[On Success] Who Do You Hang Out With?[关于成功] 你经常和谁在一起

On Sunday I hosted the annual Fall Strategy Retreat for Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business.  It was a fantastically productive retreat, thanks in large part to the suggestions of a good friend of mine, and fellow board member, regarding the format of the retreat.  Rather than having a formal meeting as we had in previous years, we broke into several small groups, with a diversity of representatives from our undergraduate board, alumni board, and advisory board, in order to brainstorm on whiteboards about four key areas of development: our mission, our programming, our leadership development, and our long-term planning.

After our brainstorming breakout session, each of our point people presented the ideas that their groups came up with.  The most interesting focus area to me, (besides my topic of leadership & talent development), was our mission.  As Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business, there clearly is a reason why we are not Harvard Students in Business (besides the fact that “WIB” seems like a better acronym than “SIB”?).  This reason is the gender gap.  The point that stuck with me was one made by our new advisory board member, Professor David Ager.  David mentioned a study that systematically showed that the reason why men advance more rapidly than women in the workforce is due to the fact that men simply talk to more people and get more exposure to executives at high levels at work.  Now why is that?  Well, it turns out that 70-80% of our networks are the same gender as we are!  Because men tend to have networks that are made out of men, they naturally have more exposure to senior executives (who are mostly men).  Seems a bit circular right?  But plausible.  And “proven.”

This idea made me think a bit more about my personal network, and who I hang out with.  A good majority of my friends, and my close friends in particular, are Chinese American or Asian American.  Nothing wrong with that of course.  In fact, it’s really very natural for people with common backgrounds to bond over things like craving ramen…. (as my roommates and I were thinking about earlier today).  The point is, however, as citizens in a diverse world of men, women, Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, Whites, and on and on, I often think that we should be paying more attention and making more of an effort to interact with people who are different than we are. Not only is this important for cross-cultural understanding — as China Personified seeks to foster — but this is also important simply for your personal development. Diverse people bring diverse thoughts. Diversity, then, is not only food for thought for companies, but also a topic that each of us should think about in our day-to-day interactions. Who do you hang out with, and how do you learn from each other?周日，我为哈佛商学院女生举办了一场年度秋季战略撤退会议。 感谢我朋友以及理事成员的建议和帮助，这场会议十分成功并且取得很多成果。和往年的正式会议不同，这一次我们把与会人员分为了几个小组，各个小组成员都是多样性的，有本科生，毕业了的校友，以及导师。这样大家可以针对我们的任务，我们的活动，我们的领导力发展，我们的长期计划这四个主要领域的发展进行头脑风暴。在头脑风暴过后，每个小组的指定人选都陈述了他们组的想法。对于我来说，（除了领导力和天赋的发展的论题外）最有趣的焦点领域是我们的任务，作为哈佛商学院本科女生，我们有一个明显的原因说明我们为什不叫哈佛商学院学生，（除了WIB这个缩写比SIB这个缩写要好）那就是性别的区别。

有一个吸引我的点是由我们的新导师大卫教授提出的。他提出一个研究系统地证明了在员工中，男人的工作比女人更高级是因为男人和更多的人交流因此在工作中与高级的管理人员接触更多。这是为什么呢？证据显示70%-80%的人际社交发生在同性之间。因为男性倾向于在男性间进行社交，他们就自然更容易与高级管理人员（大多是男性）交流更多。看上去有一点循环性，是不是。但是这是真的并且被证实了。

这个说法让我对自己的社交也有了一些想法，并考虑我一般和谁在一起。我大部分朋友和我的特定的亲密朋友都是美籍华人或美籍亚裔。 这自然是没什么错的。事实上，人们被共同的话题如方便面，连在一起是很自然的（就像我和我室友在今天早些时候想到的一样。）

但重点是，作为一个有着多样化男人女人的国家的公民，这里有亚洲人，黑人，白人，西班牙人等等，我常常想我们应该更注意努力和那些与我们不同的人互动。这不仅仅对交叉文化很重要，并且对你的个人发展也很重要。多样性的人带来多样性的想法。多样性不仅仅对公司有好处，对我们个人日常生活交流也有好处。你都和谁在一起，你们怎么互相学习？