3 ms·

Uniformity of culture would presumably increase quality and speed of communication, and remove needless distraction from the process of producing. I can defini

Uniformity of culture would presumably increase quality and speed of communication, and remove needless distraction from the process of producing. I can definitely see why even a company committed to diversity of gender, race, religion, and so on would want to hire only those who "fit the company culture".

anigbrowl 14y ago
'Presumably' = 'I have no evidence'. It's just as likely to increase groupthink, with disastrous consequences.
majormajor 14y ago
Sure, it sounds plausible that it would do that, but then I think about if my hobbies and work code interact at all, and it just hasn't happened. Have you seen it yourself? The software business has its own jargon, and in my experience it's entirely divorced from non-computer-related hobbies.[1] I played a lot of videogames in the past, but I've never used a videogame metaphor in describing a programming problem or requirement to a coworker. I've played and watch a ton of sports, but similarly that's never come up. And none of my coworkers with other interests (for instance, D&D, which I've only played once myself) have ever described stuff in those terms. [1] If someone didn't have as much technical background or interest in the job itself, that's one thing, but when it comes to liking to go hiking vs liking to play board games? Is it really going to make a difference?
raganwald 14y ago
The word "presumably" is the kicker. To "presume" is to "Take for granted in the absence of proof to the contrary." So, if you don't have any proof that barring people who use a word like "hoops" is bad, you take it for granted that it's good. Somebody else can also go ahead and presume that in a company that is in the business of converting human capital into money, diversity of culture can bring new perspectives and ideas that may lead to higher performance. In the absence of proof to the contrary, they'd be taking their own biases for granted as well. In the end, I'm not particularly impressed by the idea that company culture trumps the ability to perform the job in an exemplary fashion. As a long-time manager, I pride myself on getting results from people who have the necessary baseline skills to perform. In my former life as a Director of Development, I can't imagine saying to the President, "Sorry, but the reason we're slipping deadlines is that we can't hire enough qualified people. And thanks for that referral, but although he aced everything technically, he's a basketball player rather than a cyclist or rock climber, and worse, he used a word typical of basketball players. So that's why we're going to lose some money this quarter." I don't play golf, but if you do and you're amazing, you're hired and one day you may be managing me and dropping hints that I ought to hit a few buckets of balls on the range. I'm ok with that :-)
- randallsquared 14y ago
  I don't actually agree with (what I know of the) PayPal hiring decision in this case, but the part I was replying to, and should have quoted initially, is: You're actively discouraging diversity of culture (which is not directly the same thing as diversity of gender/race, but it makes it a lot harder to have the latter). My point is just that it's not at all clear that encouraging uniformity of culture is automatically a terrible, productivity-destroying bias, and that I have worked at places which strongly preferred that candidates "fit into" the organization's culture while at the same time being strongly committed to diversity in gender, race/ethnicity, and so on. These are definitely separable.

anigbrowl 14y ago

'Presumably' = 'I have no evidence'. It's just as likely to increase groupthink, with disastrous consequences.

majormajor 14y ago

Sure, it sounds plausible that it would do that, but then I think about if my hobbies and work code interact at all, and it just hasn't happened. Have you seen it yourself? The software business has its own jargon, and in my experience it's entirely divorced from non-computer-related hobbies.[1] I played a lot of videogames in the past, but I've never used a videogame metaphor in describing a programming problem or requirement to a coworker. I've played and watch a ton of sports, but similarly that's never come up. And none of my coworkers with other interests (for instance, D&D, which I've only played once myself) have ever described stuff in those terms. [1] If someone didn't have as much technical background or interest in the job itself, that's one thing, but when it comes to liking to go hiking vs liking to play board games? Is it really going to make a difference?

raganwald 14y ago

The word "presumably" is the kicker. To "presume" is to "Take for granted in the absence of proof to the contrary." So, if you don't have any proof that barring people who use a word like "hoops" is bad, you take it for granted that it's good. Somebody else can also go ahead and presume that in a company that is in the business of converting human capital into money, diversity of culture can bring new perspectives and ideas that may lead to higher performance. In the absence of proof to the contrary, they'd be taking their own biases for granted as well. In the end, I'm not particularly impressed by the idea that company culture trumps the ability to perform the job in an exemplary fashion. As a long-time manager, I pride myself on getting results from people who have the necessary baseline skills to perform. In my former life as a Director of Development, I can't imagine saying to the President, "Sorry, but the reason we're slipping deadlines is that we can't hire enough qualified people. And thanks for that referral, but although he aced everything technically, he's a basketball player rather than a cyclist or rock climber, and worse, he used a word typical of basketball players. So that's why we're going to lose some money this quarter." I don't play golf, but if you do and you're amazing, you're hired and one day you may be managing me and dropping hints that I ought to hit a few buckets of balls on the range. I'm ok with that :-)

randallsquared 14y ago
I don't actually agree with (what I know of the) PayPal hiring decision in this case, but the part I was replying to, and should have quoted initially, is: You're actively discouraging diversity of culture (which is not directly the same thing as diversity of gender/race, but it makes it a lot harder to have the latter). My point is just that it's not at all clear that encouraging uniformity of culture is automatically a terrible, productivity-destroying bias, and that I have worked at places which strongly preferred that candidates "fit into" the organization's culture while at the same time being strongly committed to diversity in gender, race/ethnicity, and so on. These are definitely separable.