work
Our team is in a meeting at work; everyone is talking at once but I haven’t said a word. Working like this has never felt right for me. I’m not competitive, my default is to avoid confrontation and I’m more productive when I have time to reflect. But I worry: Do they think I don’t understand? Or that I’m daydreaming? Or uninterested? Author and journalist Rebecca Holman describes people like me as ‘beta’. ‘What people can’t see is that while everyone else is being sucked into a pointless argument, you’re making notes and thinking things through’, she says. ‘You’re trying to solve the problem. To save time, you’ll probably email your thoughts after the meeting. You may not get credit, but it’s the easiest way to do it.’
This is exactly how I operate, and hearing someone put it into words is refreshing. So is her insistence that betas are as essential to a team as alphas. I’ve often questioned myself and worried whether colleagues overlook me or assume I don’t have anything to contribute. I know that I get the job done, but I’ve felt like I don’t fit in – that I need to be louder and more assertive if I’m going to progress.