How Making connections with unfamiliar groups for for better careers

Making connections with unfamiliar groups fuels innovation and makes for better careers

Remember those cliques in high school that all had their special spots in the cafeteria? It’s a universal experience: people have a natural tendency to gather in exclusive groups of familiar people. If you’ve ever tried to get to know new people at a house party, you’ll have seen the same thing in action.

But, in truth, we’d all be better off trying to mingle with people we don’t know at all. That’s because connecting with utterly unfamiliar groups nourishes innovation.  

This is illustrated by the story of an early nineteenth-century Cherokee silversmith named Sequoyah. He made contact not just with his native community, but also with American settlers.

At the time, the Cherokee had no written language. But, so he could act as a link between the two communities, Sequoyah learned English. He started by learning to write his own name. Soon after, he was engraving it on his silverware.

Sequoyah saw how the settlers sent letters to communicate with each other and decided to import the innovation. Through hard work, he developed a system of symbols that represented the different syllables of the Cherokee language.

The syllabary was a raving success. The Cherokee soon adopted the script, and it remains in use to this day on street signs and in schools, especially in cities in Cherokee territory like Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

There’s another benefit to connecting with unfamiliar groups. We saw earlier that it can help you in your job search, but there’s a good chance that it’ll be more generally beneficial to your career, too.

Studies have shown that, in addition to being more innovative, you’ll also be awarded higher salaries and receive more promotions.

In 2004, sociologist Ronald Burt conducted a study where he tasked 673 managers working at a major electronics company with improving the company’s supply-chain management.

He found that managers who discussed the problem with people from different social clusters to their own were able to come up with the best ideas. As it happened, they were the same managers who already had the best paid and highest positions within the company.

Clearly then, networking will take you far!