We still have no phone or internet lines four days after the trees came down, so no streaming services for our favourite shows and no surfing the internet except on the smartphone. I find to very unsatisfying to work on a teeny screen so the most I’ve done is process a photo a day and hotspot to my phone for a bit to upload it and a brief post here. The larger photos are languishing in a folder waiting to be uploaded to Flickr for my 365 project.
On the upside, no endless scrolling and no binge watching shows means I’ve actually picked up and read half a book between last night and this evening. I have a habit of being books and then not finding time to read them.
Turns out that I do actually have the time, we just waste it on things like watching the idiot box or draining our brains surfing the internet when we could be expanding our minds and knowledge by reading.
So what did I finally pick up from the stack of things I “intend to read but haven’t”?
Just Work, by Kim Scott.
It’s very good.
The full title is “Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Build a Kick-ass Culture of Inclusivity”
We―all of us―consistently exclude, underestimate, and underutilize huge numbers of people in the workforce even as we include, overestimate, and promote others, often beyond their level of competence. Not only is this immoral and unjust, it’s bad for business.
The book is written by a woman, and it is certainly filled with her personal experiences, many of them familiar, some of them simply horrifying. But it is not a feminist book, it is not a book about hiring women over men, but there are sections that definitely highlight the biases, prejudice, and bullying that women have experienced to a much greater extent than men have over time. And again, many of those gender-biased insults are familiar.
But it’s also a really good read from the perspective of recognizing bias, prejudice, and bullying behaviours not only in others, but also in ourselves. It also advocates for more of us to stand up and interrupt these behaviours when we witness them being directed against anyone, including ourselves.
A paragraph caught my attention and I put the book down after reading it. I wanted to ponder it for a bit because it is so contrary to the hiring practices, and the mantra, that I’ve been listening to for the past decade.
Part of it reads:
“….a big part of your decision is based on a person’s resume and a skills assessment. Without too much trouble you can strip all information about a person’s gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and so forth out of resumes. Stripping this information minimizes the chances that bias and prejudice are skewing your decisions about whom to interview. And once you’ve decided whom to interview, you can separate out skills assessment and in-person interviewing. In most cases, you can develop ways to test skills without actually meeting the person – again, removing a huge source of bias and prejudice from skills assessment. That leaves the interview, which should test for “culture add” not “culture fit”.
Test for “culture add” not “culture fit”.
The complete opposite of what I’ve listened to people advocate for all these years. I constantly hear “best fit”. There are too many instances of hiring practices that seem designed to maintain the status quo with respect to a lot of characteristics, not the least of which is perspective.
A few years ago I was in a group and there was discussion of hiring new people. One individual stated that he didn’t think that we should hire outside of the program because we could expect an outsider, certainly not one from an academic background, to ever learn the program or fit in. Another individual, above him, parroted the statement in our next meeting.
It was shocking to me. Not in the least because basically they were both describing me, but because “fit” is a terrible expectation. Fitting in is about changing who you are to be accepted in a group. Fitting in is very different from belonging. Belonging gives us a sense of security because we feel known and valued. Trying to fit in, on the other hand, makes us anxious and constantly on edge because we sense that if we slip up, we’re out.
Fitting in is one of the greatest barriers to belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be in order to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.
Brene Brown
“I like you because you think like me” is not a good way to promote growth, instead it just creates a culture of consensus. I’d rather work on a team of people that don’t always have to agree. I am always interested in the dissenting opinion. Dissenting opinions mean a discussion, maybe even a good debate. It means people have to rationalize their opinions and justify their positions. And that, sometimes, means that we change our minds because there are facts and data, information that we haven’t considered, because we are too comfortable in group-think.
Culture-fit means more of the same old same old.
Culture-add.
Bring in new ideas, fresh perspectives, different knowledge.
I like that, a lot.