trying to do, they're not parts of your personality. They are skills and skills can be practiced.

Gerry Scullion: I love it. Tim, have a great one.

Tim Teo: Thank you so much, Harry. Speak soon.