Because it has been repeatedly shown that better social connections help get the right stuff done.
Trust, empathy, and liking each other allows for a generosity in dealings that is very conducive to communication, to problem solving, to finding ways to affect change in the organisation, to train/socialise workers into effective practices, to notice when the work is unbalanced or unaligned with the employee, to correct poor behaviour, and many more reasons.
A competent event organiser could plan to accommodate your introvert preference, and still achieve the prosocial goals.
You could have interactions in smaller groups at a time, have activities/breaks with social recovery (like solo or silent activities, spa/massage/meditation, simulators/noisy activities/activities in heavy gear), have solo parts of group activities (like solo brainstorms or reflective walks), have planned recovery time, etc.
If your social anxiety is that bad, you might need an exemption for health reasons, in the same way a ski trip could exempt someone with a broken leg.
But at least healthy people, including introverts, seemingly benefit immensely from prosocial activities at a workplace.
I dont know, just sounds like a extrovert saying a bunch of touchy feely shit that amounts to “I might suck at the job but I have great people skills!”
I’ve worked in many projects where I met people only over phone and WebEx or similar. It was always pretty “dry” and tensions rose quickly whenever shit on one end hit the fan. Typically after just one personal meeting (kick-off, war-room, whatever) that changed completely. You start to joke together, you let your guard down more easily. You talk differently, even on the phone and in virtual meetings then.
I also often enough witnessed people bitch at each other over some formulation in a pull request or a comment in a chat room. In person they completely behaved differently and were able to talk it through.
Not everyone ticks the same, but in a large team you can be sure to have at least some people who have an easier time reading body language than hearing nuances in a voice filtered through a microphone. And for these people it’s then less stressful to work stuff out in person.
So from this I hear “stress out the introverts to bully them into silence and it’s so much easier for the extroverts scheduling the meetings to figure out where they can claim credit having only scheduled meetings”.
Well, welcome to society, which consists of different types of personalities all mixed together. You want to stress-out everyone else too. That isn’t better. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
As others said: the solution is to have individual exemptions, not preventing everyone from get-togethers in the first place.
Edit: btw. not even “introvert” is a good-enough category. I am also introvert and am completely depleted of energy after a day in the office or a team event. But I still enjoy it. You need to force me to attend, but afterwards I am typically glad I did.
But why? Why can’t that work for you?
So you can ensure that the person who is doing great work isn’t one of “them”?
Work is professional. It’s work. Social is informal. It’s not work.
What exactly is it that makes you need to mix the two?
I am an extremely introverted person with pretty extreme social anxiety.
The only reasons I can come up with for NEEDING to force social situations into work are nefarious.
And notice, I’m not saying work anonymously. Zoom makes sense when the processes are that lacking.
Because it has been repeatedly shown that better social connections help get the right stuff done.
Trust, empathy, and liking each other allows for a generosity in dealings that is very conducive to communication, to problem solving, to finding ways to affect change in the organisation, to train/socialise workers into effective practices, to notice when the work is unbalanced or unaligned with the employee, to correct poor behaviour, and many more reasons.
A competent event organiser could plan to accommodate your introvert preference, and still achieve the prosocial goals.
You could have interactions in smaller groups at a time, have activities/breaks with social recovery (like solo or silent activities, spa/massage/meditation, simulators/noisy activities/activities in heavy gear), have solo parts of group activities (like solo brainstorms or reflective walks), have planned recovery time, etc.
If your social anxiety is that bad, you might need an exemption for health reasons, in the same way a ski trip could exempt someone with a broken leg.
But at least healthy people, including introverts, seemingly benefit immensely from prosocial activities at a workplace.
I dont know, just sounds like a extrovert saying a bunch of touchy feely shit that amounts to “I might suck at the job but I have great people skills!”
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Removed by mod
I’ve worked in many projects where I met people only over phone and WebEx or similar. It was always pretty “dry” and tensions rose quickly whenever shit on one end hit the fan. Typically after just one personal meeting (kick-off, war-room, whatever) that changed completely. You start to joke together, you let your guard down more easily. You talk differently, even on the phone and in virtual meetings then.
I also often enough witnessed people bitch at each other over some formulation in a pull request or a comment in a chat room. In person they completely behaved differently and were able to talk it through.
Not everyone ticks the same, but in a large team you can be sure to have at least some people who have an easier time reading body language than hearing nuances in a voice filtered through a microphone. And for these people it’s then less stressful to work stuff out in person.
So from this I hear “stress out the introverts to bully them into silence and it’s so much easier for the extroverts scheduling the meetings to figure out where they can claim credit having only scheduled meetings”.
Gotcha.
Well, welcome to society, which consists of different types of personalities all mixed together. You want to stress-out everyone else too. That isn’t better. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. As others said: the solution is to have individual exemptions, not preventing everyone from get-togethers in the first place.
Edit: btw. not even “introvert” is a good-enough category. I am also introvert and am completely depleted of energy after a day in the office or a team event. But I still enjoy it. You need to force me to attend, but afterwards I am typically glad I did.
I have said nowhere to prohibit social people from being social outside of work.
This entire thread is about forcing everyone to socialize with their coworkers for 10 percent of their time on the clock.
Stop goal post moving.