Sooner or later, tribes begin
to exclude interested but unaffiliated newcomers.
It happens to religious sects,
to surfers and to online
communities as well. Nascent groups with open arms become mature groups too set
in their ways to evangelize and grow their membership, too stuck to engage,
change and thrive.
So much easier to turn someone
away than it is to patiently engage with them, the way you were welcomed when
you were in their shoes.
There are two reasons for
this:
1. It's tiresome and boring to
keep breaking in newbies. Eternal September, the never-ending stream of
repetitive questions and mistakes can wear out even the most committed host. Your IT person wasn't born grouchy--it just happens.
2. It's threatening to the
existing power structure. New voices want new procedures and fresh leadership.
And so, Wikipedia has
transformed itself into a club that's not particularly interested in welcoming
new editors.
And the social club down the
street has a membership with an average age of 77.
And companies that used
to grow by absorbing talent via acquisitions, cease to do so.
This cycle isn't inevitable,
but it takes ever more effort to overcome our inertia.
Even if it happens gradually,
the choice to not fight this inertia is still a choice. And while closing
the gate can ensure stability and the status quo (for now), it rarely
leads to growth, and ultimately leads to decline.
[Some questions to ponder...]
Do outsiders get the benefit
of the doubt?
Do we make it easy for
outsiders to become insiders?
Is there a clear and well-lit
path to do so?
When we tell someone new,
"that not how we do things around here," do we also encourage them to
learn the other way and to try again?
Are we even capable of
explaining the status quo, or is the way we do things set merely because we forgot
that we could do it better?
Is a day without emotional or
organizational growth a good day?
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