THE ANTICIPATION WAS PALPABLE at the venerable New England country club as men and women in sober business dress arrived one crisp evening in September.
At the registration area, along with the usual name badges, they were given colored dots to put on their lapels.
Each participant was asked to choose two colors of dots: one to match the industry he or she was currently working in (or had just left) and the other to represent the one he or she hoped to move into.
The club was holding a “structured networking” event for people looking to reinvent themselves, many of them managers downsized out of high-powered jobs.
I had been invited to talk about using networks to change careers. People were footing a hefty attendance fee because they knew intuitively what I was there to tell them: that none of their existing contacts could help them reinvent themselves.
That the networks we rely on in a stable job are rarely the ones that lead us to something new and different.
The purpose of the event was to put into practice the famous “six degrees of separation” principle, whereby the fastest way to get to people we don’t already know is through contacts as far away as possible from our daily routine.
The colored dots were designed to simplify the communication process, to replace the usual preliminaries, the “Who are you?”
“What do you do?” and “What are you looking for?” rituals we are forced to rehearse over and over again when we are seeking employment. The result was dazzling.
The array of multicolored dots on each gray lapel gave the ballroom a partylike atmosphere. Few people had stuck to two colors. Their backgrounds defied categorization. So did their dreams for the future.
They chuckled sheepishly as they explained the gumball machines on their chests. It was not one person who presented him- or herself to others that night.
It was a rainbow of possibilities.
