I recently conducted a one day virtual training that had 14 participants. Out of this group, four actively responded to any questions I asked and shared insights with the group. They were the ‘leaders’ of the training session. A further three demonstrated what I would describe as a medium level of involvement. The remaining seven, half the class, never said a word throughout the day, happy to stay in the background and let other take the lead.
In my experience this is quite normal, there are always (thankfully!) a few leaders that take the initiative and interact, and there will always be those that prefer to let others do the talking. Often this is linked to the where a person sits on the extrovert/introvert scale with extroverts taking the lead and introverts staying quiet.
This however, was a training designed to equip HR Business Partners with the tools to run impactful stakeholder conversations, and given the nature of the content, there was a requirement to communicate! Every attendee was expected to use the skills taught to engage with stakeholders – you would expect that there would be a direct correlation between level of interaction and career progression.
After the training, I asked the HR lead of my client if there was a relationship between the level of participation in trainings and career progression. I expected that there would be a positive correlation however, the response surprised me.
My client told me that it very much depended on the manager; for managers that wanted their team members to take control and voice their opinions, there was a positive correlation between speaking out in trainings and career progression. However, for managers who prefer ‘Yes’ people who follow their lead and don’t ask questions, the quieter more introverted types tend to progress faster as they are seen as reliable and subordinate.
This response brings up the issue of leadership vs. management. Leaders would typically want people to engage rather than stay silent, and there is much research to support the view that the silence of experienced colleagues brings with is a high organisational cost. I personally would question whether managers that want ‘Yes’ people are a long-term asset. This should not however be confused with the value of introverts in the team. It is perfectly possible to be one of the quieter team members and not be a ‘Yes’ person.
The other interesting angle for this discussion is along cultural lines. When I have a training in India, I structure an extra 30-45 minutes of time per day for Q&A sessions because I know there will be a high level of interaction. It is not uncommon for 100% of a class in India to be engaged. Likewise in most Western cultures it is both encouraged and expected that participants engage and share their knowledge. The same cannot be said for China or Japan where participants tend to listen more and talk less. This is exacerbated even further if someone senior is in the room where the cultural norm will be to show respect and leave the floor for the senior team member to respond on behalf of the class.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to cultural norms, however there is the necessity to understand them. From a career progression perspective, the message above is that it is important to understand your bosses preference in terms of what type of communicator they value and prefer as this is likely to have a bearing on their assessment of you.
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