7
The Law of Similarity

“Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honoring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities.”

—James L. Fredericks, theologian

Early in my career I worked for a bank and was assigned a new project with a vendor whose CEO was a man named Mateo. By all outward appearances, Mateo and I were different on every front: gender, age, religion, ethnicity, education, hobbies, career level, family lives. He was a thirty-something techie who was married with three children. He spoke his native Ukrainian with his family and adhered closely to his culture’s traditions. I was a single twenty-something MBA whose only responsibilities and priorities were work and fun.

The project required ongoing communication and collaboration to ensure that the customization of the technology we were working on met the business needs we were developing it for. I must admit that I didn’t think Mateo and I would be a good fit. In my mind, working with this man did not sound fun. But it was. Once we dove into the project, we completely and unexpectedly clicked. We found that we had very similar work approaches. We both enjoyed thinking outside the box and relished tackling whatever new challenge was at hand. We shared a quick, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and an enthusiasm for creative problem solving.

Despite not having obvious things in common, we had many similarities when it came to professional attitudes and management styles, and we worked extremely well together—so well, in fact, that Mateo eventually recruited me away from the company that was employing me to work directly for him. He became one of my most valued mentors, and also a treasured friend. He was supportive of my leaving the finance world and starting my own business, and shared great wisdom when I followed in his married-with-children path. Our similar attitudes and styles were points of true connection that continued deepening as we worked together. We both appreciated these similarities, perhaps even more so because we were so dissimilar in so many ways. The connection we formed enriched our professional and eventually our personal lives.

In movies and TV shows, one of the most common ways to denote that a character is a regular in a restaurant or bar is for him to walk in, sit down, and say, “I’ll have the usual.” Why is that storytelling shorthand so effective, and what makes it so homey and appealing? One reason is that we are comforted by what we know. We relate to this “I’ll have the usual” mentality because, on a basic level, we understand why the character goes to the same establishment again and again.

Realizing that we share a connection with someone else puts us at ease, whatever the parallel is. It may be that we know the same people, have a fondness for the same place, or have had similar life experiences. Finding those authentic similarities and associations increases your comfort with new people and, likewise, their comfort with you, and feeling at ease not only makes conversation easier, but also opens the door to discovering further things you have in common, which provides more links for building connections. The commonalities we have with people are not always obvious at first, but understanding how to stay alert to them is part of the work of building connections into meaningful relationships.

As our careers develop, we sometimes stop looking for commonalities with people we know, assuming that we’ve gathered all the information we need about them. Broadening our approach to our existing relationships—refinding our curiosity about the people we know, staying aware of things we might share besides just the task at hand—is another powerful way to continue deepening connections.

People Like People Like Them

When we meet someone with whom we have strong similarities, our comfort level quickly increases; the conversation flows and the likability is palpable. This is the law of similarity: People like people who are like them.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that sparks are going to fly whenever you meet someone like you. Sometimes the similarities might be too strong, and you’ll come up against the same traits you’re not fond of in yourself. At these moments it is important to step back if you can and assess your resistance.

It’s also true that sometimes the similarities are explicit and direct, and other times they are more subtle and only come to light over time. When we uncover our similarities, though, we can create opportunities for deeper—and more lasting—authentic connections. The road to likability can become shorter and less winding. As comfort increases, conversation becomes more open, nurturing trust. Likability is not a given, but commonality is a powerful starting point.

It’s All About Trust

As we saw in Chapter 3, people look to other people to affirm the impressions they have of people and things. This is how we form our perceptions, and a key part of the process is validating and corroborating our opinions with other trusted sources of information.

We look to other people in our industry to recommend a software solution or a vendor; we schedule an interview with a job candidate because one of our colleagues had a positive experience working with the candidate a few years back. This is the law of association, which is the law of similarity’s sublaw: People trust the sources they know best.

It’s the same principle that applies when you’re fixed up on a blind date by someone you know. You think, “Beth knows him, and Beth knows me, so I can trust that at the very least he’s a decent, normal guy. Beth wouldn’t steer me wrong.” It’s also why so many companies offer referral bonuses to their employees. If they’ve already got staff members whom they value and trust, then it makes sense to query—and reward—that pool of resources when seeking more employees.

We follow this sublaw all the time, validating our choices because we connect to them through a trusted third party. We ask friends with similar tastes for movie recommendations; we ask our neighbors for the number of a good plumber; we turn to parents with kids the same age as ours for advice about teachers and doctors. If the person we know likes this other person, we reason, then we’ll probably like him or her too.

Uncovering Commonalities

There are so many different ways we can be similar to or associated with another person. Social media sites such as LinkedIn easily illustrate this point. How many degrees of separation are you away from people you don’t even know? I decided to do a quick experiment. I have a few hundred connections on LinkedIn, a fairly average number. I arbitrarily typed “Joe” into the site and found out that I was only one person away from 1,554 Joes I didn’t yet know. I was one person away from 927 as-yet-unknown-to-me Sues, and even a less common name, Harold, yielded 334 possible connections from whom I was only one person removed.

Commonalities are all around us, even when they are not at first obvious. Knowing the same people is just one way to draw on the law of similarity. We may discover other areas of similarity as well, such as common experiences, shared beliefs and values, physical and demographic similarities, and shared educational backgrounds or work histories; the list goes on. All these are possible avenues to creating the basis for authentic connection.

You Too, Me Too

Often when we first meet someone we go through an almost ritualized round of questions: Where did you go to school? Where did you grow up? Where do you work? Getting responses that match our own can immediately increase our excitement and interest in the new acquaintance. Finding the commonality leads easily to continued conversation and results in a willingness to open up to further the connection: You graduated from college in what year? Oh, wait, did you know so-and-so? This is the “you too, me too” concept. Similarities that may not be visibly obvious can come to the surface quickly with the right types of questions.

A few years back I attended a workshop about communicating your business services through various media channels. We were doing a pitch session, during which most people in the room stood up and delivered a thirty-second sound bite summarizing their services. While listening to a woman named Maya give her pitch about how she wanted to grow her college placement work with high school students, I remember thinking, “Me too! I want to do more work with high school students.” At the end of the session I sought her out and found that she’d been looking for me as well, because something in my pitch resonated with her. We both acted on the “you too, me too” moment, and as a result we are still in touch, offering one another professional feedback and frequently collaborating on service offerings.

Avoid feeling as if you are interviewing someone when you’re asking them questions by sharing aspects about yourself. Self-disclosure is key if similarities are going to be effectively unearthed. Mention organizations you belong to, places you’ve visited or lived, your hobbies and interests. Create opportunities for the other person to discover the commonalities, too. By learning about other people’s interests and backgrounds and finding common territory, you gain the capacity for creating stronger relationships. The more you know, the more foundation you have to build on.

That Happened to Me, Too

Discovering parallel life experiences with someone can create an instantaneous connection. These experiences can be as simple as learning how to drive, if there is something relatable about them. Did you learn on a stick shift? Did your dad take you to the empty school parking lot on Sundays and let you practice?

Often, though, the more emotional or personal a disclosure, the deeper the bond when it’s shared. Not only does a richly textured experience give you a broader set of things to relate to one another about, it also creates trust. You not only get the sense from the other person that “You get me,” but that, “You really get me.”

Significant related experiences are everywhere, but discovering them takes a willingness on your part to share such information about yourself. I was near my home in New Jersey, waiting for a bus into New York City. There was another woman at the bus stop, and we began to chat. We quickly discovered that her daughter and my son were the same age. I asked her where her daughter went to school, and within seconds realized that her daughter was in my son’s class. “You’re Brenda’s mother!” I blurted out, and we both laughed.

At this point the bus arrived, but we wanted to keep talking, so we made our way to the very back of the bus, the only place we could find two seats together. As we settled in, Brenda’s mom, Terri, began sharing with me that she had just been laid off and was looking for work. With my background in career counseling, I started asking questions to see how I could help. She revealed that money had been a serious issue for her growing up, and that she never wanted to go back to penny-pinching again. That resonated with me, and she was so open about her background that I felt comfortable sharing too. It turned out that we were both raised in single-parent homes in which money had been tight.

By the end of our conversation we had a play date for the kids recorded in our BlackBerrys, and a coffee date, minus kids, so that we could keep talking about professional opportunities. During our next encounter I learned that Terri was entering the coaching field. Now, whenever we get together we brainstorm joint work ventures to pursue and give one another support. Because Terri was willing to reveal profound life experiences, and because I could relate, both my son and I gained new friends.

Common Cause

From my late teens right up until I had kids in my thirties, I spent almost every weekend volunteering with rescue dogs. I love animals and was lucky enough to work with an organization that had values and a mission in sync with mine: rehabilitating abandoned and abused dogs so that they could be adopted into loving homes.

During those years, if I was dating someone and felt as if I might really like him, I’d ask him to join me and work with the dogs for the day. An afternoon typically entailed walking and playing with the dogs, watching for issues that would inhibit their ability to be house pets, training them on basic commands, managing aggressive behaviors, socializing them with people and other dogs, and, of course, picking up their poop. What was a completely invigorating and fulfilling day for me turned out to be torture for some of my dates, and this was always a deal breaker for me. There was one guy, though, who had never done this kind of work with animals before, who had never even had a pet, yet was enthralled by the experience. At the end of the afternoon he told me that after working with the dogs, he felt as if a door had been opened for him. Well, that guy, Mike, is now my husband.

Common causes can bring people together in ways that are stronger than many other connections. When we are passionate about a cause, a faith, or a strongly held belief, the experience is emotionally charged and powerful. So when two people share those feelings, the connection can be fast and intense. When I saw Mike patiently help a dog overcome a fear of walking in the street, or tirelessly work to ensure that two sibling puppies found a home together, I knew that this shared passion would strengthen our connection.

Sometimes these shared beliefs are obvious because of the context in which you meet—at a house of worship or at a political rally, for instance. At other times you may need to ask questions to find out if you have these things in common. The tools of curiosity and self-disclosure work hand in hand in this case. Here are some questions you can ask to determine if there are possible connections to be made through your passions and beliefs:

• We just moved to the neighborhood. Can you recommend a local temple/church?

• I want to volunteer locally. Do you have any suggestions?

• I am going to/organizing a fund-raiser for (fill in the blank). Would you like to attend/help?

• What do you think about the current governor?

• Are you happy with the president’s recent actions?

Politics and religion are two topics about which many people hold passionate beliefs, so they can be interesting territories to explore. Just stay attuned to rising emotions and consider sidestepping or changing the topic if the conversation becomes too heated or extreme.

It’s Like Looking in a Mirror

Some similarities we can see. It may be an action or a way of speaking, for instance, and often when we are feeling comfortable in a situation we mirror back those things to another person in some way. This is often an unconscious but distinct way people relate when they are engaged in a conversation and feeling connected.

My sister April and I don’t look very much alike, but put us in a room together and someone invariably comments on our similar mannerisms and phrases. They’ve even said our similarities are uncanny. The truth is, I find myself talking and acting more like April when we are in the same room together than when we are apart. I don’t consciously aim for this to happen, but it does. I’m mirroring her. When you are speaking with someone you like, your speech patterns and body language often naturally start reflecting the other person’s.

Almost every time I work with teenagers, the mirroring phenomenon takes place. When conducting workshops with this age group, I often ask them to pick a partner with whom they get along well. Then I tell them to talk with their partner about something they’re passionate about, or share something about themselves that their partner might not know. After ten minutes or so, I go around the room and “freeze” each pair of talkers. The results are amazing: two girls sitting Indian-style across from one another on the floor; two guys talking, both with their hands in their pockets; a guy and a girl both leaning against the wall as they talk, their legs crossed. In the course of their conversations, they’ve unconsciously matched one another’s body positions. Once I even watched two girls who’d only known each other for about a day and a half begin their conversation while standing, then move to sit on the floor in different positions, and eventually adjust their bodies so that they were both unwittingly lying on the floor, facing one another, knees bent behind them, chins in cupped hands.

The first time I worked with Mateo, we were in a conference room, and I had a PowerPoint presentation projecting onto a screen. The presentation very quickly became a conversation, and soon we were both leaning in toward the laptop, looking at the presentation on the small computer screen instead of the big projector screen. We’d unconsciously mirrored one another’s seated positions, and referring jointly to the laptop screen echoed the spirit of similarity and collaboration.

Mirroring often happens without thinking, but it can also be used in conscious ways to express understanding or to impart ease to a situation. If someone is telling you something in an excited way, leaning forward in her chair, it helps communicate your interest if you use body language that mirrors hers, so you lean forward, too. Leaning away would convey detachment, the exact opposite of what we’re after, but leaning forward creates a similarity that translates into understanding. Even when you consciously reflect someone else’s actions, it will feel natural. But don’t force it, or it will come off that way. It’s not a question of playing copycat. Simply stay aware of how you are authentically experiencing the situation, and allow your movements to reflect the engagement you feel.

Similarities Help Set the Mood

When meeting new people, the law of similarity tells us that we should be looking for commonalities or similarities to build trust, whatever and wherever those similarities might be. As we advance in our careers, our repertoire for dealing with new situations can narrow; it’s important to keep broadening our approaches and tactics. Ask questions and be attuned to the wide variety of information you receive in response. The possible ways you may connect with someone are virtually endless, and by using the laws of curiosity and listening, you can discover what you have in common with someone and where your natural connections occur.

Commonalities create the foundations for trust when building new relationships. And just as it is important to seek out commonalities to help establish genuine ease in a conversation, it is crucial to end a conversation with those feelings of trust and ease intact. As we’ll see in the next chapter, the lasting impression that an encounter creates is a powerful building block for likability and real relationships. I call it mood memory.