I read a bunch of blogs, and Evolving Excellence is consistently good. I was struck by this post, Homozygosity – That’s The Problem!. I had never heard of homozygosity before, so I looked it up. According to Merriam-Webster, it’s
having the two genes at corresponding loci on homologous chromosomes identical for one or more loci
The result: you get enough people (in this case) who think alike and get them to work together, they inbreed their thinking. That leads to
There is an old saying that ‘great minds think alike’. Probably, but I’ve noticed that morons think alike too.
I laughed out loud at that one.
But Bill is right. It’s too easy if you have insufficient diversity to achieve group-think without meaning to. If you’re hiring for problem-solving skills, which is what we do in high tech, you want diversity of all kinds: personality, schooling, race, culture, to name just a few. Insufficient diversity leads to an inability to generate other and different solutions.
Think about what diversity might mean for your group and how you can find it.
Recruiting from certain schools can prevent you from hiring the best — because that recruiting limits your intake of candidates. It tightens your screen before you’ve even gotten to resume review. This is a USA-attitude. For those of you in Europe, and other places where school could actually mean something, take a look at the comments from this link.
If you hire similar people, you’re more likely to end up with group-think.
Focusing on where people came from doesn’t help you assess how they could get the job done.
If the manager hasn’t written a good job description, the requirements for the job are unclear — and the manager is more likely to hire someone just like him or herself.
Sometimes, the best person for the job is just like you — but not often. Make sure you define the requirements for the job, not just the pedigree.
For those of you who subscribe via bloglet, something happened to the feed mechanism. I think I convinced bloget that the blog works, but we’ll have to see. When bloglet works, it’s great. But when it doesn’t, it’s aggravating to me.
I was talking to a hiring manager recently, and she said, “I’d like to get another developer just like Stan.” Well, Stan is a good guy and a talented developer, but why look for someone just like him? The manager explained, “I’m staffing a particularly risky project and with someone just like Stan, I know we’ll do well.”
It’s possible that’s true, but it’s more likely she’s wrong. When you manage a risky project, you need access to more than just technical strengths, you need access to all the other things that make people succeed at work — their personalities. If you hire similar personalities, your staff will have the same blind spots.
If your HR group does personality testing, don’t let them pigeon-hole people. In MBTI terms, INTPs make the “best” architects — but not all INTPs want to be architects. SJs aren’t the only people who can manage projects, NTs can do so, as well as NFs and SPs. Of course, if you have an NT project manager, ask questions about how that person knows how to acquire the necessary details and finish the project.
It’s useful to know about personality types. Rebecca says, “if you find out your coworker … is apparently hardwired to [act in a certain way] you might judge him less harshly.” It’s helpful to know personality types, to make sure you have diverse groups and that you’re aware of everyone’s blind spots. Just don’t hire an entire group of one type. You’ll miss out on the best diversity of all, that of personality.
