Peer Pivot — Trading Peer Pressure For Peer Support
Covid, black lives matter, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, the war in Ukraine, the world is undergoing a massive change. Working from home gave us time to reflect on these events, which made us question the nature and purpose of our life and work.
We start wondering if there is anything we can do about it. We might even have an idea for a business, product, or career direction that seems purposeful and that tempts us. Inspired by our quest and ideas, we might have even shared our thoughts with friends and colleagues.
And while they seem to understand where we are coming from, our ideas and longing are often faced with skepticism: What do you mean, you want to figure out your purpose? Why do you think about leaving? This is a good job, and you are killing it? Don’t you want to wait a little longer? I’m sure it is just a phase.
These are some of the comments Felix and Ingo heard when they decided to change their career paths by honoring their values, i.e. finding a way to engage more purposefully.
Going Beyond Peer Pressure
But why do people who are our friends and colleagues do that? Shouldn’t we all support each other in developing ourselves and living up to our potential? Commonly shared as a belief amongst coaches, the idea of “self-discovery” and “developing your potential” does not often sit well with peers.
Peers are peers because they learned to appreciate us for who we are and what we bring to the table. Ingo was part of a research team and worked on a topic he enjoyed. He had rich and insightful conversations with colleagues that enjoyed his thought-provoking questions and reflections. Felix led a team of talented learning consultants, and his calendar was packed with stakeholder meetings across board areas. In both cases, the authors and their peers benefited from each other.
But as soon as they started to follow their own path, they began to question their relationship. So when their peers sense that you are changing, they get subconsciously as they realize that the nature of your relationship was questioned. So to maintain the relationship, they try to help you stay the same.
We often experience this phenomenon as peer pressure. No one might tell you to stay the same, but we realize that there are some consequences to our change. Peers call us less, we might not get invited, or they start asking questions that indicate that our relationship will change.
A fellow professor asked Ingo why he would waste his research career and all the work he invested for something that isn’t even a “professional job.” Felix was met with uncomfortable silence after informing his manager that he would give up his leadership role.
The biggest problem is that the resulting peer pressure starts to hold us back. We begin to question our ideas, fear losing our relationships, and decide to stay because we fear the consequences. We often experience these challenges in coaching. People become aware of what they want, but they remain inactive because they fear the reactions of their relatives and friends.
Our Need For Peers
Central to this challenge is recognizing our need for relationships and our built-in need for belonging. Through evolution, we learned to equate being by ourselves with “danger,” which is why we rarely do anything that might endanger our belonging to a group that is meaningful to us. Think about it, we all were in situations in which we valued belonging to a group over speaking the truth about someone’s behavior or misconduct.
The need for belonging is universal. A Harvard Study found it the most crucial factor in living a long and healthy life. Given their influence, peers are not only the most significant hurdle but also the biggest enablers of change. If our peers are such a significant influence on our lives, how do we know to use them to change them?
While we all know “peer pressure,” we also know the opposite “peer support.”
We all received initial peer support from the same groups, but we now feel pressured to stay the same.
We all know how it motivated us, showed us a new way and positively affected our self-confidence and belief in the ideas we want to bring to life.
Thus, to overcome peer pressure, the best thing we can do is to pivot and find peers that support us in becoming who we want to be next. But most of us have learned to stick with our relationships since school or university.
Two Ways to “Peer Pivot”
Reflecting on our experiences, we identified two ways to peer pivot depending on your situation.
Identify and engage with peers that are headed for the same goal.
They can help us identify relevant relationships, find opportunities for collaborations, and improve our ideas and knowledge in a specific area. This was the case for Felix, who joined the Corporate Learning Community. He shared the story of a leadership peer learning experiment with his peers and found seven co-creators with the same ambition. Additionally, he contributed to the SAP New Work Practitioner community and found new opportunities to co-create how SAP works in the future.
Identify and engage with peers who are going through similar life experiences.
They can help us stay on our path, encourage us, and help us with perspectives that support us on our journey. For example, when Ingo was looking for his “next thing,” he joined an online course by Seth Godin. Engaging in the course made him realize that many attendees were also going through a life transition. This helped him connect with peers who “got him,” accepted him for who he wanted to become, and encouraged him to continue on his journey.
Felix and Ingo found each other through a peer group focused on a goal but ended up engaging based on going through a similar experience. They first met at the D.Con Festival in Berlin, where they shared an interest in human-centered innovation. Loosely following each other, they reconnected years later when they realized they were on a similar journey and shared a similar interest in supporting change makers to have a meaningful impact.
Your Peer Pivot Experience
Sharing our stories made us wonder what you might have encountered.
What is your experience pivoting from peer pressure to peer support while transforming yourself, your environment, or the world? Please let us know in the comments below!
Additionally, we have created a worksheet, “Peer Pivot For Changemakers,” to help you reflect on your peer pivot. It will help you identify and engage in peer communities that enable and encourage you on your journey. The worksheet will help you understand where you are on your journey and what is getting in your way. This can serve as a starting point to engage with peers and coaches.
Reflection On The Duet Writing Experience
This blog post has been written by Ingo and Felix as co-authors. Felix initiated a learning challenge as part of the #meinziel22 Corporate Learning Community blog parade: writing nine blog posts with nine different people in nine different ways.
We opted for an “asynchronous-first” way of writing. We started by agreeing on a rough topic idea at the intersection of learning and coaching. Then, each of us wrote and shared a first blog post draft based on this idea. Felix learned a lot from Ingo’s structured way of writing based on years of experience as a lecturer and researcher. Likewise, Ingo was inspired by the angles, ideas, and practical expertise Felix communicated in his writing.
We used our first online meeting to narrow down our idea and aligned our ideal reader/target audience, story angle, and key message. The conversation led us to discuss the opposing forces of peer pressure and peer support. It made us come up with the “Peer Pivot” concept — a topic that created a lot of resonance and energy during our discussion.
The outcome of this experiment was unexpected for both of us. Iterating the article, we started to weave our personal stories into the post. This taught us a lot about how we already approached peer-pivots and could do it better. Further, Ingo got inspired to draft a peer-pivot worksheet we finalized together.
Authors: Dr. Ingo Rauth (LinkedIn profile) and Felix Harling (LinkedIn profile)
