Creativity thru Diversity

Dear Team

I am currently reading,

“ The Medici Effect “ by  Frans Johansson

Pl consider the following paras ( pg 81 / 82 )


The similar-attraction effect can have a devastating impact on our efforts to create diverse teams. Most people , for instance , think they are pretty decent in interviewing candidates for jobs. Some people even claim that they can tell as soon as a candidate walks through the door whether the person is suitable.
“ When you’ve been in the game as long as I have, you can spot them straight away “ , they say.
Such talk flies in the face of hundreds of studies that have been conducted since the beginning of the century. These studies show conclusively that the unstructured interview has virtually no validity as a selection tool. Such an interview does not give us enough information to understand the candidate’s qualifications.
There are many reasons for this problem. People tend to search for commonalities in others. Both the person conducting the interview and the interviewee try to find common ground quickly: if they do, they get a good feeling about each other. The result is that people tend to recruit candidates just like themselves.
We do this because we are affected by subjective biases, and in particular by the similar-attraction effect. Even if we want to create an innovative environment with different types of people, we face millions of years of evolution that works against such desires. Yet if we wish to bring ourselves , and our organizations , into Intersection , we must diversify . How ?
Professor Robert Sutton of Stanford University suggests a number of methods to make this happen in his book , “ Weird Ideas That Work “.
One of his first weird ideas is to hire people who make you uncomfortable, even those whom you dislike.
If you are thinking about recruiting a candidate because , “ I like her “ or “ He’s just like one of us “ , these might actually be the reasons not to hire the person, assuming the job or team requires creativity.
Managers can combat this tendency by monitoring signs that people are hiring too many others like themselves ( for instance check the percentage of graduates from the same school, geographic area , discipline , functional background , former employers, age , race and gender ).
Sutton also encourages firms to hire people they don’t need, at least not yet.
This may sound like strange advice at first , but people are more likely to bring something new to the company if they are not recruited to fill an established role. And if they are motivated and engaged , they will be able to find intersections between their skills and the organization’s needs.

Epilogue :


Robert Sutton wrote his book in 2002
Some 40 years earlier ( around 1962 ) , one fine morning , Soren Toubro walked into my cabin unannounced , sat down and asked me,
“ Parekh , do we have in our Switchgear Factory , some engineers who have nothing to do ? “
I was , not only puzzled by this  strange question but also felt a bit offended ! I said,
“Sir ,  I don’t understand ! Every engineer here is overloaded. How can there be anybody without work ? “
Mr Toubro laughed and went on ,

“ Parekh , a company like ours , at all times , must have some engineers with no specified role. Their only job is to go around the factory and the office and keep searching for jobs / operations / processes which are being carried out in sub-standard manner or unproductively. They must look at things and come up with better ways of doing it. Their only job is to examine everything critically and suggest improvements.
Functional managers are so engrossed with meeting their daily targets that they just don’t have time to think about improvements “

That morning , I learned a very valuable lesson , thanks to the vision of Soren Toubro
Many years letter , in some discussion , I told Mr Holck Larsen that I had just interviewed an excellent engineer but that we have no vacancy where we can possibly utilize his skills / talents
Mr Holck Larsen commented ,

“ Skilled / talented engineers are a rare breed. Whenever you come across one , don’t think about vacancies. Don’t worry about how and where you will deploy them. Just go ahead and appoint them first. Then , later worry about their placement “

I believe visions of Holck Larsen and Soren Toubro , are as much relevant today as they were 50 years ago

If you think some of your Clients may benefit from this , feel free to circulate amongst them

hcp