Tanya Menon: The secret to great opportunities? The person you haven't met yet
Tanya Menon: Hemligheten bakom fantastiska möjligheter? Personen du inte mött ännu
Tanya Menon speaks, writes and consults on collaboration. Her research focuses on how people think about their relationships and the habits that allow them to build positive connections with other people. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
my students years later.
flera år senare.
a funny thing happens.
händer en skojig sak.
in the classroom they were sitting.
i klassrummet de satt.
they were sitting with as well.
any special superpowers of memory.
favorite people in their favorite seats.
på sina favoritplatser.
they stay with them for the whole year.
och stannar med den hela året.
for my students is they're at risk
with just a few people
med ett fåtal personer
for an international, diverse network.
ett internationellt och varierat nätverk.
so that they can get great networks.
just för att få stora nätverk.
in our lives, in our school, in work,
i skolan, på jobbet,
brought a friend along for this talk?
till detta föredrag?
at your friend a little bit.
there's nothing wrong with this.
och det är faktiskt inget fel med det.
around people who are similar.
med liknande personer.
we're on a precipice, right?
vid en avgrund, eller hur?
när vi behöver nya idéer,
when we need new ideas,
when we need new resources --
när vi behöver nya resurser,
for living in a clique.
för att leva i en bubbla.
had a famous paper
skrev en berömd uppsats,
is he asked people
var att fråga människor
most people don't get their jobs
att de flesta inte får jobb
their mother, their significant other.
pappa, mamma, partner.
people who they just met.
folk man just har träffat.
the problem is with your strong ties,
med dina starka länkar,
significant other, for example.
people you just met today --
första gången idag,
to a whole new social world.
till en helt ny social värld.
ticket to travel our social worlds,
biljetten för resor i sociala världar,
så nära hemmet,
human beings so close to home,
a little bit more intentional
a more imperfect social search engine.
en mindre perfekt social sökmotor.
and filtering your friends.
och sållar bland dina vänner.
Jag vill få en fantastisk möjlighet."
I want to get a great opportunity."
are so fundamentally predictable."
is that you start at home,
the same staircase or elevator,
eller åker samma hiss,
the same bathroom --
you're seeing exactly the same people.
att du träffar exakt samma människor.
slightly more inefficient.
network of people.
av människor.
we are actually filtering.
är hur vi filtrerar.
we are looking at them, we meet them,
tittar vi på dem, vi möter dem,
"You're relevant."
"Du är relevant."
We can't even help it.
det går inte att förhindra.
to do instead is to fight your filters.
istället, är att kämpa emot era filter.
around this room,
the least interesting person that you see,
over the next coffee break.
under nästa kafferast.
even further than that.
the most irritating person you see as well
den mest irriterande person ni kan se
is you are forcing yourself
är att tvinga sig själv
you don't want to connect with,
som man inte vill ta kontakt med,
but you know what I do?
men vet ni vad jag gör?
på sina favoritplatser.
in their favorite seats.
med olika personer
bumps in the network
slumpmässiga krockar i nätverket
to connect with each other.
att få kontakt med varandra.
of an intervention at Harvard University.
intervention på Harvard.
the rooming groups,
people are not choosing those roommates.
de väljer inte sina rumskamrater.
all different ethnicities.
with those roommates,
med rumskamraterna,
that initial discomfort.
commonalities with people.
med människor.
"take someone out to coffee."
"ta med någon på en kopp kaffe."
is you can't choose;
att man inte kan välja;
you're going to meet in that place.
vem man kommer att möta där.
the paradox is, interestingly enough,
är, intressant nog,
on every single floor.
who would bump into each other
som råkade träffa varandra
into each other anyway.
fanns ett enda postrum,
there was only one mail room,
from all over that building
in that social hub.
from your social habits?
era sociala vanor?
of unpredictable diversity?
av oförutsägbar mångfald?
some wonderful examples.
pickup basketball games,
is when they go to a dog park.
när de går till hundrastgårdar.
than online dating when they're there.
än nätdejting.
I want you to think about
att ni ska tänka på
a little more inefficient,
lite mindre effektiva,
a more imprecise social search engine.
en mer oprecis social sökmotor.
den sociala slumpmässigheten,
to widen your travels,
a second-class ticket
when we reach out to people.
när vi tar kontakt med människor.
a very eventful year.
för några år sedan.
overseas and accept it,
what ended up happening was,
som fakultetsmedlem,
new identity as a mother.
identitet som mamma.
of advice from people.
från människor.
more than any other advice was,
mer än något annat, var:
is breaking down,
is to try and reach out
on a much larger scale.
i mycket större skala.
and low socioeconomic status people,
med hög och låg socioekonomisk status,
in a baseline condition,
our lower socioeconomic status people,
med lägre socioekonomisk status,
were actually reaching out to more people.
när de hade det bra.
i sitt nätverkande.
in how they were networking.
av människor
to think about maybe losing a job.
att förlora jobbet.
completely differed.
people reached inwards.
blev inåtvända.
people thought of more people,
tänkte på fler personer,
to bounce back from that setback.
för att komma tillbaka från bakslaget.
spontaneously unfriended
your dad and your dog.
we need our networks the most.
We're doing it to ourselves.
Vi gör det mot oss själva.
when we are being bullied,
när vi blir mobbade,
isolating ourselves,
don't see our resources.
där vi inte ser våra resurser.
we don't see our opportunities.
vi ser inte våra möjligheter.
at your list of Facebook friends
på sin vänlista på Facebook
of people who are there
om alla som finns där,
automatically come to mind.
kommer att tänka på.
one of the things we did was,
research on self-affirmation:
om självaffirmationer:
and I were able to do is,
och jag lyckades göra,
who had affirmed themselves first
be threatening to them.
you asked somebody for a favor.
du bad någon om en tjänst.
at the language that you used.
på språket du använde.
represents a metaphor.
på ett transaktionellt vis
in a transactional way,
to us as human beings.
för oss människor.
and reaching out to people
och att nå ut till människor
"you're welcome" in other languages.
och "varsågod" i andra språk.
translation of these words.
översättningen av orden.
that helps us impose upon other people
som hjälper oss tränga oss på andra
Italian, French,
italienska, franska
or transactional about those words.
eller transaktionellt med de orden.
Robert Cialdini says
Robert Cialdini säger
the transaction a little bit more.
transaktionen lite mer.
samma sak för mig.'"
do the same for me.'"
to not think in transactional ways,
att inte tänka transaktionellt,
to make it a little bit more invisible.
lite mer osynlig.
"You're welcome," means,
need to go through those formalities."
Vi behöver inte formaliteter."
is "Come back to me."
är "kom tillbaka till mig."
eliminate the transaction
eliminera transaktionen
or "That's what friends are for."
eller "Det är det man har vänner till."
you think about this ticket that you have
hur ni tänker på biljetten ni har
"Life is a journey." Right?
några går av vid olika stationer,
some leave at different stops,
it's a beautiful one.
a different metaphor.
being a passenger on that train,
through the social universe.
ditt sociala universum.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Tanya Menon - Organizational psychologistTanya Menon speaks, writes and consults on collaboration. Her research focuses on how people think about their relationships and the habits that allow them to build positive connections with other people.
Why you should listen
Tanya Menon is fascinated that in a time when we can instantaneously connect with nearly the whole world, we often instead filter our relationships even more narrowly. As such, we often get stuck in dead ends, missing out on new people, ideas and opportunities. Menon and her collaborators have studied the often mundane feelings and innocuous daily habits that cause people to remain in their social comfort zone and produce this polarization. And they have also explored ways that we can be more intentional about navigating the social world.
Menon is Associate Professor at the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. Her research has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and The Financial Times. She is Associate Editor at Management Science journal, an award-winning teacher, and she has done keynotes, consulting and training for organizations all over the world. Her book with Dr. Leigh Thompson, Stop Spending, Start Managing: Strategies to Transform Wasteful Habits (2016, Harvard Business Review Press) explores various social traps people face in business, and how to overcome them.
Menon earned a bachelor's degree in sociology from Harvard University in 1995 and her Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Her goal as a researcher, educator, consultant and parent is to create new ways for people to connect with each other so that they can live richer and more creative lives. She hopes that her work will help people intentionally create new habits to live a wider life and also share them widely.
Tanya Menon | Speaker | TED.com