How Newcomers Can Influence Established Groups

Wow, I thought I was just being shy, but I've been adhering to a similar strategy my whole life when joining a new group: stay back, let the group welcome you in instead of forcing yourself into the group. I also find that befriending single members of the group outside of the normal group environment works well in gaining some legitimacy in the group. After friending one person, you just apply the transitive property of friendship a couple time and hey! you've got a ton of new friends.

The basic point seems to be "if you're new, shut up". Probably good advice in most cases.

Perhaps the headline could be changed to "How Groups Perceive Criticism From Newcomers" - I was expecting an article about how a group changes based on an influx of newcomers, which has been a topic of interest on HN lately.

This reminds me of a great book, "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation", by Lave and Wegner (an anthropologist and a computer scientist). This book deals with how newcomers to a community of practice interact with core practitioners to learn the central knowledge/beliefs of that community. As newcomers move from the periphery to the center of practice, their criticisms to the body of central knowledge become more acceptable to the community as a whole. This of course causes the "center" of the community to shift over time as new members cycle in to a community and old members exit.

This article solidifies something that's been rattling around in my head for a month or three.

It relates to a post on HN (which I can't find now) about job interviews. I think the article was written by an interviewer, who said he liked to hire someone who could offer a knowledgeable, well reasoned critique of his organization.

The implication is that, if you're looking for a job, you should aim at doing that kind of thing. I had a problem with that, but I could not articulate it very well. This article filled in the gaps in my thinking.

Wish I could find that old post ....

I think it is perfectly reasonable to take criticism from an 18 year veteran more seriously than from a 2 week new jack.

In both cases you are assuming to gain a new perspective from the experience of another human.. Is it not reasonable to assume that someone that has spent a vast quantity of time in a particular environment would have a better perspective than a new jack?

And, do we need a study to tell us that groups are hostile toward newcomers that give them criticism?

I don't see why you would want to change anything as a newcomer. There's no way you are going to understand the process well enough by then. First get to know the people, figure out how they think, how they work and how they communicate. Then figure out what's wrong and start telling them about it. You have nothing important to tell in the first few weeks. Ignoring your criticism is the rational thing to do.

At a lower level the way to get change done is to agree with people on anything you find sufficiently unimportant. On the thing you really want to change you'll explain that it's really quite similar to what they've been doing before, except you start taking into account A, which should be something they can identify with. To be able to do this, you need to know who you're talking to.

I'm just experiencing "hostility to newcomers" on HN. My comments have been repeatedly voted down for no apparent reason. I just can't imagine people loving nuclear weapons and such so why vote me down for speaking out in favor of pacifism.