英语即兴演讲稿

　　but now here's where the bias comes in. our most important institutions, our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for extroverts and for extroverts' need for lots of stimulation. and also we have this belief system right now that i call the new groupthink, which holds that all creativity and all productivity comes from a very oddly gregarious place.

　　so if you picture the typical classroom nowadays: when i was going to school, we sat in rows. we sat in rows of desks like this, and we did most of our work pretty autonomously. but nowadays, your typical classroom has pods of desks -- four or five or six or seven kids all facing each other. and kids are working in countless group assignments. even in subjects like math and creative writing, which you think would depend on solo flights of thought, kids are now expected to act as committee members. and for the kids who prefer to go off by themselves or just to work alone, those kids are seen as outliers often or, worse, as problem cases. and the vast majority of teachers reports believing that the ideal student is an extrovert as opposed to an introvert, even though introverts actually get better grades and are more knowledgeable, according to research. (laughter)

　　okay, same thing is true in our workplaces. now, most of us work in open plan offices, without walls, where we are subject to the constant noise and gaze of our coworkers. and when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions, even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsize risks -- which is something we might all favor nowadays. and interesting research by adam grant at the wharton school has found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do, because when they are managing proactive employees, they're much more likely to let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an extrovert can, quite unwittingly, get so excited about things that they're putting their own stamp on things, and other people's ideas might not as easily then bubble up to the surface.