by Adam Jones

(with commentary by Bridge Partners LLC)

How to pretend not to be an insider

Malcom Gladwell has written an article for the New Yorker examining whether self-made successes from the wrong side of the tracks have an advantage over those who never had to battle for acceptance by the establishment.

He focuses on Sidney Weinberg, who left school at 15 and became a famous senior partner at Goldman Sachs. Long after becoming powerful, Mr Weinberg still played the role of “dumb, uneducated kid from Brooklyn” when advantageous.

Mr Gladwell says his underprivileged past eventually became an aid rather than a hindrance, even though he was operating in a relationship business that normally rewarded cultural insiders (or so one would assume).

“There are times when being an outsider is precisely what makes you a good insider,” he suggests.

Playing up humble origins can indeed be a good career strategy. But the article got me thinking about other ways in which canny individuals exploit dual identities in the workplace, often to disguise the extent to which they are part of the establishment.

Look at France. There are few genuine outsiders in French boardrooms but this doesn’t stop some businessmen from borrowing an edgier image. In lieu of deprivation, they stress regional ties, ostentatiously locating themselves outside the Parisian mainstream.

Vincent Bolloré likes to highlight his Breton roots, for example. This helps his reputation for recognising investment opportunities the herd ignores. But he is not a real outsider, having attended a top Parisian school and put up Nicolas Sarkozy on his yacht.

The point is that there are many variations on the workplace insider-outsider strategy. All that is needed is some form of dual citizenship that makes one harder to pigeon-hole, and therefore harder to take for granted.

November 6th, 2008 in Managing yourself | Permalink

3 Responses to “How to pretend not to be an insider”

Comments

1. […] Source: The FT Management blog discussing Gladwell’s article. The Takeaway: Being plugged in to the proverbial old boys’ network […]

Posted by: BNET1 mobile edition | November 6th, 2008 at 7:25 pm | Report this comment

2. […] his upcoming book, “Outliers,” in the New Yorker, and that discussion being discussed on BNET1 and elsewhere, the “Blink” and “The Tipping Point” author stars in this new BNET Downtime Video. Here, he […]

Posted by: BNET Intercom mobile edition | November 6th, 2008 at 11:29 pm | Report this comment

3. Both Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Jones speak to the value of having a diversity of thought, perspective and experience in the workplace.

Gladwell states: “The idea that outsiders can profit by virtue of their outsiderness runs contrary to our understanding of minorities….[which] presumes that an outsider is better off cloaking his differences. But there are clearly also times and places where minorities benefit by asserting and even exaggerating their otherness.”

Hopefully many executives in the business world reading the article in The New Yorker will agree. There is a huge opportunity for forward-looking organizations to capitalize on the concept of “asserting otherness.”

Until companies are fully willing to embrace and encourage differences in thought, approach, experience, background, and perspective, they cannot benefit from having a diverse workforce.

In a non-inclusive working environment, an employee from a different cultural or ethnic background (or a minority in any other sense) than most of his/her coworkers might feel pressure to assimilate, rather than stand out the way Weinberg did. In an inclusive and forward-thinking organization, those very differences can be harnessed to bring fresh perspectives, ideas and, ultimately, organizational growth. Weinberg appears to have seized this opportunity.

As an executive search firm that focuses on the recruitment and retention of high-caliber diverse senior executives, Bridge Partners LLC (http://www.bridgepartnersllc.com) understands the challenges faced by organizations trying to diversify their leadership teams. We work closely with clients in the corporate, academic and public sectors to support their diversity initiatives in order to thrive in a competitive, ever-changing economy.

Posted by: Tory Clarke, Co-Founding Partner | November 7th, 2008 at 10:41 pm | Report this comment

Insider or Outsider?

New Yorker article

Keywords: diversity ,innovation, differences,financial times, gladwell, diverse workforce