6 ms·

Much as it's important to lower barriers of opportunity to people who have not grown up in privilege, I have to say that as someone responsible for hiring / man

Much as it's important to lower barriers of opportunity to people who have not grown up in privilege, I have to say that as someone responsible for hiring / managing people -- it is undeniable that people who come from much worse off backgrounds are much more likely to have a harder time working successfully in a high performing environment. As you look to populations who didn't go through the same kind of education, social circles, family environments ("privilege" as they say nowadays), you find people who: -- Don't hold conversations with the same kind of productive interaction -- Don't have the same goals of success or motivations (individually or team) -- Haven't yet been exposed to professionally challenging situations and know how to handle them healthily -- Have a higher quotient of "fuck it" if they encounter difficulty -- Display gaps in judgement on how to behave / what to do or not do at work -- Just have more hard-to-manage stresses outside of work on their life -- many more personality / work-related traits Of course I'm not saying that everyone from a less privileged background is like this. But undeniably as you "turn the knob down", you encounter more and more of these issues. If it were not true, everyone pretty much would want to hire from every stratum of society. It's a sad truth that the indicators of a privileged background aren't just superficial meaningless markers. They actually do pretty well indicate how likely someone is to succeed. They mean that someone has gone through education / upbringing that give you a pretty good sense of how that person will behave, and perform (in general). Hence the vicious circle. This is why efforts like at Accenture (?) to strip resumes of university background or other "biased" indicators will be unsuccessful. The noise-to-signal that results will be overwhelming.

Pryde 8y ago
Do you, as a manager at least, have any ideas on how to address that inequality? Obviously the ideal measure would be at least to improve education among those populations, but given that at least some portion of that damage is done by the time an individual enters the workplace, is there any way to mitigate those factors at that point?
- supernova87a 8y ago
  The one area I have found useful is employing a junior group in operational roles where they are tasked with repetitive but skill-requiring tasks get to show that they are: -- conscientious -- innovative -- communicative -- ambitious You can almost immediately tell who has ideas, is interested in the work, and stands out from the rest. A responsible corporate leader then offers the opportunity to advance from this beginning having proven their adaptability. Honestly, it is too dangerous / risky to hire people from "unusual" backgrounds into much higher responsibility roles. This is the old type training environment that companies used to have, especially in manufacturing for example. But with the decline of that, and the offloading of expensive training and apprenticeship to a contractor-run world, this gateway for people to prove themselves is becoming rarer and rarer. And it is a failing of our society to take up that slack with enlightened public policy that realizes this is happening. All we seem to want now is to have someone else grow the crop, and we pick and cut the most attractive.
  - Pryde 8y ago
    So this sort of program would weed out individuals that couldn't hack it in the corporate environment, thereby mitigating the negative effects of those traits listed earlier to the business, which is obviously a good idea. But from personal experience as a person who would probably score fairly low on conscientiousness, I've found that such programs don't encourage that trait in me. At the risk of trying to turn this into an advice thread, what would you recommend for an individual in that circumstance?
    - supernova87a 8y ago
      What's an example of low conscientiousness? What type of work do you enjoy / are you successful at?
      - Pryde 8y ago
        In my case at least, I'm often just not motivated to meet a given standard of excellence in my work, at least when doing work that I'd be paid for. Frankly, I'm often content with "works well enough and without breaking issues" at work. At 22 I'm just starting my career, and I'd like to find a way to mitigate that trait in the future. As far as what type of work I enjoy and/or am successful at, I'm honestly not sure. I haven't enjoyed any work to a high degree since leaving university. So far at least, I've been fairly successful in my work as a software developer for an insurance tech company.
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
As someone who's been through some hiring as well: I can teach a person how to talk. I can teach a person how to behave. I can even teach a person a good judgement. Actually, pretty much all college graduates have an absolutely awful judgement. I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude.
- thex10 8y ago
  > I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude. You can fire them.
- smallgovt 8y ago
  As someone who previously suffered from a fixed mindset, it's entirely possible to change the "fuck it" attitude. There are many reasons people give up too early but a lot of it has to do with 1) seeing failure as a reflection of self-worth and 2) not seeing failure as a growth opportunity. With the right culture / mentorship / communication, it's possible to correct attitude just like skillset. Whether it's worth your time is another question.
- jhayward 8y ago
  > I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "I don't yet know how to coach someone with a "fuck it" attitude?"
- rendall 8y ago
  > I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude Isn't this itself a "fuck it" attitude, manifest?
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Your list is exactly what one would expect. Growing up poor is stressful and immensely worrisome. It doesn't teach you high-status social codes, and it does make you cynical about attempts to turn you into a "team player" - because someone else is more likely to benefit from team effort than you are. At the same time, you only have to look at the shocking performance of British and US politicians born into privilege to see that not everything you say is true. The UK is currently trying to work through an unprecedented crisis of entitlement and narcissism caused by those from privileged backgrounds whose chief character attributes are self-importance, entitlement, and historic, world class levels of incompetence and tone deafness. These people are certainly successful financially. It's certainly true in their case that indicators of privilege correlate with success - but it's also true that it's clearly not because of professionalism, hard work, or outstanding native talent.
- smallgovt 8y ago
  Things are rarely black and white. You will find privileged people who completely lack productive traits, and you will find unprivileged people who are extremely productive. However, I think the GP's core argument is correct. That is, as a whole, less-privileged people are less productive in a work environment than people from privileged backgrounds. I think we should accept this fact and understand the reasons this is a setback we're willing to face on the path to equality of opportunity.
  - devoply 8y ago
    > less-privileged people are less productive in a work environment than people from privileged backgrounds. Some evidence needed. People are throwing out statements as fact without any justified basis. Most of what I have seen from unstressed higher class is that they act like adult children who throw tantrums when things don't go their way; in fact Scotty from Star Trek in a TNG episode makes this exact point about Starfleet Captains. The workers are the productive ones who actually do the work. Long gone are the times where that upper class would tell those workers exactly what to do as the work is too complicated for that. All the people at the top are good at doing is talking to other overgrown children at the top that control the capital... and rewarding themselves when things go according to plan and punishing those who do the work when they don't -- or punishing them even when they do -- i.e. layoffs.
smallgovt 8y ago
As you aptly point out, affirmative action results in less productive workplaces in today's world. I think we need to accept this fact, and at the same time, realize that it's not necessarily a bad thing. It comes down to values. Which do we value more: productivity/economic output OR equality of opportunity? Historically, we have pretty much placed productivity at the top of our value chain, but over the past couple decades, it seems like we're starting to value equality of opportunity more than productivity. IMO, there's no right or wrong answer, but it behooves us to get on the same page so we don't feel conflicted.
- Torwald 8y ago
  We cannot choose "equality of opportunity" OVER "productivity/economic output", because then we will go broke. After that there is no choice left whatsoever. IMO we don't need "equality of opportunity" what we need instead is to make sure that those with the least amount of opportunity still have a lot of it. So much of it that they can move on and do so on a path that is to their liking. > but it behooves us to get on the same page so we don't feel conflicted. We can feel conflicted, that in itself is not problematic. Why should it be?
  - mcguire 8y ago
    I take it you believe parental leave, extended vacation time, and the 40-hour work week are detrimental?
    - Torwald 8y ago
      Detrimental to what/whom? It depends, except with the 40-hour work week, that one belongs to the dustbin of history. Nobody profits from it at this point. BTW, why are you mentioning these topics?
- noetic_techy 8y ago
  Affirmative action is not equality of opportunity, its equality of outcomes. That's why places like Harvard have to give Asian students SAT scores negative modifiers in order to level the playing field of outcomes. We need to get a the root of the problem, not try to patch it at the top when its too late and override meritocracy. It all boils down to culture, which OP's article reinforces. Highly recommend Amy Chaus book The Triple Package. Its discusses why certain cultures succeed better than other in the US.
skybrian 8y ago
This sounds vaguely plausible, but do you have anything backing that up? Unproven theories are a dime a dozen.
neilv 8y ago
I appreciate your candor, but these are a lot of negative generalizations, and I hope they haven't resulted in any applicants being prejudged. I don't have enough data to discuss "as you 'turn the knob down', you encounter more and more of these issues", so I'd just like to suggest a few related ideas: * It's certainly possible to also make some negative generalizations of people with various kinds of socioeconomic advantage. For every imagined "f_ck it" person, by class, there's an imagined person who's accustomed to things going their way, or an imagined person who is very selfish and disingenuous. But it's not fair to prejudge individuals by those generalizations, no matter how valid or invalid. * When someone makes it to our environment (whatever that is) despite a relatively lower-class or otherwise disadvantaged starting point, that might suggest traits and experience valuable to the organization. * If the organization values creative ideas and a breadth of awarenesses/perspectives, that seems like a strong argument for hiring a diversity of people. (Not the same clique from the affluent prep school one went to, to use an extreme example.) * In society in general, we're still trying to figure out how to get along, and to have mutual respect and support with people whose situations we don't understand. For an organization that values getting to a better understanding (for, e.g., understanding users or market demographics, or some sense of greater social mission), what better way than to welcome into the organization a diversity of people, including ones who don't yet know all the conventions for what's an appropriate joke to make at lunch, or who don't have the same fun hobbies to talk about on Monday.
- supernova87a 8y ago
  I'm not talking about gross prejudgment of individuals based on group observations, and in fact I would say that in my organization we have gone above and beyond to counter these traps. We've given opportunities to people in excess of what you might on average, hence I have actual observations about people who did and did not succeed from such less privileged backgrounds. All my observations are not talking about petty things like table manners, "in" jokes, or what -- they're about deep personality and motivational traits that affect the quality of work or reliability of the person. Tested after giving people fair chances over multiple exposures. You are correct that someone getting to a level of achievement from a disadvantaged starting point is quite an accomplishment and worthy of consideration. What I was talking about was countering the notion that someone's background has no predictive power or should be ignored. It has extremely strong predictive power, but should not be used to exclude other indicators of potential. The key is to not enable yourself to think you have examined all the important indicators with the few that are "easy" or "traditional". Finally, unfortunately I have to disagree that "diversity" in itself is a desirable goal. This is because I think that your "diversity" likely means appearance diversity or class diversity, for political goals, rather than actual valuing different opinions and approaches. I have not found that symbolic "diversity" leads to that. In fact, using symbolic "diversity" depletes your resources to find people of actual and valuable diversity. True diversity in people's thinking, areas of capability, and approaches professional work and interaction are more valuable and are the things I personally look for. And I have not found it more likely to find that in a group of people of random race, gender, class, etc. symbolic indicators, than a group from a more homogeneous source.
sjg007 8y ago
Your anecdotal evidence is, I would say, dangerous to over generalization. AND.. if you truly believe this, then you should try offering some training or mentorship programs to help these individuals succeed.
mcguire 8y ago
There's a platitude I've heard in social work circles, the Liberal's Lament: "Last guys don't finish nice." Those who are most in need of support seem to end up being the ones who apparently deserve it the least. On the other hand, I've met a fair number of "successful" individuals from "better", more culturally matching backgrounds who have many, most, or all of the failings you mention. Frequently, they receive no significant downsides to their behavior apparently because they fit-in to the culture. I suspect that merely perceiving those problems in some cases and not others is an example of the homophily they describe: "I think that a lot of people, on some level what they think they’re doing when they sponsor young co-workers is spotting talent—they called it “talent-mapping” in the accounting firm we studied. But a lot of people we talked to were also able to reflect and say, “Part of why I was excited about that person, probably, is because they reminded me of a younger version of myself.” The word we use in sociology is homophily—people like people who are like themselves." On the other, other hand, it's possible those problems are effects rather than causes, effects of the higher level of stress that those who don't fit in naturally face. "For a lot of people from poor and working-class or lower-middle-class backgrounds, being in these environments felt like you had to put on a performance all day. They didn’t feel at home and comfortable in their work environment—even people who had been quite successful, who had gotten toward the top of their occupations." (Certainly, my "fuck it" threshold goes down when I'm having to deal with stress from other sides, unrelated to the problem at hand.) If you put enough shoe-box-sized impediments in the way of the best hurdler, you can make them fall down.

Pryde 8y ago

Do you, as a manager at least, have any ideas on how to address that inequality? Obviously the ideal measure would be at least to improve education among those populations, but given that at least some portion of that damage is done by the time an individual enters the workplace, is there any way to mitigate those factors at that point?

supernova87a 8y ago
The one area I have found useful is employing a junior group in operational roles where they are tasked with repetitive but skill-requiring tasks get to show that they are: -- conscientious -- innovative -- communicative -- ambitious You can almost immediately tell who has ideas, is interested in the work, and stands out from the rest. A responsible corporate leader then offers the opportunity to advance from this beginning having proven their adaptability. Honestly, it is too dangerous / risky to hire people from "unusual" backgrounds into much higher responsibility roles. This is the old type training environment that companies used to have, especially in manufacturing for example. But with the decline of that, and the offloading of expensive training and apprenticeship to a contractor-run world, this gateway for people to prove themselves is becoming rarer and rarer. And it is a failing of our society to take up that slack with enlightened public policy that realizes this is happening. All we seem to want now is to have someone else grow the crop, and we pick and cut the most attractive.
- Pryde 8y ago
  So this sort of program would weed out individuals that couldn't hack it in the corporate environment, thereby mitigating the negative effects of those traits listed earlier to the business, which is obviously a good idea. But from personal experience as a person who would probably score fairly low on conscientiousness, I've found that such programs don't encourage that trait in me. At the risk of trying to turn this into an advice thread, what would you recommend for an individual in that circumstance?
  - supernova87a 8y ago
    What's an example of low conscientiousness? What type of work do you enjoy / are you successful at?
    - Pryde 8y ago
      In my case at least, I'm often just not motivated to meet a given standard of excellence in my work, at least when doing work that I'd be paid for. Frankly, I'm often content with "works well enough and without breaking issues" at work. At 22 I'm just starting my career, and I'd like to find a way to mitigate that trait in the future. As far as what type of work I enjoy and/or am successful at, I'm honestly not sure. I haven't enjoyed any work to a high degree since leaving university. So far at least, I've been fairly successful in my work as a software developer for an insurance tech company.

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

As someone who's been through some hiring as well: I can teach a person how to talk. I can teach a person how to behave. I can even teach a person a good judgement. Actually, pretty much all college graduates have an absolutely awful judgement. I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude.

thex10 8y ago
> I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude. You can fire them.
smallgovt 8y ago
As someone who previously suffered from a fixed mindset, it's entirely possible to change the "fuck it" attitude. There are many reasons people give up too early but a lot of it has to do with 1) seeing failure as a reflection of self-worth and 2) not seeing failure as a growth opportunity. With the right culture / mentorship / communication, it's possible to correct attitude just like skillset. Whether it's worth your time is another question.
jhayward 8y ago
> I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "I don't yet know how to coach someone with a "fuck it" attitude?"
rendall 8y ago
> I cannot do anything with the "fuck it" attitude Isn't this itself a "fuck it" attitude, manifest?

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

Your list is exactly what one would expect. Growing up poor is stressful and immensely worrisome. It doesn't teach you high-status social codes, and it does make you cynical about attempts to turn you into a "team player" - because someone else is more likely to benefit from team effort than you are. At the same time, you only have to look at the shocking performance of British and US politicians born into privilege to see that not everything you say is true. The UK is currently trying to work through an unprecedented crisis of entitlement and narcissism caused by those from privileged backgrounds whose chief character attributes are self-importance, entitlement, and historic, world class levels of incompetence and tone deafness. These people are certainly successful financially. It's certainly true in their case that indicators of privilege correlate with success - but it's also true that it's clearly not because of professionalism, hard work, or outstanding native talent.

smallgovt 8y ago
Things are rarely black and white. You will find privileged people who completely lack productive traits, and you will find unprivileged people who are extremely productive. However, I think the GP's core argument is correct. That is, as a whole, less-privileged people are less productive in a work environment than people from privileged backgrounds. I think we should accept this fact and understand the reasons this is a setback we're willing to face on the path to equality of opportunity.
- devoply 8y ago
  > less-privileged people are less productive in a work environment than people from privileged backgrounds. Some evidence needed. People are throwing out statements as fact without any justified basis. Most of what I have seen from unstressed higher class is that they act like adult children who throw tantrums when things don't go their way; in fact Scotty from Star Trek in a TNG episode makes this exact point about Starfleet Captains. The workers are the productive ones who actually do the work. Long gone are the times where that upper class would tell those workers exactly what to do as the work is too complicated for that. All the people at the top are good at doing is talking to other overgrown children at the top that control the capital... and rewarding themselves when things go according to plan and punishing those who do the work when they don't -- or punishing them even when they do -- i.e. layoffs.

smallgovt 8y ago

As you aptly point out, affirmative action results in less productive workplaces in today's world. I think we need to accept this fact, and at the same time, realize that it's not necessarily a bad thing. It comes down to values. Which do we value more: productivity/economic output OR equality of opportunity? Historically, we have pretty much placed productivity at the top of our value chain, but over the past couple decades, it seems like we're starting to value equality of opportunity more than productivity. IMO, there's no right or wrong answer, but it behooves us to get on the same page so we don't feel conflicted.

Torwald 8y ago
We cannot choose "equality of opportunity" OVER "productivity/economic output", because then we will go broke. After that there is no choice left whatsoever. IMO we don't need "equality of opportunity" what we need instead is to make sure that those with the least amount of opportunity still have a lot of it. So much of it that they can move on and do so on a path that is to their liking. > but it behooves us to get on the same page so we don't feel conflicted. We can feel conflicted, that in itself is not problematic. Why should it be?
- mcguire 8y ago
  I take it you believe parental leave, extended vacation time, and the 40-hour work week are detrimental?
  - Torwald 8y ago
    Detrimental to what/whom? It depends, except with the 40-hour work week, that one belongs to the dustbin of history. Nobody profits from it at this point. BTW, why are you mentioning these topics?
noetic_techy 8y ago
Affirmative action is not equality of opportunity, its equality of outcomes. That's why places like Harvard have to give Asian students SAT scores negative modifiers in order to level the playing field of outcomes. We need to get a the root of the problem, not try to patch it at the top when its too late and override meritocracy. It all boils down to culture, which OP's article reinforces. Highly recommend Amy Chaus book The Triple Package. Its discusses why certain cultures succeed better than other in the US.

skybrian 8y ago

This sounds vaguely plausible, but do you have anything backing that up? Unproven theories are a dime a dozen.

neilv 8y ago

I appreciate your candor, but these are a lot of negative generalizations, and I hope they haven't resulted in any applicants being prejudged. I don't have enough data to discuss "as you 'turn the knob down', you encounter more and more of these issues", so I'd just like to suggest a few related ideas: * It's certainly possible to also make some negative generalizations of people with various kinds of socioeconomic advantage. For every imagined "f_ck it" person, by class, there's an imagined person who's accustomed to things going their way, or an imagined person who is very selfish and disingenuous. But it's not fair to prejudge individuals by those generalizations, no matter how valid or invalid. * When someone makes it to our environment (whatever that is) despite a relatively lower-class or otherwise disadvantaged starting point, that might suggest traits and experience valuable to the organization. * If the organization values creative ideas and a breadth of awarenesses/perspectives, that seems like a strong argument for hiring a diversity of people. (Not the same clique from the affluent prep school one went to, to use an extreme example.) * In society in general, we're still trying to figure out how to get along, and to have mutual respect and support with people whose situations we don't understand. For an organization that values getting to a better understanding (for, e.g., understanding users or market demographics, or some sense of greater social mission), what better way than to welcome into the organization a diversity of people, including ones who don't yet know all the conventions for what's an appropriate joke to make at lunch, or who don't have the same fun hobbies to talk about on Monday.

supernova87a 8y ago
I'm not talking about gross prejudgment of individuals based on group observations, and in fact I would say that in my organization we have gone above and beyond to counter these traps. We've given opportunities to people in excess of what you might on average, hence I have actual observations about people who did and did not succeed from such less privileged backgrounds. All my observations are not talking about petty things like table manners, "in" jokes, or what -- they're about deep personality and motivational traits that affect the quality of work or reliability of the person. Tested after giving people fair chances over multiple exposures. You are correct that someone getting to a level of achievement from a disadvantaged starting point is quite an accomplishment and worthy of consideration. What I was talking about was countering the notion that someone's background has no predictive power or should be ignored. It has extremely strong predictive power, but should not be used to exclude other indicators of potential. The key is to not enable yourself to think you have examined all the important indicators with the few that are "easy" or "traditional". Finally, unfortunately I have to disagree that "diversity" in itself is a desirable goal. This is because I think that your "diversity" likely means appearance diversity or class diversity, for political goals, rather than actual valuing different opinions and approaches. I have not found that symbolic "diversity" leads to that. In fact, using symbolic "diversity" depletes your resources to find people of actual and valuable diversity. True diversity in people's thinking, areas of capability, and approaches professional work and interaction are more valuable and are the things I personally look for. And I have not found it more likely to find that in a group of people of random race, gender, class, etc. symbolic indicators, than a group from a more homogeneous source.

sjg007 8y ago

Your anecdotal evidence is, I would say, dangerous to over generalization. AND.. if you truly believe this, then you should try offering some training or mentorship programs to help these individuals succeed.

mcguire 8y ago

There's a platitude I've heard in social work circles, the Liberal's Lament: "Last guys don't finish nice." Those who are most in need of support seem to end up being the ones who apparently deserve it the least. On the other hand, I've met a fair number of "successful" individuals from "better", more culturally matching backgrounds who have many, most, or all of the failings you mention. Frequently, they receive no significant downsides to their behavior apparently because they fit-in to the culture. I suspect that merely perceiving those problems in some cases and not others is an example of the homophily they describe: "I think that a lot of people, on some level what they think they’re doing when they sponsor young co-workers is spotting talent—they called it “talent-mapping” in the accounting firm we studied. But a lot of people we talked to were also able to reflect and say, “Part of why I was excited about that person, probably, is because they reminded me of a younger version of myself.” The word we use in sociology is homophily—people like people who are like themselves." On the other, other hand, it's possible those problems are effects rather than causes, effects of the higher level of stress that those who don't fit in naturally face. "For a lot of people from poor and working-class or lower-middle-class backgrounds, being in these environments felt like you had to put on a performance all day. They didn’t feel at home and comfortable in their work environment—even people who had been quite successful, who had gotten toward the top of their occupations." (Certainly, my "fuck it" threshold goes down when I'm having to deal with stress from other sides, unrelated to the problem at hand.) If you put enough shoe-box-sized impediments in the way of the best hurdler, you can make them fall down.