Today is May 16 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you work at recognizing, accepting, and celebrating among people who are different from you?”
The old adage “it’s now what you know, it’s who you know” is true but there is a caveat. The “who you know” needs to be outside of the circles frequently traveled.
Just being connected, or having a large number of LinkedIn contacts, fails to provide the necessary level of engagement often required to succeed in today’s ever-changing global marketplace.
Research from network science shows that being the most connected person is not an effective way to build a network.
According to the latest research, simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success. Most people spend their careers in closed networks; networks of people who already know each other. People often stay in the same industry, the same religion, and the same political party.
In a closed network, it’s easier to get things done because you’ve built up trust, and you know all the shorthand terms and unspoken rules. It’s comfortable because the group converges on the same ways of seeing the world that confirm your own. But is remaining in a closed network for extended periods of time healthy when it comes to understanding difference?
Successful people intentionally work on engaging with those they have yet to connect with or those less connected.
People with ties to the less-connected are more likely to hear about ideas that haven’t gotten exposure elsewhere, and are able to piece together opportunities in ways that less effectively networked colleagues cannot. People who actively build open networks are also exposed to different types of ideas, people, and cultures.
Feminist, writer and civil rights activist Audrey Geraldine Lorde noted “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
How often do you work at recognizing, accepting, and celebrating among people who are different from you?