My daughter researched her first blog post for Fetcher (as part of her first summer internship). She also reports on four ways to improve diversity in the workplace. I’ll share some further thoughts in the comments below.
And, ouch… Sometimes a story is more stunning than a statistic. David is not even the most popular name. There are even more Johns in the CEO ranks. The graph above is for the U.S.
Same story in Europe
For the past 13 years I have been fascinated by the "Wisdom of Crowds" effect, and I have shared the following email with all of the partners and everyone I hired:
———————————————
Subject: Cognitive Diversity > Ability
Team,
I have made this claim a few times, and thought I should share some of the background (please skim the attached book scan) as we discussed.
A lot of this was reinforced at a Management 2.0 brainstorming offsite:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2542450115/ where I wrote:
Four tenets jump to mind if we consider the Wisdom of Crowds as an emergent phenomenon, operating at a higher level of abstraction:
1) team (thinking style) diversity is more important than individual ability
2) disagreement is more important than consensus
3) and the voting policies and selection mechanisms that you put in place are more important than the coherence or even the comprehensibility about what you do.
4) The role of upper management is to tune the parameters of communication
I first started thinking about this in 2005 at the Santa Fe Institute: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/49191352/#comment13490786 where Scott Page shared an interesting rejoinder:
"People in diverse groups are less happy. Their views are challenged, and they feel like the outcomes were manipulated. Based on their experiences, they will self-report that it was not better than when they were on a homogenous team."
More for the curious:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2537873504/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2788387604/lightbox/
Steve
The WSJ just reported on the personality testing strategy of buyout firm Vista Equity Partners. It is interesting how their relocation and personality/cognitive testing policies adjust the workforce, with ancillary benefits on employee diversity. For those who can’t gert past the paywall, here are some salient quotes:
“Employees of acquired companies and candidates for hiring must submit to tests. A personality test aims to determine which of them are suited to which jobs. Salespeople are better off being extroverted, and software developers more introverted.
A proprietary cognitive assessment, similar to an IQ test, includes questions on logic, pattern recognition, vocabulary, sentence completion and math. The test inspires consternation and fear among existing employees, according to former employees. Vista primarily hires job applicants who do well, often young people with modest credentials or experience. These are its “high performing entry-level” workers, or HPELs.
Vista touts the tests to its investors as a great equalizer, helping make its companies diverse meritocracies. It says 35% of its portfolio-company employees are women—in line with what Facebook Inc. reports and higher than numbers from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp.
In a textbook Vista deal, operating margins at a company might be around 20% when Vista buys it, according to investors and former employees. Once its “best practices” are implemented, four to five years later, profitability is at 50%
Vista, which has done more than 300 deals, tells investors it has never lost money on a buyout—notable in an industry known for big hits and misses. Its largest fund has consistently been in the top quartile of comparable funds.
“their process is like a factory."
"Software companies taste like chicken… They’re selling different products, but 80% of what they do is pretty much the same.”
I did an NPR interview on the benefits of cognitive diversity for small teams: minute 11 and 18.
Scott Page of the Santa Fe Institute opened my eyes to all this in 2005, and I took a fairly cerebral perspective on the locus of learning in organizations, in the spirit of the complexity theorists of SFI: flic.kr/p/5m7SL
I have since learned that I am quoted in his new book The Diversity Bonus pp.124-5. And he reminded me that when I first met him at a conference lunch, I got all excited about the SFI research showing diversity being more important than ability in certain contexts, and I quoted him before I knew who I was talking to. I’m glad I got the attribution correctly to him!
Here is a blog summary of the book.
As the father of a couple of over achieving daughters (an acupuncturist for hospice and a recruiter for Amazon) I appreciate your work in this area Steve. I’ve enjoyed your photos for years, but probably have never commented. Keep up the good fight for the equality of our daughters; our future.
Thanks! P.S. Here’s a great way to start a conversation on the implicit biases we carry with us… in this example with Goldman Sachs partners
We have a long way to go. Thank you Steve for helping move the needle into the right direction.
Thank you very much, Mr. Jurvetson, for calling attention to this. I’m concerned that groupthink is contributing to sub-ideal results in these United States. I’m hoping to evolve along with many others who read this.
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