You may have heard the saying: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. When I first heard that, it struck a chord - it still does - and has now been adopted by that little voice at the back of my mind that keeps reminding me to constantly meet and get to know new people.
The phrase was originally coined by Jim Rohn, an American business philosopher and motivational speaker. When you hear it, it feels like one of those neat little truths you can’t quite prove but can’t ignore either, like folk psychology with teeth. It seemed to explain why some people fly and others stagnate, why some teams buzz with energy and others sink into passive inertia. And the more I’ve observed people over the years, while working with all sorts of organisations, the more I think Rohn was onto something.
But as always, it’s more nuanced than the soundbite.
Rohn’s 'average of 5 people' idea, isn’t actually an academic theory in itself. But it is consistent with research carried out in psychology and sociology over many decades. Social Contagion Theory, for example, shows how behaviours, moods, and even health habits can ripple through our social networks. If you spend time with optimists, then you’re more likely to adopt an optimistic outlook. Hang around with problem-solvers, and problems start to feel… solvable. Conversely, if your five are serial complainers, that attitude is catching too.
Our sense of what’s normal, and what’s possible, is calibrated by the people around us. We adjust to fit. Sometimes consciously, more often not. Echo chambers don’t just form online - they’re also in our social groupings - wherever they may be: the office, at home, the club, or the boardroom.
One of the subtler dangers of a small, tight, familiar network is that it becomes invisible. You don’t notice it’s shaping your thinking, until you try to think differently.
In these narrow social circles, ideas tend to echo. Creativity plateaus. Problems get solved the same way they’ve always been solved as new challenges get squeezed into old familiar mental models and frameworks.
Worse still, there’s often an emotional or mind-set cloud that goes with it - perhaps risk-aversion, cynicism, or cautiousness - and that becomes the environment you try to operate in. It's not hostile, it's just… limiting. While that familiarity may feel safe and comfortable, it doesn’t stretch you, and that in turn limits what you contribute to your endeavour.
And in business, that might not be good.
So, let's look at what happens when you broaden your circle, whether socially, professionally, or intellectually; everything shifts.
You encounter people with different assumptions, different attitudes and outlooks, different tools, different lenses, and different approaches. You start to hear new language, see new models, pick up ideas from industries or fields you’ve never worked in. You begin to notice that what seemed like a hard constraint in your world is a trivial issue in someone else’s.
That’s where the scale of thinking happens. You get exposed to a larger number of 'dots' that you can join up, more connections lead to more questions; and so your systemic understanding of the world around you expands. It’s not just about being inspired by new people. It’s about developing breadth of understanding and range of knowledge, the kind of range that lets you see connections, patterns, and possibilities that were simply out of view before.
There’s a long-standing joke that people start to look like their dogs. And, as an observer of people, who are often accompanied by their dogs as they walk past my house, I have seen this to be the case - that likeness can be physical, and / or behavioural. But it turns out that there’s real research suggesting we tend to choose pets that resemble us, and over time we start to mirror each other even more (apparently especially around the eyes).
It’s amusing, but there’s a serious point in here: we shape - and are shaped - by what we surround ourselves with. And if that’s true of a Labrador, how much more so of your leadership team, your clients, your peer group, or your advisors?
Our challenge these days is to know where we are (which constantly seems to be changing) as well as to know how the system, aka the world around us, works (which also constantly seems to be changing) - before we can work out where we need to go and how to get there. This is the raw material of effective strategic thinking. And so, we constantly need updated situational awareness and intelligence and new or different ways of thinking. And you don't get that by asking the same questions to the same people.
This isn't about ditching your friends or over-engineering your social life. But it is a nudge to reflect on:
And if you’re leading a business, maybe ask:
In the end, it’s not just about who you spend time with. It’s about what they bring out in you.
Take a look in the mirror - who do you see?
Ad Futurum
Graham
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