The Secret to Great Opportunities? The Person You Haven’t Met Yet.
Article written by Rachel Lee
About the Speaker
Tanya Menon is an organization psychologist and Associate Professor at the Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University. Her research focuses on how people think about their relationships and the habits that allow them to build positive connections with other people.
Quick Summary & Takeaways
We have a tendency to form cliques and spend the most time with people who are like us. Think about your closest friends: do they share your ethnicity and/or background? We are naturally more comfortable with people who share the same culture, values and background as us. But, people like us tend to do the same things, know the same people, and see the same opportunities.
It’s important to get to know people who are different from us. From a careers perspective, people who are different from us will be able to expose us to new experiences and opportunities. Research shows that most people don’t get jobs through their “strong ties”: their closest friends, parents, or significant other. Instead, they get jobs through “weak ties”: people they see once in a while, but don’t interact with often.
It becomes especially important to reach out to new people in a time of crisis. These people have different life experiences and are more likely to be able to help you, because they can see things from a different point of view and suggest a solution that you would never have thought of.
Unfortunately, people of different backgrounds will tend to respond to times of crises in different ways. In a study, Menon made people of different socioeconomic statuses imagine normal and crisis situations. She found that in times of crisis, the lower socioeconomic status people reached inwards; they thought of fewer, and less-diverse people. Meanwhile, the higher socioeconomic status people thought of more and more diverse people to position themselves to bounce back from that setback.
Whether we are doing great in life, or are experiencing a setback, we can all benefit from expanding our social network and increasing our weak ties.
Here are some strategies to expand your social network:
Increase your exposure to different people.
Attend an event you usually wouldn’t go to.
Go to the gym at a different time.
Use a different bathroom in your dorm.
Notice the people in your everyday life that you are ignoring.
Sit with a different person in class.
Force yourself to talk to and sustain a conversation with the person you think you are least likely to get along with.
Remember your weak ties.
Look at your list of Facebook friends (and LinkedIn friends, if you’re on top of your game and have created an account!) just so you remind yourself of people who are there beyond those that automatically come to mind.