Susan Cain and the Question Every Leader Should Ask Their Team
Ever wonder why some team members go quiet in meetings? Or why the person who wowed you in their interview suddenly struggles to contribute in group brainstorming?
It’s rarely about ability. It’s about how we’re inviting their best thinking.
When Quiet Got Loud
Seven years ago, I sat down with NYT bestselling author Susan Cain to discuss her groundbreaking book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.
(You can watch her Secret Strengths of Introverts talk from Energy Disruptors 2018 — plus my Q&A with her afterwards — below.)
At the time, her TED Talk, The Power of Introverts, had just crossed 20 million views, and she was reshaping how leaders thought about the “extroverted ideal” — the assumption that the best leaders are the loudest, fastest, most confident voices in the room.
Cain is best known for challenging that ideal. Her research showed how introverts bring strengths in deep thinking, creativity, and listening that are often overlooked in environments built for the loudest voices.
Her “Quiet Revolution” changed everything from how teams run meetings, to how schools design classrooms, to how offices are laid out. More recently, she has explored the power of “softer” emotions in her book Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole.
Last month, we reunited on stage at the 2025 ASAE Annual Meeting in Los Angeles to explore how her ideas on introversion have evolved — and how dramatically the world has changed around them.
Sitting alongside Susan again reminded me: the way we design our workplaces either unlocks hidden brilliance, or silences it. Leaders get to choose which.
Hybrid Work and the Challenge of Unlocking the Best Thinking in Teams
In 2012, when Quiet was first published, “remote work” meant mining sites and oil rigs. Today, it means something very different with millions of us navigating hybrid work!
I asked Susan: Has the shift to digital and hybrid work leveled the playing field for introverts? Or has the “extroverted ideal” simply migrated online?
Her answer: both.
“Video calls and asynchronous communication have created incredible opportunities for introverts to contribute. The ability to think before speaking, to process in writing, to avoid the energy drain of constant in-person interaction—that’s been transformative.”
But there’s a catch.
“We’ve also created new performance pressures. There’s this thing I call ‘performance introversion’ on video calls, where people feel they need to be ‘on’ in a different way. And Zoom fatigue affects introverts differently because they’re managing both the social energy and the technology energy simultaneously.”
The takeaway? Hybrid work didn’t erase the introvert–extrovert gap. It simply reshaped it.
Introverts gain space for reflection, but face new drains from constant digital demands. Extroverts get visibility, but also risk dominating in camera-first cultures.
Six Words That Unlock the Best Thinking in Teams
So how do you get the best from every brain on your team?
Asking just six words: “What brings out your best thinking and contributions?”
Six words. That’s it. Yet most leaders never ask them.
We design meetings and processes around what feels efficient to us. But Susan’s research shows we’re often not setting others up for success.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with teams where the quiet person in the corner has the breakthrough idea,” she told me, “but they need processing time that nobody’s giving them. Meanwhile, the quick thinkers are getting frustrated because they want to move fast, and the reflective thinkers are getting overlooked because they can’t compete with the speed.”
The $2M Question
Her story about a frustrated CEO brought this to life. Susan was working with a tech startup where the CEO was annoyed that his “star performer”—someone who’d been brilliant in interviews and early projects—had seemingly gone quiet in team meetings.
“The CEO was starting to question whether he’d made a hiring mistake,” Susan said. “This person would sit in weekly leadership meetings and barely contribute. It was painful to watch.”
But instead of writing them off, Susan asked that one simple question: “What brings out your best thinking and contributions?”
The answer? “If I could get the agenda 24 hours in advance and have five minutes to collect my thoughts before each topic, I could give you insights that would save this company months of work.”
They tried it. Within a month, this “underperforming” team member had identified a critical product flaw that would have cost them $2 million if it had made it to market.
“The tragedy,” Susan reflected, “is how much brilliance we’re missing because we’re optimising for one way of thinking.”
I smiled while she told this story because the insight she shared hit home, literally. I am married to an introvert, and as a prolific lover of question asking, the ‘please send me the questions in advance’ is something my wife (Kate) has taught me.
One of our traditions is a New Year’s Eve Dinner, where I prepare a long set of reflective questions that sparks conversation about the year that was, and dreaming about the year that might be.
In the first year we were dating, I proudly produced my question list at dinner, naively expecting it would be met with delight. Only to have Kate, ever so gently, tell me she’d love some time to think about these questions before she had to answer.
As someone who thinks on their feet for a living in my work as a facilitator and interviewer, it was a major blind spot for me and a note I’ve tried to take — at home and at work — ever since.
Why Our Brains Work So Differently
What makes this even more compelling is the science behind it. Susan explained that introverts and extroverts literally process information differently at a neurological level.
- Extroverts have shorter neural pathways and are more responsive to dopamine — the neurotransmitter associated with reward and stimulation. Extroverts think out loud because talking actually helps them process.
- Introverts have longer neural pathways and are more sensitive to acetylcholine — the neurotransmitter linked to contemplation and introspection. Introverts need quiet processing time because their brains are doing more complex work to reach insights.
Neither is better. They’re just different operating systems.
“When you understand this,” Susan explained, “you realise that asking an introvert to brainstorm out loud is like asking someone to write with their non-dominant hand. They can do it, but you’re not getting their best work.”
I love this framing because it makes visible something we rarely consider: when we default to extroverted collaboration styles, we’re essentially asking a portion of our team to operate at a disadvantage.
We’d never dream of handing half our meeting attendees pens and forcing them to write with their non-dominant hand, then wonder why their contributions seemed less polished. Yet that’s precisely what happens when we assume everyone’s best thinking emerges through immediate verbal processing.
The beauty of Susan’s analogy is how it reframes the challenge.
This isn’t about introverts being “difficult” or needing “special accommodation” — it’s about recognising that different people access their best thinking through different pathways.
And we’re not talking about a small percentage of people. Introverts make up roughly 30-50% of the population, depending on how you measure it. Some report it’s over half. So, that’s potentially half your team whose best thinking you might be missing.
The Plot Twist: Quiet Leaders Outperform
Now, I’m not here to throw shade at extroverts — I am one!
But here’s the plot twist: research by my friend Adam Grant (Wharton), Francesca Gino (Harvard), and David Hofmann (UNC) found that introverted leaders actually drove 28% higher productivity from proactive teams than extroverted leaders.
And this echoes one of the central insights from Jim Collins’ Good to Great: the leaders who built the most enduring companies weren’t the loudest or most charismatic — they were often the quiet, humble “Level 5” leaders who paired fierce resolve with modesty.
Yet leadership pipelines still tend to reward charisma and polished “executive presence,” even though up to half the world identifies as introverts.
The real question isn’t who shines brightest in the spotlight — it’s who builds the stage so everyone else can shine too.
A Playbook for Unlocking Your Team’s Best Thinking
Based on my conversation with Susan, here’s a practical approach to unlocking your team’s hidden potential:
- Start With the Question
Before your next project, team restructure, or major initiative, ask each team member: “What brings out your best thinking and contributions?”
Do it one-on-one first — so you can adjust your own leadership approach to what each person needs.
But don’t stop there. Part of the power is in making these preferences visible to the group. When people share what helps them contribute at their best, it normalises the fact that we all think and work differently.
Your role as leader is to acknowledge those differences, model respect for them, and encourage the team to factor them in when they collaborate.
- Set the Scene for Every Brain
The real opportunity for leaders is to design environments where every kind of thinker can contribute at their best. A few simple shifts make a big difference:
- Circulate material in advance so reflective thinkers arrive prepared and confident to contribute.
- Blend live discussion with async options — use chat, polls, shared docs, or post-meeting follow-ups so ideas don’t get lost if someone needs more time.
- Use smaller group formats (like breakout rooms or pairs) to help quieter contributors open up.
- Offer choice in feedback — written, verbal, one-on-one — so people can share in the way that plays to their strengths.
- Name the differences out loud: tell your team “we all process differently, and that’s valuable.” This normalises variety and builds psychological safety.
It’s less about putting people in categories, and more about designing moments where every brain has a fair shot at contributing its best.
Ideas Aren’t Missing — They’re Waiting to Surface
The real competitive edge comes from teams that activate different thinking styles. That only happens when leaders design systems that give people space to contribute in ways that work for them.
And it starts with a simple question: “What brings out your best thinking and contributions?”
The breakthrough idea you’ve been waiting for might not be absent — it might just be waiting for the right conditions to surface.
P.S. A Throwback Worth Watching
Throwback to Energy Disruptors 2018: a lively conversation with Richard Branson, Dave Mowat, Peter Tertzakian, and Susan Cain on what it really takes to embrace disruption.