The Necessity of Strangers

We live in a world filled with strangers, and most of us are conditioned to fear or at least avoid people we don’t know or understand, who might pose a threat, force us out of our comfort zones, or challenge us to question the beliefs and habits we hold dear. Most of us assume that strangers are a problem rather than an opportunity to learn, grow, and reach our full potential, and this view translates to our belief that the people we know best are the real keys to our success. But what if this isn’t the case? What if strangers are actually more important than friends, and what if in order to succeed in anything worth doing, we must engage, learn from, and collaborate with strangers in new and compelling ways? THE NECESSITY OF STRANGERS makes the case for the simple, profound and counter-intuitive idea that strangers are a necessity for both our personal success and the success of our organizations, precisely because of strangers' differences and their ability to challenge us to think differently about ourselves, the problems we face and the very nature of what is possible. Engaging the right strangers makes us-and our organizations-more complete, compelling, innovative, and successful. Any organization striving to innovate and grow can unlock a key competitive advantage-and provide greater value for customers-by developing a clear understanding of strangers and their perspectives. The book does not focus only on people from other cultures, countries, races, or religions, but also our coworkers and people we already work with, whose training, expertise, and outlook are different from our own.

Crucially, the book includes a framework for maximizing encounters with strangers, as well as 7 key principles for developing a "stranger-centric" mindset. The book then goes on to explain how to apply those principles to engaging strangers in 5 key areas where strangers are vital to success:
Driving greater innovation
Building more collaborative and capable enterprises and initiatives
Finding and getting the best out of people
Developing new markets and customer relationships
Unlocking the real potential of mergers, acquisitions and partnerships

Ultimately, THE NECESSITY OF STRANGERS is about the future of innovation and personal and business success, in a world in which all of us and all of our companies and organizations can-and must-access more new ideas, insights, perspectives and relationships than ever before.