The Good, the Bad and the Human - a series about Humanity in the workplace
Crazy acronyms for everything, little rituals before meetings, unique e-mail writing, and the same coffee-break jokes. Some call them "culture quirks", I call them "weird, but fun".
Despite all the fun, there's a risk when you work for an organization that you believe in:
you can lose your critical thinking about it and start lip-syncing "this is how things are around here".
That's especially dangerous when some of those things aren't as harmless as having green matching hoodies.
The workplace is one of the most favorable places for cultivating and disseminating Cognitive Bias - a mental bug that makes you jump into conclusions.
So that's why I've picked this spicy topic to share my thoughts around. Let's do this!
One time I was working with a startup that needed to attract more engineers - a situation as clichè as it can be in the tech world.
They were in a shortage of good candidates, so I suggested they stopped focusing on the same top universities and start looking at different places (other schools, coding groups, competitions, etc) - maybe there were some amazing candidates out there!
The answer I received was a rational one - for them:
"Thank you, but no thank you. An undergrad from a top university is far more likely to be a good candidate for us, so we shouldn't make an effort to assess candidates from other places." And the cherry on top: "Look at our top performers, they all come from top universities."
Fun fact: 95% of this engineering team came from top universities, so of course their top performers would also be.
This situation sounds simple but actually shows a type of Cognitive Bias:
Similarity Bias - we tend to favor people that are similar to us - regarding race, age, background, etc. And disfavor those that are different - in a simplistic US x THEM categorization.
It's not my objective today to go deep on what Cognitive Bias is - there is a lot of amazing material explaining it. But what you should know is:
our brain is not capable of processing all the information around us - it's too much, too fast - so it takes shortcuts and jumps into conclusions.
The problem is that those shortcuts don't take into consideration the whole picture and lead to errors, regarding how we perceive the world and make decisions.
Most types of bias try to protect us and lead us to "the safer decision". People like me are safer, top universities are safer, the same ideas are safer.
In hiring, Cognitive Bias is a well-known issue - recruiters and managers need to assess a lot of candidates very quickly, through resumés and interviews. So what's the problem of carrying some bias in their pocket? Won't actually make the job of hiring easier?
Yes and No. And that's why this series is called The Good, The Bad and The Human.
The Good
"Jumping into conclusions" in hiring can be helpful if the variable you are assessing actually affects job-performance:
A candidate won a prize for coding, therefore he's a good coder. RIGHT
A candidate is a paraglider, therefore he knows how to take risks and be safe. WRONG
Hiring people that are similar to their leaders is easier on the short-term (onboarding, communication, etc), so if the organization is in their early stages or needs to jump-start a project, it can be a calculated risk.
The Bad
If you don't look past your organization's bias, you may end up with a whole team that looks, talks and thinks the same.
And it's been proven that those copy-pasted teams aren't good innovators and problem-solvers in the long term, they have the same inabilities and especially they have trouble considering other people's - like your client's - point of view.
Moreover, a hive-minded organization (same people, same ideas) has less engagement throughout. The employee that "fits in the mold" is not seen as an individual, just part of the group and for that, she will feel that she can't show her whole self (with all her complexities) or she'll be rejected.
The Human
Cognitive Bias is a tricky topic because, as I said, the brain makes errors when it processes a lot of information. And those errors pass unnoticed - so you make them and think that you are doing the right thing.
That's why is so important that we never lose our critical thinking - towards ourselves and towards our organizations.
We should never make decisions simply by "that's how things are around here".
You should always ask WHY.
Why do we only recruit from the same universities?
Why do we only have male leaders?
Why does our workforce look the same?
Look for evidence before making a decision - especially regarding hiring and people management. Set up policies and processes that leave little space for "gut feeling".
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