Weak Ties Create Strong Belonging
How casual relationships have great impact
Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving Eve,
While volunteering at the Alameda County Food Bank yesterday with my son’s Scout troop, bagging oranges for the food drive, I enjoyed a delightful conversation with the other parent volunteers, even though these people are considered my “weak tie” relationships.
Weak ties are casual connections with people from other social circles, and weak ties can enrich our personal and professional lives more than we may realize.
In fact, according to a study by Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, people find more employment opportunities through loose connections rather than close relationships.
Granovetter explains that your weak ties connect you to new knowledge, social circles, and opportunities you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
As we huddled around the bins of citrus, one parent shared her delicious-sounding recipe for Kabocha Squash pie, a Japanese-American alternative to pumpkin pie, and another Mom gave a helpful tip …
