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Raina Brands shows the value of diverse networks – and the pitfalls of interconnected ones with the same demographic characteristics
Whether we want to admit it or not, we like like-minded – it feels natural. Familiarity breeds contempt goes the clichéd saying, but similarity breeds connection.
Social scientists have long observed homophily – meaning love of the same – across ties of many kinds including friendship. The homophily principle springs from the things we can see. Like an automatic barcode scanner our brains rapidly compute how we compare to others. “Are we a similar age and the same gender? Are we the same ethnicity or race?”
The experience of one Asian trustee, who we’ll call Anushka, helps explain. She admitted feeling uncomfortable at her first board meeting. The group, she said, was distinctly “pale, stale and male”. Anushka looked for similarity among differences and on the surface found none. She held her breath until she spotted another female trustee and let out a loud sigh of relief. Anushka admitted that she noticed the other trustee’s demographic traits first (she was a similar age and black). Anushka and the other female trustee went for lunch after the board meeting and forged a deeper connection from there.
The sea of sameness: sink or swim?
Anushka’s anecdote shows that homophily serves some useful purposes – building fast connections with strangers, for example. But it also has a downside. Some evidence shows that co-workers are only likely to create social connections in a social-work setting if they are of the same race. This can limit people's social worlds. Similarities in surface-level traits, such as race and ethnicity, can also create divides.
Raina Brands, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at London Business School (LBS), examines how informal networks of friendship, advice and communication help or hinder managers in the workplace. “At first, we form relationships because of shared demographic features,” she says. “But as we interact we become more similar, which reinforces our attraction to each other.” This dynamic spiralling effect produces dense pockets of similar people in organisations around the world.
“When we say build diversity into your network, it's not because men and women or different ethnicities or people of different ages are inherently different. It's because they're interacting in different social environments. They see the world differently.”
