Familiarity impacts the quality of decisions we make!

: Research suggests that we seek comfort in seeking advice from people who are familiar. Birds of a feather flock together. They may look similar, belong to the same community or have similar ethnicity. It does not stem from their ability to offer quality advice. Our spectrum of familiarity may have a smaller pool of individuals. Thus we run the risk of seeking inputs from people we know vs people who know. Familiarity reduces the perceived risk of engagement or seeking advice. This may not yield the best business outcome however you will notice at appointment of an manager at times results in reshaping the next tier based on who they may have worked with before. This may not be best for the organisation, society or community at large however it works best for the manager by lowering their risk. There is a tendency to perceive us versus them. Scientific American has an interesting article on this topic which can be found here https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-our-brains-see-the-world-as-us-versus-them/. It also extends to how we feel about others https://theconversation.com/twelve-charts-on-race-and-racism-in-australia-105961

In the race between merit and familiarity we may end up choosing the latter which may lead to prevailing mediocrity. Have you experienced any such thing happen around you ?

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Sameer Babbar