Entries from November, 2011

Up until I was about 30 years old, I had felt uncomfortable around shy, introverted or withdrawn people and usually avoided contact with them. Consciously, I think I avoided them because I assumed they probably had little to offer and it would not be worth the effort of engaging with them. Subconsciously, I think I avoided them because they reminded me that when I was younger I had inwardly felt very shy and also assumed I had little to offer – even though my behaviour was outgoing and disguised these internal feelings.

This way of seeing shy or quiet, introverted people changed quite suddenly and dramatically when I met a man named Jim at a social function. The function’s host, who saw Jim standing alone staring at the floor with a drink in his hand, introduced me to him hoping I would draw him out. As I had expected, I found the attempt to initiate conversation with Jim very difficult. After struggling with this for about ten minutes, I suddenly remembered that the host had said something about Jim having an interest in philosophy. Since my graduate and undergraduate studies had been in philosophy, I thought this subject might provide an opening and I began to describe a book I was reading on existential philosophy.

I had only been speaking for a few minutes, when during a brief pause, Jim suddenly began to speak. He in fact launched into a brilliant – although quiet and halting – monologue about existential philosophy. The suddenness of his response and the depth and clarity of his thinking left me absolutely astonished. For the next hour he did almost all of the talking, speaking about other subjects with the same depth, clarity and brilliance. As the function ended, I told Jim I had really enjoyed the conversation and said I would like to continue it later.

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Jane had recently been appointed the CEO of a large clothing retail chain. She was a very articulate, optimistic, creative and charismatic person and had risen up the corporate ladder into leadership positions quite rapidly. Her charismatic personality and her many successes within the company had won her the CEO position at the early age of 35. However, along with her many strengths as a leader Jane also had a significant Achilles Heel: Given her charismatic and inspiring leadership style, she found it difficult to communicate with and listen with very conservative, analytical people.

Shortly after being promoted to CEO, working with her senior management team, she had created a vision and strategic plan for growing the company quite rapidly. However, her CFO – a highly conservative analytical thinker – had warned her against expanding so rapidly, saying that if retail sales dipped even slightly, the company would become insolvent. Feeling her usual irritation with this very conservative and analytical person, she ignored his warning and began implementing the expansion plan. Then six months into the plan the global financial crisis hit, retail sales plummeted – and very suddenly the company was on the verge of collapse.

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We most commonly associate “addiction” with some kind of compulsive substance abuse (alcoholism, addiction to tobacco, drugs, etc) – but “addiction” could equally be applied to certain kinds of compulsive activities (e.g. Workaholism). While activity addictions are in some ways different from chemical ones, all addictions have one thing in common: they are all ways of avoiding experiencing or dealing with uncomfortable emotions.

James’ story, told to me over a long evening together, is a case in point. James was a lawyer specialising in litigation, and though the work was intense and often stressful, he was always able to keep his cool and he thrived on it. He had enormous energy and endurance and worked long hours – but he had many other interests that he actively pursued. For example, he was involved in rock climbing, was a committed and talented karate student and a skydiver.

This capacity to control his emotions and keep his cool under pressure made a major contribution to his success at work and in other activities. But James said this had reached a point where he almost never experienced emotions of any kind because he was constantly involved in intense, focussed action almost all of his waking hours. This had resulted in the break up of two marriages, mainly because his wives hardly ever saw him, and when they did, he would never express or show any emotions or talk about anything very personal. His last wife told him it was like living with a robot.

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Geoff was an accountant who was highly intelligent, had a good analytical mind and excellent accounting skills. Geoff had two outstanding qualities; firstly, his commitment to accuracy, attention to detail and thoroughness in every accounting task he did was absolute. Secondly, he had a superb capacity to bring intellectual order out of chaos and complexity. He was often given the task of straightening out the accounts of firms or government offices that were a maze of complexity and disorder – and very quickly he had them organised in a logical, systematic and comprehensible way.

These qualities made him an excellent and very successful accountant. This led him to being made partner by age 30 and he was then promoted to lead a practice group within his accounting firm. However, as a personality Geoff tended to be very introverted and lived inside his head. He had rarely interacted with people, had no people skills – and when he did interact with others his intense focus on detail and thoroughness often made him seen fussy and nit picking. Thus, while he was a superb accountant, he was very poorly equipped to lead a practice group.

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Brian was a friend of mine whom I had known quite well about 10 years ago. He was very independent and self reliant, but he was the kind of person you could always rely upon for help if. Or if you simply wanted to talk through a problem he was a good listener and often had good advice.

One of the reasons he often had good advice was that when he considered any problem, issue, idea or potential plan, he was very good at seeing the possible flaws or things that could go wrong. He was equally good at creating contingency strategies for avoiding the things that could go wrong.

This had led him into a career as a consultant in the area of developing corporate strategies for private sector companies and government agencies. He was a very good consultant and, though he had started by working for a very large consultancy firm, by the time I met him he had his own firm. He said that he felt more secure with his own firm because he was his own independent boss. Security in all things was a central tenant for Brian.

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