During a conversation with an Extraverted salesperson who did not know the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, I described the differences between Introversion and Extraversion and the internal processing of those with a preference for Introversion.
At first a look of surprise crossed their face and this was followed by an immediate aha moment. They went on to describe a conversation that had just occurred that morning with a client. The salesperson had been using discovery questions to explore the needs of this client and was getting MUCH MORE silence than response. The silence compelled the salesperson to push – asking even more questions. As this Extravert listened to me describe how the Introvert has a dominant function that is in the internal world not the external, they suddenly were able to reframe the clients behaviour from “being difficult (on purpose)” to being the Introvert’s natural way of reflecting before speaking. They were thrilled to have the suggestion to give the person time to reflect before pushing for an answer before the person has had a moment to ponder their response