the Biggest Predictor of Career Success


Brains? Grit? Luck? Nope, science says the most likely sign that you're going to succeed big time is something else.


What's the biggest predictor of success in life? Take a guess and you're likely to come up with something like talent, brains, grit, even luck or connections. And certainly all of these are great things to have if you're looking to accomplish incredible things. But according to a recent Medium post by author and entrepreneur Michael Simmons, science actually offers a different answer to this question.
"According to multiple, peer-reviewed studies, simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success," he writes. "In fact, the study shows that half of the predicted difference in career success (i.e., promotion, compensation, industry recognition) is due to this one variable."

The power of an open network

Simmons explains that he discovered this startling truth in the course of interviewing several prominent network scientists. These experts not only told Simmons about the importance of having an open network, they also explained to him why this one factor is so incredibly important.
First, what exactly is an "open network"? To define the term, it's helpful to understand its opposite. "Most people spend their careers in closed networks; networks of people who already know each other," Simmons writes. "People often stay in the same industry, the same religion, and the same political party." This type of closed network, he concedes, has some obvious advantages.
"It's easier to get things done," Simmons allows, "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." 
On the other hand, those with an open network--i.e., people who act as the node connecting different groups--can end up feeling more lonely and less understood. Having an open network is "challenging, because it requires assimilating different and conflicting perspectives into one worldview," Simmons notes.
But it's the sparks that fly when people of different backgrounds and worldviews knock against one another that actually make open networks so valuable. By bringing together people of different backgrounds, you gain the ability to escape a single group's echo chamber and avoid errors caused by groupthink; the power to act as a connector or translator between different circles; and the immense creative potential of combining ideas from different fields.
In short, if you're able to endure the occasional social and intellectual discomfort of moving among different groups, you'll gain a massive boost to your chances of career success.
What's the best way to go about opening up a closed network?
Tamer El-Sagheer
Skillinside

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Make-Or-Break Career Skill No One Talks About

Image
It goes without saying that you have to be responsible and alert to succeed in your career, no matter what your career path is. You have to be reliable, of course, and you have to be a good team member. No one can really act surprised if they miss out on a promotion and their boss says "We all like you, Stan, but you have a tendency to let us down when it matters, and that's not something a supervisor can do. I gave the promotion to Anjali, because I can always rely on her in the clinch." There is another, critical career skill that makes or breaks careers and that we don't talk about as often as we should. It's a muscle that we don't grow just by getting older or by going to school or even by taking on more and more responsibility over time. It is possible to reach a ripe old age without growing this muscle, and it always a shame when that happens. At Human Workplace we call this must-have career muscle "Fast Learning." What does it mean...
Read more

22 Characteristics of High-Potential Employees

Image
  Even if your team is made up solely of supremely talented individuals, there are always a few employees who stand out from the pack.  According to the  Harvard Business Review ,  these high-potential employees  account for an average of 5% of any company’s workforce.  High-potential employees (HiPos) excel in their current roles, but they also possess the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in managerial positions and senior roles, too. Importance of identifying top talent for employers High-potential employees need to know that you recognize their potential. In fact, a  recent study  showed that 77% of HiPos feel that being recognized as high-potential talent is important to them.  These workers want help in identifying a career path and they also want support in carving that path. For these reasons, it’s critical that managers identify HiPos early on in order to retain them and keep them engaged.  Employers who identify top tale...
Read more

Eight Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Sales Closing Technique

Image
Many people who work in sales face a lot of rejection, especially early in their careers. That’s why there’s no better feeling than closing the deal with a new prospect. As you learn and grow as a salesperson, you start to figure out the most effective techniques for moving a potential lead down the funnel and turning them into a paying customer. We asked members of   Young Entrepreneur Council   to share their best tips for closing a sale, along with anecdotes of how they’ve put it into practice. Here’s what they had to say. 1. Paint A Picture Starring The Customer   The best way to close a sale in my experience is to gather a great deal of information about a customer, tie that information to aspects of a particular product/service, then create a visual in the customer’s head of how implementing this product/service can benefit their lives. This was an extremely effective technique I found in one of my earliest jobs selling cable subscriptions. I would ask ...
Read more