内向的人也可以成为职场千里马

When you picture a leader, the image that usually comes to mind is someone like Jack Welch or Bill Clinton — gregarious, energized by crowds.

一提起领袖人物，人们脑海中最先浮现的便是杰克·韦尔奇或比尔·克林顿这样的大人物——他们善于交际，在公众场合更是活力四射。

Organizations tend to celebrate and promote such extroverted personalities, as opposed to introverts, who draw energy from ideas or one-on-one interactions. Such quiet types are often not as visible within companies, but by some calculations, introverts make up half of the population. That's an awful lot of talent to exclude from executive ranks.

一般来说，企业也更器重性格外向的员工，给与他们更多晋升机会；相反，性格内向的员工在这方面的待遇就要差得多了。原因在于，性格内向的员工往往需要借助思考或一对一的交流来汲取能量，但在公司里，这类员工却很容易受到忽视。然而根据统计，性格内向者和性格外向者在人数上基本持平。这意味着将有数量惊人的优秀人才因此而无法进入高管层。

It's the numerical equivalent of excluding women — and similarly shortsighted, says Susan Cain, author of the new book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. "There's a bias in our culture against introversion," she says. To use Betty Friedan's language from The Feminine Mystique, "it's a problem in our culture that has no name" — pervasive, yet seldom discussed, at least until recently.

这一比例与女性受歧视的比例相当，而且苏珊·凯恩认为，忽视性格内向者是一种缺乏远见的做法。苏珊·凯恩近期出版了一本新书——《静水流深：喧嚣世界里内向者的力量》（Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.）。她认为：“它体现了我们的文化对于内向性格存在的偏见。”借用贝蒂·弗莱顿在《女性的奥秘》（Feminine Mystique）一书中的一句话：“它是我们文化中一个无名的难题”——虽然非常普遍，但至少到目前为止，很少有人谈起。

Certainly, introverts trying to make it in business face obstacles. As part of their hiring processes, some companies give personality tests that seem designed to weed out introverts.

诚然，内向性格者要想在职场取得成功确实会面临各种障碍。比如，许多公司在招聘过程中进行的个性测试似乎存心就是为了淘汰内向性格的人而设。

If you survive that, you soon discover that "Most of our workplaces are set up for maximum stimulation," says Cain. Some 70%, she says, are "open plan" offices, where people must deal with "the noise and gazes of their co-workers all day long."

凯恩表示，即便内向性格者通过了测试，他很快就会发现，“大部分公司工作场所的布置都是为了实现最大程度的刺激”。她说，约70%的办公室被设计成“开放式”的办公环境，人们必须“全天忍受开放办公环境中的噪音和来自同事们关注的目光。”

Companies have an "inordinate belief in the power of meetings and brainstorming," and they tend to promote people who make themselves visible, often by speaking up first (whether they have anything meaningful to contribute or not). As a result, "most of us, at a young age, learn how to act much more extroverted than we are."

大部分公司“过分迷信会议和头脑风暴的作用”，而且，公司更器重那些善于自我表现的人，比如不管发言有没有价值，总是抢先发言的人。结果，“我们中大多数人在年轻的时候就学会了如何隐藏真实的自我，刻意表现得更加外向。”

But this ignores that introverts have several strengths that are helpful in business.

但这种现象却忽视了一个事实——其实内向性格者的许多优势对公司来说也非常有用。