Belonging Project Podcast

Fiorenza Rossini (00:50)
All right, I want to tell a little bit about you and I’m so grateful that you’re here with me today.

Fiorenza Rossini (00:56)
Tim Yeo is the chief introvert of the Quiet Achiever. He coaches and runs the Quiet Achiever School to help Quiet Achievers have impact at work without pretending to be extroverts. Tim spent more than 20 years as a designer and design leader, and

best known for saying complex things simply and coining the term peopling, he’s also a keynote speaker, bookbinder, and published his book, The Quiet Achiever, while working remotely from his farm in Australia with his partner and the fluffiest old English sheepdog ever.

Fiorenza Rossini (01:33)
I’m very excited about this episode that I felt like how is it that I’ve not talked about introverts or quiet leadership till now on the podcast. So yeah, very glad to have you.

So as you know I have read your book actually I’ve listened to your book and And at the start of your book you mentioned about your move from Singapore to Australia where

the extrovert trait is ⁓ idealized. And I was thinking perhaps we could start here. Could you tell us a little bit about your move and your observations when you moved?

Tim Yeo (02:21)
Yeah, of course. So I’m Tim Yeo I was originally from Singapore, which is in Asia. And people back home, it’s an Asian society. And even though English is our first language, it’s still very much an Asian culture. And even though it’s a very cosmopolitan city, we work with people from all around the world. And when I started work about 20 years ago,

people that I worked with could be in the US, the UK. It certainly wasn’t as if if I was working in Singapore, I was only working with people in Singapore. We are working with people all around the world. But as far as culture goes, a lot of companies that ended up working in Singapore had a very different style of working.

When I came to Australia, which is a Western society, it was quite jarring when I go into meetings and people will be saying what they think out loud, even though if what they were saying wasn’t fully formed or it wasn’t true or it was just the first thing that came into their minds, which was a very jarring culture for me. It wasn’t because it’s the first time that I’ve seen that kind of behavior. I’ve certainly seen that behavior before.

It’s just how often I saw that kind of behavior when I first came here. Even very simple things like when I first came to Australia. ⁓

I’ll be walking into a grocery store and I’ll just be speaking to the person. And in Singapore, English is our first language. It is my first language. But somehow people didn’t quite understand what I was saying. It might have been my accent. It might have been the way that appeared. People just didn’t seem to understand. And I think for many people who don’t live where they are from, I think oftentimes they will have that feeling like they don’t quite belong.

And at first, in the beginning, I thought, you know what, I’m going to try and actually change my accent and try and sound a lot more Australian. I tried to take on a lot of these Australian style of speaking, but they will be saying things like Bob’s your uncle, or maybe there’ll be expressions that you will use or how you’re going. And I’ll be thinking, why would you ask me how I’m going? I just got here. So, but what they’re saying is really, how are you? How are things with you?

A lot of these things I didn’t quite understand when I first came to Australia. And like anybody else that lives in a country that is not theirs, they often feel as if this is not where they belong. They just arrived. And oftentimes their confidence takes a hit.

Even though English was my first language, all of a sudden I started becoming a lot quieter. I was worried that people may not understand me. So there was that side of it, of being somebody that had just arrived. But you’ll also contrast that with the workplace culture that I was seeing, where people are maybe speaking up before, even though what they say or think might not be fully formed or true. The culture that I came in.

from. You only speak up if what you’re going to say you know is true. You don’t want to take the chance of making a fool of yourself by saying something that is not true. So the things that they value, the things that were important to the workplaces that I find myself in in Australia, it was quite different. And it made me different, made me try and fit in in the beginning to pretend to be more like them. And I did, I tried it.

But at the same time, it always felt unnatural because I was always trying to be somebody that I wasn’t.

Fiorenza Rossini (05:53)
and

And what inspired you to write the book?

Tim Yeo (06:00)
Well, the book really started as a talk. This was back in 2019. I ⁓ probably been about 15 years into my career and I felt like I reached a stage where I had learned enough to be able to give back. I wanted to give back to the industry and the people that gave me so much. So at first I thought I would write a book.

But then I also thought, you know what? Nobody actually reads books. I’m the only person that’s still reading books. Everyone might be on Instagram or TikTok or watching stuff on video. So I took everything that I learned and I put it into a conference talk, a talk that would be given at conferences. And it took a while. It took a while for people to actually pick it up. But once I started giving it, ⁓ even though it took a lot of effort and practice to get it done.

Because public speaking, even up to today, doesn’t come naturally to me. It takes a lot of energy from me. But every single time that I gave that talk, at the end of it, people always come up to me and say, thank you so much for giving it. It really offered a different perspective that they haven’t heard before. So I started giving it at conferences, ⁓ at every conference that would accept me and would have me.

But then I also started thinking, you know, people don’t go to conferences all the time. How else can I try and actually reach more people? So then because I thought people didn’t actually read books anymore, I was the only one that read books. I started with online courses and that was back in 2021 when I first launched the Quiet Achiever School. We had all of the topics that you see in the book today, which are things like how to do public speaking well, how to make small talk, how to network.

except they were offered as an online cohort course. And then it was really until 2024, end of 2023, 2024, that I really knew what the book needed to be. And that was when I started writing it. And like how I first started leading teams, a lot of the times I just learned by doing. I had never written a book before. I had never published a book before.

But at the same time, I started learning about how do all those things. And the book took three months to write, but it took eight months to edit. And eight months of editing was just sheer hell. I had to learn so much about publishing. I had no idea how to publish a book, but ⁓ I did it. And I had no idea how to edit a book. I had no idea what I was doing. I read a book about editing and then I edited the book on my own.

And then I knew there would be, I had to find a copy editor because that was the one thing that I could not do well. I found a copy editor and she helped copy edit the book. And then the book was published on the 9th of August in 2024. The 9th of August is actually Singapore’s national day. And being a Singaporean living away from Singapore, I really wanted to make that date so that it’s easy to remember, but also is symbolic of where it came from.

And that’s really how the book came about. ⁓

Fiorenza Rossini (09:07)
I love it, I love it. It really feels like an organic journey. ⁓ I think that’s really, that’s really inspiring. And in my coaching work, I often hear,

Tim Yeo (09:16)
Hmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (09:21)
individuals we would identify as introverts saying like, you I need to do more public speaking. that’s really needed of me in order to progress and I wanna progress my career and that really feels icky. And to hear about you actually, you know, crafting a talk, right, to help.

other introverts with their public speaking and to find their own voice in their own way is so inspiring, right? Because ⁓ you have like one, one of yours in front of you. You don’t have an extrovert telling you what to do in order to be heard and basically be extrovert, right? Which I think

makes quite a difference in terms of ⁓ the strategies or the tips that you might be sharing or actually ready to implement, right? ⁓ In your book, you, so by the way, yes, I still read books. I actually listen to books, you you’re not alone. And,

Tim Yeo (10:13)
Hmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (10:27)
In your book, you mention about this reframe, right? moving away from introverts or the introverts term and reframing it into quiet Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Tim Yeo (10:39)
⁓ It was very intentional. ⁓ It was very intentional why I called it a quiet achiever. For a few reasons. Number one, I found myself when I was a manager. ⁓

I used to write this a lot in the performance reviews of the people on my team. They themselves were quiet achievers. I used that phrase way back. Um, and it just kept coming up again and again, because somehow in the field of design, a lot of the people that I used to work with in our teams were quiet in nature because the nature of the job is if it’s really sitting quietly, pushing pixels on your screen. And if that’s not something that you enjoy, you’ll probably go find.

something else to do. ⁓

⁓ the second reason why I chose that actually is an interesting story. There was years ago. I remember it was a job application process and part of applying for that job, he had to fill in a questionnaire and then that questionnaire, they were talking about why is it they’re looking forward to this role? And then there was a multiple choice question and they were talking about, can you tell us a bit more about your strengths and then you multiple choice, you those options. And then they came to question.

can you tell us about your weaknesses? And I was looking down this list and one of the weaknesses in this job application survey was introversion. And I was like, in that moment, while applying for this job, was like, what are you talking about? It’s like being an introvert is not a weakness. I don’t think it’s a weakness. Why would introversion be on the list of weakness? If anything, it should be on the list of a strength.

But then it also made me realize that how many of the workplace cultures that we work in actually do see introversion as a weakness. They see it as something to be rid of. It comes up so often in the conversations that I have with my coaches. They see it as a problem they want to be rid of. How can I get better at public speaking to appear a lot more extroverted? So I didn’t want the book to have the word introvert in it because I

didn’t want it to stand in the way of people to actually get access to the lessons. If you’ve read the book, whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, I think the lessons and the tiny habits that are in the book, they’re going to be very useful to you as well, because really, essence, these are habits. They just happen to be habits that I formed, that I’ve practiced, that I have tried and have worked for me. And in the coaching that done, it’s worked for my coaches as well. They’ve tried it, they’ve practiced it.

Fiorenza Rossini (13:04)
Yes.

Tim Yeo (13:15)
works for them. They now have impact and influence and they’re visible and it feels a lot more authentic. It doesn’t feel like pretend anymore. So I didn’t want the title of the book to have introversion in it because I didn’t want it to stop people from picking up that book. I chose the word quiet because you can be quiet and I paired it with the word achiever, which is to have ambition to be able to accomplish all the things that you want to. And just because you’re quiet doesn’t mean that you

do all the things that you want to. And that’s how I came out with the book The Quiet Achiever.

Fiorenza Rossini (13:49)
I really love it, it really resonates with me. ⁓ When I was going through my coach training, ⁓ there was a similar concept that was mentioned. It was around how you can be a front of the room leader or a back of the room leader. And both are very much needed. ⁓

Tim Yeo (14:11)
Hmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (14:12)
And that really resonated with me and I think that’s why, you know, talking about quiet leaders and quiet achievers ⁓ is also kind of bringing me back to… It’s another way. It’s just another way of being and leading or achieving. And…

The human species is meant to be diverse, right? So I think it’s important to have this and to recognize this as a strength, I believe that it’s a strength, or at least just another way of being and another way of doing.

Tim Yeo (14:51)
The way that I see it is leadership a role. It’s just one role that you play. Sure. Maybe today in this one task, in this one moment, in this one situation, you are in front of the room and you are doing those things that you have to do. Other days you’ll be playing a different role. You’ll be back at the room, you know, contributing ideas quietly, influencing people quietly.

Fiorenza Rossini (14:52)
The

Tim Yeo (15:13)
Really, this shift really came from me when things started to change. When I actually realized that who I am, my identity, was separate from all these other things I’ve been trying to do, like public speaking, how to network, how to make small talk, how to introduce myself. I started seeing all these tiny habits as skills. Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean that I have nothing to say. All these things are skills and skills can be practiced. They are not.

who I am, just because I’m quiet shouldn’t limit me. It just means maybe some of these skills like public speaking simply takes a bit more time for me to practice because it may come, it may give extroverts a lot more energy to do public speaking. So that means they probably have a lot more practice than me. But just because I am quiet doesn’t mean that I can’t do these things. It just means maybe I have to practice a little more because it may not come as naturally to me.

Fiorenza Rossini (16:10)
And we still have traditional leadership models ⁓ favoring, visibility, high visibility, charisma, loud voice. ⁓

Any thoughts on that? Have you found that reframing, moving away from using the word introversion and moving into quiet achievers help people in finding belonging in the modern Western workplace?

Tim Yeo (16:41)
I think how I made sense of this for myself was I started asking myself, why is it in the organizations that I’ve worked in, why is it that every time I look upwards in the org, most of the people are either more extroverted in nature, that is simply who they are, or they might be quieter in nature, but they’re pretending to be that way. Why is it that their behavior seems to carry through?

And the way that makes sense of it is that the higher up you go, the fewer people have actually walked that road, that have actually done that job. And yes, maybe what got you to that table, that seat at the table to become the CEO, the VP, the senior VP, maybe what took you to actually get there was your skills, your ability. But once you get to that level, the number of people that have actually been there and done that job, those jobs,

are actually very few. And if the kind of work they are doing is probably people things that haven’t been done before. So how do people actually get their way? How do they actually figure out how to make things happen? My theory is, well, my thesis is really…

They got that wave out of sheer force of their will and their personality. They’re using a lot of people skills, a lot of the things that you see in the leadership teams that you and other people might work in, people in the podcast are listening to. They use a sheer force of their personality, their communication skills, their influence skills that all at the core are people skills. We haven’t talked about

logic or science, we’re talking simply about how they actually influence people. In my observation, that is how a lot of these people get things done. Because if you’re doing hard things, chances are nobody’s done that before. And if nobody has done that before, you can’t lean on evidence. You can’t lean all the time on things that ⁓ experience has actually taught you.

So you have to lean onto things that have you trying to convince people to do hard things that haven’t been done before. And that’s what a lot of companies that might be pushing the envelope.

I think that’s why a lot of them end up being extroverted in nature because it suits that kind of people who have those skills that probably come a lot more naturally to them. It doesn’t mean that quieter people can’t end up being VPs or senior people on the leadership team. It just means that those skills probably have to be more well practiced. So that’s my theory about how that ended up this way.

Fiorenza Rossini (19:09)
Mm-hmm.

And your book is packed of amazing tiny habits, Which are strategies that you are very generously sharing with your readers that have helped you personally.

I was wondering if you could share some ideas or perhaps tiny ideas that would help quiet achievers be seen and heard when they find self-promotion a little bit difficult or quite challenging in a way.

Tim Yeo (19:44)
⁓

A lot of companies that work in, ⁓ even if they’re remote or in person, they still seem to have a very strong meeting culture. If there is no meeting, then work doesn’t really happen. Meetings are where work gets done. ⁓ And meetings aren’t great for everything. But somehow it still seems to persist. Like that’s just how work gets done.

Fiorenza Rossini (20:03)
you

Tim Yeo (20:13)
For quieter people, it can be harder to actually speak up because maybe they process information differently. So some of the things if you, if let’s say you are struggling to speak up in a meeting and you’re quiet in nature, you need a bit more time to process. The first thing is to actually work on your motivation and really realize that you were invited to that meeting for a reason.

Up until today, people still can’t read minds. So if you don’t speak up, no one will actually know what you think. And one of the common things that happens with a lot of choir the cheapest is they will have a brilliant idea. In that moment, the microphone will be passed to them in the meeting and they can’t think of what to say. They’re like, ⁓ and then the mic passes on to somebody else and then they’re kicking themselves. Why is it that I can’t think faster and think of something to say?

So if you find yourself in that, if you find yourself in that scenario, there are a couple of things you can try. Number one, you can repeat the question out loud. You can just say, hmm, where do we think we should organize the year and event for our company? If you simply just repeat the question that you were asked, it sounds as if you are talking to yourself in your own head, which is the happy place for a of quiet people, right?

They live in their heads, they’re happy in their own thoughts. But when you actually say it out loud, buys you A, it buys you time. Secondly, you hear it in your own voice and then you buy see a bit more time to actually answer that question out loud. It feels a lot more natural. Another thing you can do is to actually say, ⁓ I’m actually still processing. ⁓ I’m not quite ready yet. Maybe you can go to Jane first and then after Jane’s done, you can come back to me. I should be done by then.

Another thing you can try, maybe other times you have this thought in your head that you really want to share in that meeting to help the team actually make that idea better. But somehow you just struggle to put your hand up or to be heard because you don’t like the attention of other people on you. So in that moment, you can actually try giving yourself permission and license to speak up. And what I mean is this, you can say, so I have this idea, it’s not

fully formed yet, but this is what I have so far. Or maybe you can say, look, you guys probably know this already, but I’m going to say it out loud just in case, just in case maybe you guys haven’t thought of this yet. So that little, that little preamble that, that license, that’s what I call a license of giving yourself permission to speak up. By saying that first, you’ve already told people that what you have is a fully formed yet, it’s not perfect.

but it also allows you to give you this opportunity to actually speak up because people still can’t read minds yet and Good is the enemy of perfect is the enemy of good sometimes it is better to share a half-baked idea With the rest of the team first so that maybe they can actually chime in and make it even better The last thing that you want is for everyone to jump under the bandwagon of a bad idea

going in the wrong direction that ends up happening and this is the decision and it’s made and the meeting is over and you can’t change the course of that bandwagon anymore. Everyone’s on board and you’re kicking yourself after why is it then? Why didn’t I actually speak up in that moment? Those are the first one that came to mind. There are a couple that come to mind for example, in the book I talk about

couple of habits that you can practice that most people don’t actually think about as important. And there are two things. Number one, learn how to introduce yourself well. Oftentimes, how many times have you found in the meeting on your first day joining a company, and then you’re going around the room introducing yourself and to everybody else, everyone’s introducing themselves. And all you can think about is you’re just counting the number of turns before it’s actually going to get to your turn.

And in that moment, you can’t even think about how to introduce yourself. You don’t even forget who you are. It happened to me so many times. But the weird thing is this. You know that when you join a new group or if you’re working with a new group of people, you are for sure going to have to introduce yourself on the very first day or the very first occasion that you’re working together. The question is, why is it so few of us actually think about preparing our introductions beforehand?

It happens all the time. You have to introduce yourself when you meet a new group of people they are going to work together in. But why is it so few of us actually prepare beforehand? One thing I know for sure, quiet people are amazing preppers. They can prepare to the nth degree beforehand. So definitely think about preparing your introduction beforehand so that when you actually come to actually introduce yourself,

you can actually introduce yourself with confidence. And oftentimes, that’s the first impression that people have of you. So you want to make it a good one. So that’s the first thing you can try. Other thing you can try is to actually practice how to make small talk. One of the things I used to find so awkward when I first came to Australia, which is a Western society, is how often people actually make small talk. You could be waiting in the queue, waiting for a bus, a tram, even waiting for a toilet.

Sometimes small talk just creeps up on you. And I always never knew what to say because it was not part of my culture from Singapore where I was growing up. So I came out of a framework because this was difficult for me. I came out of a framework of how to actually make small talk that feels authentic. In Australia, a lot of people talk about sport. They talk about rugby and footy or they talk about cricket.

So two sports that up until today I still have zero interest in. So I had to find other topics to actually talk about. And what I’m interested in is in food and talking to people about the weather. So those are things that I gravitate to, And one of the things that happens is when you’re trying to make small talk, you’re trying to build a connection.

And at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, at the lowest levels, you know, their basic needs, their physiological needs, they are about love and belonging. Everybody needs to eat. Everybody would enjoy, even if they don’t enjoy food, they would still need to have food at some point. So if you focus on those lower levels, on topics at those levels that feel natural to you, you don’t really need too many topics. You just need a few at those levels.

And then over time you just rinse and repeat. And then you can talk about the same things on a different day, or you can talk about a different topic still at those levels to different people or the same people. But the key thing is this, if you practice, it feels a lot more natural. And over time, if you see them as skills, you’re just going to get better and better and better at them. Whether it’s introducing yourself, whether it’s making small talk, whether it’s speaking up in meetings, all those things are skills and those can be practiced.

Fiorenza Rossini (27:00)
All of these really resonate, perhaps circling back with what you shared around having to introduce ourselves first day of a new role or we know we’re gonna work with a group of people. How much…

more empowering actually it is to prep our introduction not only for the moment that we will have to talk but also in staying present and actually trying to listen and catch a couple of things that others are saying because otherwise we’re just in our mind trying to prep really quickly what we’re gonna say and we don’t listen we don’t listen to others and at the end of the intro round we have no idea

Tim Yeo (27:43)
Hmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (27:46)
of what people have said, which also can be quite unhelpful because we know we have not been present and we know we are not comfortable and we know we’re trying to prep something on the go very quickly. So that’s a great, great tip that you shared that. Thank you so much. The other thing I wanted to ask you is around

Tim Yeo (27:48)
Mmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (28:13)
working across styles, right? So you have a team where you have quiet achiever and loud achievers, let’s say. How could you make that work? I know you have a chapter dedicated on this in your book. I think it’s your last chapter, if I’m correct.

Tim Yeo (28:16)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Fiorenza Rossini (28:36)
in practice, how could it work? Do you have examples from your own experience perhaps that you could share?

Tim Yeo (28:42)
Well, the first reason why I think it’s important for… First of all, I think it’s important whether you’re introverts or extroverts or ambiverts, no matter how you identify, I feel like having a diverse team is important because same same teams have same same people that produce same same ideas. The challenge here is really that when you have different people, people who are different, people who are diverse,

You get different ideas, but at the same time they also have different working styles. When you look at the companies that are the most successful, are they the companies that doing the same thing as everybody else? No, they’re not. And chances are it’s because they have people

who are different, have diverse ideas, are coming every single day thinking different things. The problem is that when you have so many different kinds of people working together and they are different, how do you deal with the friction that comes up? Whether they’re introverted, extroverted, whether they are different in all kinds of fascinating, interesting ways, how do you find a way to actually work better together? And some of the things that I’ve heard,

sound really complicated, maybe I’m not smart enough to understand how to do these things. So the things I actually put into my book are actually pretty simple and you can actually do that tomorrow. And here’s a couple of them. Number one, you can actually send people an agenda beforehand.

How many times have you gone to meetings where it’s just an invite and you don’t know what you’re going to discuss? If you actually send people an agenda, you actually cater for people who need a little bit more time to process and to think, and they can come to that meeting ready to participate and speak. Why is it that sometimes people value showing up?

and actually performing in that moment. If you actually set an agenda beforehand, you cater to different kinds of working. So the people who want to prepare can prepare. The people who want to show up and perform can show up and perform. First thing you can do tomorrow. Second thing you can do. Why is it that sometimes in meetings, it is the person that speaks first and speaks the longest and speaks the loudest that gets heard? What about the other quieter people in the room?

If you didn’t care about what they thought about, wouldn’t have invited them to their meeting in the first place. So why is it this person is just dominating the microphone the whole time? What if you actually tried a mix of silent and think-out-loud activities? And you can do this, right? So today we’re here to discuss topic A. Now, before we actually dive in, as you discussed, why not take one minute to actually write down silently what we’re thinking about topic A?

And after that minute, we can actually come together and discuss, but let’s first take a minute to actually write stuff down. Using a mix of silence and think-out-a-lot activities actually caters to different kinds of people that are in the room. Some people need a bit more time. Some people are ready to go. So, but it benefits both groups because if you write stuff down, you can have much more ⁓ inclusive discussion because you’re actually including different styles of thinking. So that’s the second thing you can try.

When you’re going around the room, a third thing you can try is, maybe I need a bit more time. So you could always give, hey Tim, I’m going to come to you next with this question about topic B. But maybe you need a bit more time. If you’re ready to say something, it’s okay. But I’m going to go to Jane first. I think you look ready, Jane. Do you want to talk about what do you think about topic B? So by giving a quieter person like me a heads up that I’m going to come to me next.

It gives me a bit more time to say, all right, they’re going to come to me to actually speak up to this. I need to actually write down what I want to say. In the meantime, maybe Jane can speak about it first, but I know my turn is coming after Jane. So I have a little bit of time to actually prepare. But giving people that short amount of time that heads up to actually think about what they want to say, you could actually include other people who maybe like me need a bit more time to process our thinking. So that’s the third thing you can try.

A lot of these, the fourth thing can try is, a lot of times I find myself sitting in meetings that are remote. It might be a Zoom meeting, a video call over Google Meets. Why is it that even though we’re meeting remotely, we are still relying on video and audio as the primary way of communicating? If you imagine yourself sitting in a room in a virtual meeting with 30, 40 people, even if a small group of five people.

You know, when you’re on a remote meeting, only one person can speak at a time. But why is it over on the right hand side, we have this thing, this thing is called the chat window. Why is it that we’re not using chat as a way to communicate as well? That way, maybe if we have a thought that’s coming up in that moment, we can actually type it in chat and actually send it. And other people can be listening to the person that’s speaking.

And they can also use their eyes to actually see what is coming through chat. And that person has now expressed their thought without having to interrupt the flow of the person that’s speaking. But how many times do we actually accept chat as a first-class citizen, as a first-class mode of communicating? Very few, even up to today. So another fourth thing that you can try is to actually start using chat as if it’s a

primary way of communicating as well. It’s not the only way. You can carry on still using video and audio as a way of communicating, but you can also read what’s happening in chat and actually pulling people who might have something that they want to say, or they might have said something really interesting and you can give them the floor to voice their ideas. Those are the first four things that came to mind. And I think even as I say them out loud,

They are not very hard things to do. You could, if you’re listening to this podcast, you can probably do that after you listen to this podcast. They’re not hard things to do. But if again, if there are skills that you practice, you’re going to be able to pull in people who work differently, who think differently, and you can find ways to actually include them in the discussion. So that just because they’re quiet doesn’t mean that they don’t get hurt. You find ways of working better together.

Fiorenza Rossini (34:48)
Yeah. Thank you so much for those generous tips here that you shared. And I like how practical they are. And, you know, it’s things that people can start playing with and experimenting with straight away. It feels really like for a leader who is passionate about creating, fostering an environment where people feel included.

Right, because I do think that inclusion is needed to then have belonging. Those could also be great, ⁓ great tips, great strategies to get going with the team and make sure that ⁓ you can cater, right, for everyone in your team. And perhaps you might have just started in your leadership role and you don’t know.

And you want to get some, you know, know exactly, you know, what are people preferences and perhaps yes, you can ask but also you could observe a little bit you keep you can give yourself a bit of time to observe and try to get a sense yourself and With those strategies that you’ve shared. It’s actually a great way to do so and really create that inclusive environment and getting everyone

a chance, an equitable chance to communicate in a way that feels good to them.

Tim Yeo (36:14)
Hmm,

yeah, because how many times do we sit in meetings and only one person is speaking and everybody else is listening? What are they doing in those moments? How do you know what they’re thinking? How are you getting to actually benefit from the wisdom that sits within their brains if the person that’s speaking is always the same few people? I think if you want to be able to pull in the best ideas, the funny thing about this is

Fiorenza Rossini (36:36)
Yeah.

Tim Yeo (36:41)
Even when COVID happened, everybody suddenly had to work remotely. A lot of times, people still carried on with the same culture, a meeting culture, but working remotely, which was weird because communication can be synchronous, like in a meeting, like right now, but at the same time, it can be asynchronous. Not everything has to be a meeting. If it has to be a meeting, great. You can find ways of actually working. But I think the real unlock.

really happens when you start adopting different ways of working to suit the way that your company or your team is set up doesn’t mean that it’s an inferior way of working. It’s just different, just like how we are all different people. So I find it’s so interesting that even up until today, when you see people returning to offices and you also

even though they have shown that they can actually work sometimes even better when they’re actually working from home. But why is it so many companies are enforcing that people can like insisting on them actually coming back to the office? I have a theory on this. I don’t know if it’s true, but it goes back to what I said earlier, which is the higher up in the organization you go, it tends to look a lot more extroverted in nature.

And sometimes those people operate their best when they are in an office, when they have an audience. They have people that will actually listen to them speak. And if you find, when I think back to the time of COVID, when everyone suddenly had to work from home and it was not an option, a lot of the struggling people that I heard were from people who were a lot more extroverted in nature.

because all of a sudden they didn’t have an audience, they didn’t have those same ways of working that they used to have when they’re working in an office. I remember one time I was talking to this person who’s extroverted in nature and in order to actually work and actually get work done, that person actually started a Zoom meeting of one with himself and he was actually having a meeting on his own and he was speaking out loud because that’s just the way that he works better and it shouldn’t be that way.

I think that the way that we work can actually change. We don’t have to accept that meetings are always the best way to get things done. We don’t have to accept that working in an office, in an open plan office is the best way to get things done. You can find talent from even a farm in Adelaide where I am in the middle of nowhere. And that’s only possible because of the wonders of the internet. And you lose all of those talent and those opportunities.

If you cannot find ways, if you still insist on having people back under one roof, which is not even the case in the case of countries that are multinationals and different time zones on around the world. This never going to be the case having everyone under the same roof. So the challenge I suppose if you’re a leader and you’re listening to this podcast, the challenge I have for you is this. Find ways of getting the best of your people wherever they are.

whether it’s work practices, whether it is simple changes that we talk about in the book, all those things are just designed so they can get the best of your people and your team so they can work better together.

Fiorenza Rossini (39:51)
This is really inspiring ⁓ and I’ve said this before but I really love how practical your strategies are.

I’m very grateful for your time today and all that you’ve you’ve shared with us Tim. Thank you so much ⁓ It’s been really a great topic to to talk about and

Belonging is really the end game, right, in a team. You want to belong. You want everyone to feel, ⁓ well, as a leader, you want everyone to feel that they belong. And as a team member, you wanna feel that you belong, right? Because…

that makes it worth it. You can be in love with your job, but at the end of the day, if you don’t feel that belonging, it doesn’t quite cut it. So, yeah. Yeah.

Tim Yeo (40:44)
Hmm. If you’re listening

to this podcast, ⁓ and you’re quiet in nature, I probably have one last message for you. And the message is this. That who you are is enough.

I spent so long in my career trying to be comparing myself to other people who I thought were better, who were extroverted in nature. And really comparing myself to others was my recipe for misery. For a long time, I could pretend, but every day that mask of pretending to be somebody else just felt heavier and heavier until I couldn’t put it on anymore. I couldn’t pretend anymore. And that’s how this book really came about.

It was when I hit rock bottom, but I still felt like I have so much to give that I had to find a different path, a different path to success. It may not look like the leaders that work in your company, it may not look like their path to success, it may not look like their behaviors, but it is my path and it’s one that I walk very comfortably today. And it can be yours as well, because who you are is enough. Just because you’re quiet doesn’t mean you have nothing to say.

Everything else are skills that you can practice and with practice you’re just gonna get better and better and better.

Fiorenza Rossini (41:54)
Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much, Tim.

really appreciate our conversation today and I have no doubt it will be a great source of inspiration. I’m gonna include in the episode show notes your book and where to find your book.

Tim Yeo (42:15)
So for anyone that’s listening to this podcast, if you guys want to check out the book, it’s called the Quiet Achiever. It’s available online on Amazon or any good bookstore everywhere. It’s available as an ebook, as a PDF. It’s also available as an audiobook that I narrated. Funny story, I actually narrated it when I actually created a home studio to record that audiobook. And it’s actually in one of the quietest places in my house, which is inside my wardrobe. So if you’re listening to…

you can have the picture in your head of Tim sitting inside his wardrobe recording that audio book.

You can also check out the Quiet Achiever website, you can buy it directly. We also have the Quiet Achiever School, which is a series of everything in the book, from public speaking to making small talk to how to network well in a way that feels a lot more natural. These courses are online, they’re available as a self-paced course that you can actually start anytime. And also coach Quiet Achievers who want to be leaders one-on-one.

And you can find all of this on my website, The Quiet Achiever. Just search for Tim Yeo, The Quiet Achiever, and I should be one of the first results in that list.

Fiorenza Rossini (43:23)
Thank you so much Tim and the wardrobe trick worked perfectly because the audio is amazing.

Tim Yeo (43:28)
Yeah, I don’t know if you heard this, but if you listen very closely you might hear two things. You might hear the magpies that are outside the window. They are really loud. And other things you might hear might be my growling stomach, which is something I just couldn’t get out of the audio. So if you listen to it again, listen out to those two things.

Fiorenza Rossini (43:50)
Alright, now that you’ve told us the secrets, I’ll be like, okay, can I hear this?

Tim Yeo (43:53)
I was editing it so many times. I just couldn’t- I got quite a few of them. I took them out of the recording, but there was still a couple that I missed.