Okay, let's unpack this. If you are anything
like us when you see an email and it's an invitation
to a professional networking event, you just,
you feel that very specific sinking dread. Oh,
absolutely. That feeling is universal. A forced
small talk, the lukewarm coffee. It just feels
so transactional and I don't know, unnatural.
It does. And that feeling of awkward, you know,
transactional obligation. It's really just a
symptom of a flawed, outdated model. Right. So
our deep dive today is looking at sources that
analyze those gaps in the traditional approach
and, more importantly, propose this really powerful
alternative. Moving beyond the network, to building
an authentic, expressive community, a professional
tribe. And that's our mission, really, to understand
how we can shift from connecting purely for career
leverage to connecting based on shared values,
real purpose. We're going to look at how fostering
these authentic tribes can boost your job satisfaction,
your resilience, and really just create this
environment for real growth. We've got some powerful
stories from leaders who've done it. And we can't
really talk about the solution. without first
defining the problem. So we should start with
the foundational work of Dr. Caitlin Porter and
her team. They studied how networks at work impact
our success. And they found that professional
connections pretty much fall along a clear spectrum.
A very clear spectrum. On one end, you have what
everybody recognizes as networking, right? The
instrumental network. Exactly. Instrumental networks,
their connections built purely for job -related
outcomes. And look, they are absolutely necessary.
You need them. They provide critical advice,
expertise, access to resources, all the things
that directly improve your job performance and
your career success. It's the classic, what can
this person do for me right now approach. But
then you have this completely different dimension
that I think a lot of people ignore. And this
is the source of genuine satisfaction and that
sort of sustained resilience. The expressive
network. Yes, the expressive network is defined
by social bonding experiences. And a key finding
from the research is that these are the people
who become your best friends at work. And crucially,
they provide psychological safety. The sources
note this type of connection dramatically increases
job satisfaction. It reduces your risk of burnout.
And I love how they put it. adds more color to
the work that we do. Okay, I want to pause on
that definition, though, because for a lot of
listeners, the idea of having best friends at
work, that sounds kind of risky. Yeah. Doesn't
that lack of professional distance create some
kind of liability? What happens when you're on
a tough project, or even worse, a company reorg?
That's a critical question. Yeah. And the mechanism
here isn't just about liking someone. It's about
mutual, unconditional support within the professional
context. So your instrumental network, it helps
you succeed at a task. But the expressive network,
your tribe, it helps you succeed at being a professional.
They buffer stress, they give you that candid
feedback that maybe a transactional contact would
withhold, and they offer real perspective when
things go sideways. So if having this expressive
tribe is so incredibly beneficial, why do so
many of us default to that forced kind of transactional
thing? Why is it so hard to build those deep
expressive ties? Well, the sources outline a
few highly relatable roadblocks. Yeah. And some
of them are internal. They're those self -limiting
the least, we tell ourselves. Like what? You
know, things like, I'm an introvert, so networking
is not really for me. Or that desire to just
put your head down. Can I just do my job and
not have to worry about anybody else? And the
practical obstacles are so valid, too. Especially
for people balancing complex lives at home. We
hear things like, I have three kids, I have no
time to breathe, let alone network. Exactly.
Or someone re -entering the workforce after a
break, just feeling totally overwhelmed about
where to even start. These are basically cognitive
traps. They focus on the time required, not the
intent. They assume try building means going
to 10 cocktail mixers a month, when it's just
time. it's fundamentally different from collecting
business cards. So here's where it gets really
interesting. Let's look at the solution through
the lens of someone who faced this exact barrier.
We have a great example from Aralee, who admits
she's a deep introvert. And earlier in her career,
she was so shy, she would physically hide from
networking events. She said, it just made life
a lot harder. And Aralee's insight here is...
so actionable for any self -proclaimed introvert
listening, she realized her energy was finite,
so she stopped trying to master small talk. So
what did she do instead? She focused on a really
specific, powerful intent. She chose to be, and
this is her quote, fearless when it came to reaching
out to somebody if I wanted to learn from them,
if I admired them, or if I could be useful to
them. That reframing is everything. The mental
leap is moving from, I must network to how can
I learn or contribute here? Yes. She leveraged
her introverted preference for depth over breadth.
And that shift led to this huge aha moment for
her. She realized, I'm actually really good at
building a tribe. I just did not do it when I
called it something else. So she was already
doing the work. She was already doing it. She
just had to rename it and apply it professionally.
It's about authentic utility, not transaction.
Let's look at how this plays out over time across
different life stages. Sushma, another leader
from our sources, she was 15 years into her career
and felt like she'd lost touch with the external
professional world, you know, balancing those
multiple poles of life. Right. And she didn't
seek out some formal mentorship program. She
reconnected by engaging with an internal structure,
her company's Asian Pacific Islanders Employee
Resource Group, and ERG. So these ERGs, they're
basically internal communities built around a
shared identity or a passion. Exactly. So the
internal community provided the shared foundation,
but the network eventually stretched outward.
Sushma met peers from a completely separate company
who are facing these incredibly similar challenges.
Mid -career development, navigating corporate
culture as an API professional. All of it. They
recognized this shared value that went way beyond
their company logos. And this led Sushma to co
-found a cross -company peer mentoring program.
That's the sticky factor. The connections lasted
because they were rooted in mutual experience
and purpose, not job titles. It's proof that
the fastest way to stop networking is to start
working toward a shared mission. And this idea
of shared mission and also diversity of connection,
it's echoed by Laura, she helped run a data literacy
program that RLE had started. And Laura noted
the group was, I mean, it was 17 people from
different functions, different business units,
different ages, different levels. That sounds
like a management challenge, but it actually
became the foundation for their tribe. It did,
because diversity is resilience. Lor quotes that
powerful adage. If you want to go fast, you go
alone. But if you want to go far, you go together.
Right. And together has to mean diverse perspectives.
If everyone in your tribe thinks just like you,
you have a support group, sure, but you don't
have a challenge group. And you need that challenge
to grow. That's a great distinction. And what's
fascinating is Lor's admission that Honestly,
she wasn't initially passionate about data literacy
the topic of the group really yeah She said she
was all in on empowering others lifting people
up creating opportunities. That was her core
value The data literacy program was just the
vehicle that allowed her to find other people
who shared that mission. So the lesson there
is don't worry if the immediate task doesn't
excite you, find the human shared value underneath
it that does. Precisely. Okay, so moving from
shared values, we have to talk about how a tribe
sustains itself through challenges, and that
brings up vulnerability and allyship. Let's turn
to Sherish, who focuses heavily on allies, especially
male allies in fields like tech. Sherish's perspective
is... It's really comprehensive. He argues that
allyship isn't charity, it's strategy. Allies
have to proactively recognize that the growth
of women colleagues leads directly to the collective
growth of the entire team. It's a win -win system.
It is. And he connects this professional idea
back to his personal life. He talks about his
dual career household, raising a child with special
needs, and how allyship is essential at home
too. It means proactively giving his partner
space to grow her own career and her own tribe.
I mean, that's great advice, to have an inclusion
-first mindset. But let's be real. If an ally
challenges the system or calls out bias, they're
risking their own political capital. That's the
friction, right? What's the professional cost?
Yeah, do the sources address that? The consensus,
particularly from Sherrish, is that the long
-term payoff outweighs that short -term cost.
But it takes courage. His actionable advice is
crucial here. Allies pull each other up and,
maybe most importantly, never make any assumptions.
Always ask questions. Always ask. Seek to understand.
Create those pathways for mutual growth. It requires
deep trust, which brings us right back to vulnerability.
And R. Lee had an incredibly powerful story about
this, about the risk of being authentic. She
said during the COVID era, her personal life
was, and this is her word, a dumpster fire. And
she was terrified that by being honest about
her struggles during a company mental health
awareness event, she would, quote, destroy things
at work. And that is such a real fear to be seen
as incapable. It is. But despite that fear, she
shared her story. And the result wasn't a reprimand.
It was this. unexpected, powerful surge of community.
People from all over reached out to show their
stories. That authenticity built a bridge. But
here's the catch. How do you take that risk of
being vulnerable if you genuinely don't know
if the space is safe? What if you put yourself
out there and the environment, you know, slaps
you back? That's a great question. And both Aralee
and Sushma address this. The first step is self
-discernment. You know your environment best.
No one is saying you should just jump off a cliff.
So you have to ask yourself. You have to ask,
is my distrust based on a bad experience from
an old job? Or is it true for my current reality?
Is this a calculated risk or just blind trust?
And if you take that risk and it does slap you
back... Then Arlie's wisdom here is just perfect.
She says, that's okay. That's not your mistake.
That doesn't mean you did anything wrong. You
just learned something and that's okay. You learned
that workplace wasn't your tribe. Exactly. And
the few true connections you make from being
honest are worth the process of elimination.
You remain you, and the right people will find
their way to that. So what does this all mean
for the listener who is ready to retire the transactional
handshake and start building a real tribe? What
are the big actionable takeaways from these stories?
I think we can synthesize four core actions based
on what we heard from RLE. Sushma and Suresh.
Okay. Number one, face your fears through micro
actions. Yes. Don't try to, as Arlie put it,
digest the entire elephant in one go. Start small.
If you fear reaching out, just commit to one
high value coffee this month. Focus only on learning
or offering help. The reward is finding your
person. Number two, know thyself. Know your passion
points. Right. Identify your core values that
go beyond your job title. like Sushma, find people
who care about the same things you do. Bring
that volunteer mentality into your professional
life. Number three, be your own tribe first.
This one is so critical, especially when you
feel spectacularly alone. Focus on nurturing
yourself first. Invest in your own resilience
so you show up ready for connection, not looking
for a tribe to fill some internal void. And finally,
number four, leverage existing structure. Yeah,
you don't always have to build from scratch.
If you're a large organization, use the ERGs,
the employee resource groups like Sherish and
Sushma did. They're ready -made frameworks for
finding your people. And I think we should echo
Laura's encouragement here. She acknowledges
it's uncomfortable, but she just says, you know,
just do it anyways and get curious. Curiosity,
that's what unlocks the door. It replaces that
dread with genuine interest. Ultimately, the
shift is just profound. real professional success
and satisfaction. They come from moving away
from instrumental networking and toward expressive
community building. That's how you build resilience.
It's how you improve the quality of your entire
career. And the source material always comes
back to this idea that building a community is
about making deposits. You put in the time and
attention so that later, maybe much later, you
can pick up the phone and say, hey, I need help.
It implies that reciprocity and long -term commitment
are the real measures of a tribe. So a final
thought for you to consider. Think about the
last five professional connections you made.
Were those transactions built for short -term
performance? Or were they deposits built for
long -term resilience? What small intention deposit
will you make today?