Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, this is kinda wild. I wanted to share this thing I read. It's about, like, connecting the dots, you know?
So, picture this. It's super hot, like, a terrible, awful late spring day in this middle school classroom in Detroit. And, get this, no AC. Just fans blowing around all this hot, sticky air. Ugh. And the windows are, like, sealed shut! The kids are all sweaty and miserable, which, you know, is not exactly ideal for learning. But, the school's dress code? Oh boy. It said girls had to wear shorts that went below their knees. Like, what?
This kid, Tonya, she was, like, really bothered by this. She thought it was so unfair. And, you know how it is, when you get home, your mom always asks how your day was? So she told her mom about it. And her mom was just like, “Oh, that’s just how it is. It’s always been this way.” But Tonya wasn't having it. That just didn’t cut it for her.
Now, Tonya, she was kind of a special person. Everyone liked her – her classmates, her teachers, even the principal. They all thought she was kind and, like, honest. And she just loved talking to people and using what she learned to help them, you know? She had this feeling that if people could just understand each other's point of view, they could actually make a difference. So, she was, like, super motivated. She wrote this petition to change the dress code, and she got basically everyone in her class to sign it.
And, get this, she went to school wearing super short shorts – you know, shorts that she knew would get her noticed. And when they did, she handed the petition to the principal and, like, explained everything. She said the dress code was making the whole air-conditioning thing even worse, and it was especially unfair to girls.
And the principal actually *listened*! It shows you the power of, like, social stuff, right? We’re all influenced by other people, like, all the time. Even for really dumb decisions and also bigger stuff too. Scientists think humans have big brains, you know, for a lot of reasons, but that one of them is to help us keep track of all the social info. Because we need to work with other people if we want to survive. But the thing is, we usually stick with people who are, like, us, you know? People who agree with what we already think.
Maybe that's what was going on with the principal. Maybe he hadn't really thought about things from the students' point of view. But then Tonya shows up with her petition, and she helps him see things differently. And because she'd built these relationships, she was able to make a real change. He actually changed the dress code!
So, fast forward a bit, Tonya grows up and she becomes a journalist. Maybe you've even heard her on NPR. She's done some pretty impressive stuff – she was the Silicon Valley bureau chief for KQED, and then she hosted this news show in Boston that reached, like, millions of people every week. Maybe you heard her on Fresh Air, or maybe you’re a fan of her podcast. And, honestly, the skills she uses now are a lot like the ones she used to change the dress code – she's really good at connecting with people, listening to them, and then explaining their point of view to people who might not otherwise get it.
Sociologists even have a name for people like Tonya – they call them "information brokers." They’re people who connect with lots of different people who don’t really interact that much. Apparently, they tend to get paid more and promoted faster, because they have access to all kinds of different info and ideas. And people think they're leaders!
You know, it works both ways – success helps you make new connections. But you can also, like, make a difference by connecting people who might not already understand each other. And that's where social relevance comes in. It helps us keep track of all the people and their connections. So, we need to, like, broaden our scope, include more people's perspectives when we make decisions. Because the people we pay attention to, the people we think are relevant, they shape what we think is important. But they also limit us. You know?
There are actually a few ways to do this. There's this person, Roland, who's an "innovation explorer" at Adidas. He helped the company communicate better. And this other person, Dani, who's a neuroscientist, they study curiosity. Listening, communicating, being curious – it all comes together to change how we connect and how we see value in those connections.
So, I learned this stuff about Roland and I thought it was fascinating. When the author met him, he was trying to come up with new ideas for Adidas, to help them make products for different sports. He had a background in, like, physics and sports education and engineering. He wanted to make it easier and more comfortable for everyone to play sports. But Adidas was really focused on engineering, and sometimes the products didn't really connect with what the consumer actually wanted. Like, the engineers might make a soccer cleat lighter, but the average teenager wouldn't necessarily know that just by looking at it. So, Roland was wondering if the products were always getting to the people who could use them the most.
He figured that the problem was people in different parts of Adidas didn't know what the others were doing. They didn't speak the same language. So, he hired the author as a consultant. They had to come up with a way for everyone to focus on what was important and talk to each other.
Roland said he wanted to look at problems through the "eyes of an insect." Because they have, like, thousands of tiny eyes. He thought that if you looked at things from all these different angles, you'd get a more complete picture. Like, Tonya, he wanted to gather a lot of different perspectives. He was really good at helping people at Adidas talk to each other about design and marketing from their own perspective.
And it really works! Being able to call people who know different stuff helps you solve problems in a creative way. But you have to know a lot yourself, understand what other people know, and know where they might have gaps. You have to, like, build a map of who knows what and who's connected to whom.
You know, they did brain scans with college students. They showed them avatars that represented people and their relationships. The students learned the relationships, just like Roland might learn about the relationships at Adidas. They also learned about the relationships between objects. Some of the same memory systems that help you remember relationships between objects also help you understand the relationships between people. But it's not exactly the same.
Knowing who's connected to whom involves the social relevance system, but knowing the relationships between objects doesn't. Some people are great at learning about objects, but not people, and vice versa. So, if you want to be able to connect people and ideas, you might need to use different parts of your brain than when you focus on objects.
So, the first thing you can do is proactively notice who's in your network, beyond the people you always think of. People tend to stick to tight-knit groups based on their job. So, when you move to a new job, try to stay in touch with people from your old job. People who communicate between different groups tend to be seen as leaders. There are, like, studies about this.
There was this training program for executives that taught them how to map the connections in their company. And the people who actively participated in the training got promoted more often and got better performance reviews! So, you can practice noticing who's connected to whom, and then you can get better at connecting them. This works in businesses, online communities, and research communities. It might also help artists, government officials, or school administrators.
The author and Roland came up with this thing called the RISE framework. It says that Rational, Identity, Social, and Emotional factors influence people's decisions. So, they told the engineers that they had to understand why someone might want to play soccer in the first place, you know? And they told the marketing people that they had to understand how the products were actually better.
Roland shared RISE with people in different areas, like soccer innovation and women's running. And it worked! People who didn't always talk to each other were sitting around a whiteboard, debating. They had a way to learn about each other's perspectives and think about their customers in a more complete way. So, with this framework, they found a way to bring people together and give them a common language.
But how do we choose where to put our energy? How do our brains sort through all the people around us? How do we decide which relationships to pay attention to? And where do these priorities come from?
Tonya Mosley, she's also been curious about these questions. Making her podcast was, in part, a way to react to her years of working as a TV news reporter. She'd always wanted to do it, but it also felt incomplete. She earned a fellowship to study implicit bias in journalism. And that's when it clicked for her. She said that there's this one narrative that's repeated over and over, but there are other parts of the story that we're missing.
The stories we hear in the media are often based on certain cultural norms and values. And the voices that get heard are determined by rules about whose perspective matters, which were mostly developed by, like, straight, white men. So, for example, a news story about drugs might call on economists, but it might not talk about the actual lives that were lost or how the community was affected. And these stories didn't really reflect Tonya's perspective as a Black woman.
Most of us aren't journalists, but we make similar judgments in our daily lives. Our social relevance and value systems are really influenced by other people's beliefs. Whether we think someone is attractive is partly shaped by the views of people around us. And that's true for other things too. Like, do we think they're trustworthy or good leaders? Our brains track all this, and we might be more sensitive to the opinions of people who are valued by others. So, we don't pay attention to everyone equally. We prioritize understanding what some people think and feel more than others.
You know, you can probably still tell me which kids in elementary or high school were, like, especially kind or popular. And the same is true for people you work with now. Even though you don't consciously keep track of your social networks, your brain does. And social media algorithms connect you to some people and not others. So, it's really important to understand this tendency, so you can be aware of how your information is biased.
The fact that our brains don't treat all relationships equally can have big consequences. Let's say Brad is trying to put together a team at work, and he needs a data analyst. He looks through the company website and thinks about the projects they've worked on. And when he gets to Jake, he's like, "Yeah, Jake would be great." But how does Brad know? His brain has been keeping track of who's conscientious, who's difficult, who's smart. Who's closest to him in the social network?
So, in addition to tracking who knows whom, our brains also track the nature of those relationships, like who's popular or who provides support. When people looked at the faces of peers who were empathetic, there was more brain activation. If someone is seen as capable and collaborative, that shapes your reaction to them. Other people's opinions shape our own calculations, and we might try harder to understand some people's perspectives more than others. For example, we're more likely to think about the thoughts and feelings of people who are like us.
This might feel unfair, but there are reasons why it makes sense. A person who is seen as empathetic might be a good person to be friends with. At the same time, there are a lot of reasons why someone might not come to mind, and it might not have anything to do with how well they'd do as a friend or teammate. Brad might scroll past the faces of people he doesn't know, but they might be just as capable. And then he misses out on the chance to get to know someone new.
If we naturally pay more attention to people who are high-status or similar to us, what are we missing out on? The perspectives of people who don't come to mind as easily might stimulate our thinking and reveal new opportunities. So, one way to think about the social relevance system is that it points toward the most relevant people, but it also risks maintaining bias. That's what Tonya was working against. A study found more brain activation when people thought about people in their own group, compared to people in their out-group. And other studies suggest that snap judgments about a person's gender, race, and class influence our perceptions of their expertise. And yet studies also suggest that the ideas published by people from underrepresented groups tend to be more novel. So, what can we learn if we broaden our imagination about whose perspectives might teach us?
That's what Tonya wanted to know, too. Her podcast, Truth Be Told, explores how to hold on to joy when the world feels terrible. And she offers new ways of thinking about problems. She invites people she calls "wise ones" onto her show. These are people who have both deep knowledge and lived experience. She names that lived experience and intersperses it with other forms of expertise. And, by doing that, she expands our ideas of what kind of knowledge is socially relevant. She highlights people I hadn't heard on other shows, and she helped me think about things differently.
On the first episode, she interviewed her grandmother about pleasure and joy, as well as adrienne maree brown, who wrote a book about pleasure and social justice. Tonya made links between their perspectives. Many of us might not connect conversations with our grandparents with conversations about sex, but Tonya did. And it made me think about joy in my own life. It made me think about care and joy as we do research. Tonya didn't just know that her grandma and adrienne maree brown had complementary expertise – she put their ideas in conversation with each other for the rest of us.
Tonya's work highlights the perspectives of people of color and those whose expertise hasn't been recognized. Her approach to connecting with people, identifying their expertise, and bringing them together is a well-documented strategy for encouraging innovation. When people are connected to different social circles, they can come up with more creative ideas. We benefit by broadening our curiosity, and society benefits when more voices are included. And yet many of us miss out on opportunities when we don't see others as relevant or when we get too busy.
As different as their backgrounds are, Tonya and Roland both value expertise from different sources and recognize that society often gives more attention to some perspectives than others. So, Dani Bassett and Perry Zurn encourage us to audit whose ideas we're paying attention to. They've worked with teams to estimate how much of the research is written by women and by people of color.
You can do this too. Collect data about the sources of ideas you're exposed to. Who wrote the last ten books you've read? Who hosts the podcasts you've listened to? Who have you talked with most at work? Whose ideas are getting the most priority? What opportunities for connecting people might you notice if you expand your assumptions about who has relevant ideas? The more power you have, the more important it is to do this.
Tonya now has her own production company, and she's a boss. In this role, it takes effort to remain aware of the power structures and to foreground the perspectives of others. She knows that people will feel pressure to get back to her quickly. So, she's trying to build a culture where people don't feel like they need to be working all the time. She's hoping that will empower them to take care of themselves. The ideas about wellness that she discusses on her podcast are being worked through in her own life.
But the thing is, as we gain more power, we often stop paying attention to the views of others, even though we have more opportunities to connect. Tonya is an exception. She makes an effort to connect with younger journalists. She talks with them about their purpose and values and encourages them to slow down so they can figure out what they actually love.
From a business perspective, this is a key leadership skill. In negotiations, understanding the other person's perspective can help you reach better deals. But many leaders don't make the effort that Tonya does. Why?
Some research found that people who felt like they had less status showed more brain activation in regions that help us understand other people's thoughts and feelings. And people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds tended to show less response to faces showing negative emotions. So, without effort, people with higher status may take other people's perspectives less. Those of us in leadership positions may tend to have less of a sense of what is valuable for our teams.
But the good news is that we can develop skills to take other people's perspectives into account. When people are prompted to consider other people's perspectives, it brings the social relevance system online. One study found that people assigned to be the "boss" and to understand their partner's perspective shared more information and identified the correct answer more often. We can more intentionally work to understand where others are coming from, and that can lead to better team performance.
But understanding someone else's perspective isn't always easy. It's important to ask questions: How are you feeling? What do you prefer? What made you decide that? It might also mean taking time to read articles or listen to podcasts by people with different perspectives. That opens the door for communication that can help us align our understanding of the world. Instead of assuming we know what others are thinking, we need to actively seek out their perspectives. Listening to others can also make them feel seen.
You might think you have to be an extrovert to do this kind of work. But Dani Bassett shows us that that's not true. The more important trait is curiosity.
Dani is a physicist, a scholar, and a MacArthur Genius Award winner. They study curiosity and connection. They might not seem like a hub of social energy, since they're quiet, but they know someone who's interested in pretty much anything. Like the roots of a tree, Dani is connected to many other scholars. They bring these people together in unexpected ways.
They run a training program where artists and scientists visualize networks. And they're always reading and engaging with people in different research areas. Like Roland and Tonya, Dani is generous in the connections they imagine between people, knowledge, and ways of knowing.
In their book, Curious Minds, Dani and Perry Zurn invite us to expand our imagination about how different ideas and people might connect to each other. They encourage us to nurture different kinds of curiosity. Maybe you like to go deep into an area, or maybe you flutter from topic to topic. They describe curiosity as "edgework" that connects dots, makes meaning of it, and allows us to "redraw the shape of our worlds, together."
As a journalist, Tonya foregrounds the expertise that comes from people's lived experiences and puts it in conversation with other forms of expertise. The result is new ways of understanding ourselves and the problems we care about.
Roland also prioritizes a wide range of expertise. He reads the work of physicists and psychologists, architects and entomologists. He develops relationships with experts and asks a lot of questions.
We can purposefully become curious about people who might have expertise we've overlooked. We can audit whose ideas are weighing most in our decisions. We can practice recognizing potential places where we have the power to connect people and ideas. We can go beyond small talk. We can read diverse genres, listen to podcasts hosted by people with different perspectives, watch films that evoke different emotions, and not limit our conversation partners to people who speak our language. That will allow us to follow our curiosity deeper into the ground and higher into the sky.
Connecting ideas can happen anywhere, and our connections with others are some of the most meaningful things in our lives.