Why you shouldn’t just hire the friend you went to school with

I had a conversation with someone a couple of months ago about the importance of diversity in recruitment and having a diverse workforce. Their counter-argument was that hiring someone similar means they're more likely to fit in and be happier, whereas hiring someone with cultural, background or cognitive differences might mean that person feels like the odd one out. I can't really argue with that, because the problem in that scenario isn't that the new starter is different, it's that the whole team is the same.

So why is diversity important?

Before I begin, I want to clarify what I mean by diversity. It isn't just diversity in sex, age, religion, nationality and so on, it's cognitive diversity. Cognitive diversity sounds fancy, but it's really just people who think differently.

When people in the same team and company think differently to each other, we get different perspectives on problem solving and decision making. People are able to challenge each other, and that allows the team to land on the best possible solution from a range of varied opinions. Research from Ashridge and London Business School found that the most cognitively diverse teams consistently outperform more homogeneous ones.

How do I get a cognitively diverse workforce?

Cognitive diversity comes from people with different backgrounds. Sometimes that means the more traditional diversity characteristics, like religion, nationality or sex. But it also comes from people with different education, different psychometric profiles (think introvert and extrovert), people from different parts of the country, people who've worked their way up from the bottom, and people who've come in at the top. It's the teams with this kind of diversity that have the greatest chance of success.

Still not convinced?

Practically speaking, let's take a team of accountants. All ACCA qualified, Big Four trained, and analytical thinkers. Sounds great, doesn't it? But who in that team is going to be the one to think of more innovative ways to do things, and not just suggest process changes but actually push them through? Hiring people who can still do the role, but bring fresh perspectives or different experiences, helps the team grow and perform better.

But they won’t fit in as well if they are different?

That largely comes back to culture, and openness to change and diversity. If your culture isn't open to diversity, is it the right culture? Something I see a lot of teams doing to understand each other better, and potentially remove some of the frustration that comes with differences and clashes, is personality profiling, or psychometrics. I'm an advocate for using it at almost every stage of the employee lifecycle, but it comes in especially useful when helping teams understand each other's preferences and explain their behaviours.

So now you are all sold on cognitive diversity – how do you achieve it? 

That comes back to culture, but also to recruitment and selection, which I'll cover in a future post.

In the meantime, if you'd like support building a team that thinks as broadly as it looks, a Fractional HR Director can help you get your recruitment and culture working together. Get in touch and let's talk.