Turns out the tech sector – in fact all of us in the talent biz – have been over-enthusing about fit for some time leading to some pretty warped corporate cultures. Yeah, turns out the very thing that organizations and recruiters have been holding up as the holy grail of recruiting – hiring for fit – is the very thing that can lead to the undoing of an organization.
Anyone who has witnessed the antics of engineering students during frosh week knows the pervasiveness of herd-mentality. There is also an undeniable inculcation of the initiates; it’s no wonder that these lads will then stick together in forming companies. But it’s not in the founding where fitting-in is an issue but in the growth and evolution of companies and the sector. When we continually surround ourselves with people like us they will generally think like us as well, and it’s this homogeneity in thinking that breeds contempt, and worse, imperils innovation. For more on this see Jorge, http://www.game-changer.net/2014/09/24/homogeneity-in-an-organization-breeds-failure/#.WY31tbpFzIU writing in Game-Changer.net and perennial favourite HBR, https://hbr.org/2016/04/why-hiring-for-cultural-fit-can-thwart-your-diversity-efforts
Back in 2015 Wired https://www.wired.com/2015/02/moneyball-for-startups/ was already calling out the tech industry for being “notoriously ageist [shunning] women, minorities and others who don’t fit into the rising ‘brogrammer’ culture” and pointing out the benefits of diversity. We’ve been following this because far too often fit is slang for, are you like me; do I like you; are we likely to get along and; would I want to go for a drink with you after work. It doesn’t have to be that way.
If you look up corporate culture the same terms will come up: values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs. But more important is the concept that these norms are shared, bought into; they become a mantra. That’s problematic because standards, values and beliefs change over time and need to be questioned. (It was OK until this year to harass women in the Valley and for men to act like sophomoric dorks. Apparently that changed this year.) Norms also arise out of not-so-nebulous context which we at Collabrio feel is fundamental to all of the work we do. We view culture as a mirror image of context where the need to conform to certain standards and behavioural norms emerges due to the unique circumstances of the organization, and this needs to evolve. As practitioners we need to cut through the crap surrounding corporate culture and ask our clients not just what traits they value in their employees but why this is relevant to a particular role, and the way they interact with other employees and customers.