Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home IT Management
    • IT Management

    Overcoming Monoculture: Keeping Ideas Alive

    By
    eWEEK EDITORS
    -
    April 13, 2005
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      All human organizations tend to be self-amplifying —Angus Eighth Law

      As I explained in the first part of this deconstruction of orderly-seeming groups, the natural tendency of any organization to become ever more like what it already is a silent killer of effectiveness. Managers with a certain mindset hire and promote people with the same mindset, sending the message to those who think differently that theyre not welcome; over time the decision-making process becomes entirely homogeneous and the organization loses any ability to change or adapt to new conditions.

      Its a gravitational field, not a piece of predestination, so with a conscious approach, you can overcome the trend. Its easier in a healthy workplace, but even the most politically-stained large organization can apply some tools.

      Cracking the Self-Amplification That Weakens

      Because the longer the self-amplification cycle lasts, the more ingrained it becomes. This argues for attacking it as early as possible.

      If the organization is reasonably healthy, “diversity” hiring has powerful side-effects that tend to disrupt the worst aspects of self-amplification. Diversity hiring too frequently is a checkmark item, and in most workplaces, managers go through checkmark tasks in neutral and do a half-axed job of them.

      A woman in an all-male shop, a man in an all-woman department, an African-American in an all-“white”(cq quotes) bastion has the probability of bringing in a different cluster of life experiences or ways of seeing, and solving, challenges.

      People tend to want to hire someone more like themselves or their existing successes, and this natural tendency can undermine the value of the diversity hires. Unless both H.R. and the hiring leads are determined to hire someone who is truly adding to diversity, they are likely to choose the woman whose operant behaviors most closely resemble their existing talent pools individuals, and feel the diversity candidates who are least like the incumbents are “too different”.

      This can destroy the value. Tell H.R. not to vet the apparently qualified candidates of those who seem “too different” so you can at least meet them. Force them to send you a certain number of wild cards, people who have some qualifications or promise, but who are not optimal; thisll give you a chance to look for something you dont normally get or already have in your group. The Lotus division of IBM has always been excellent at getting momentum out of its ability to see virtue and not cost in the hiring a diverse cornucopia of talented people.

      One does have to be careful not to over-do the difference. A friend of mine had a client who experimented with turning over diversity hiring to a small committee of ambitious minority employees. That committee brought in a group of hires, all from one ethnic group, all of whose outlooks and qualifications were very similar, though very very different from the rest of the rigidly-monocultural company. The result was a division into two antithetical groups of people, with no one who bridged the gap and few tools to ease the differences. This client foolishly believed “diversity” hiring was to blame, where it was actually the companys implementation and inability to smooth the flow of new blood into the system that caused the failure.

      Most organizations are not healthy enough to do good diversity hiring (if they were really healthy, they wouldnt need to have a special program for it).

      Costly, But It Works

      Sun Microsystems ex-CTO Eric Schmidt once described a costly, consciously-chaotic approach Sun used to reboot the company cognates in an effort to overcome the self-amplification effect. Sun would decentralize their product development and marketing out to business units and then shift it back into a centralized group every 18 months or so.

      This works, but its expensive in overhead and work lost to the moves and staff shifts. The good thing is that if good staff know the situation is pre-determined, that they only have X months to make something happen, theyll devastate their gluteii to get projects defined at out before they turn into pumpkins. On the other hand, bad staff will sandbag, believing it wont matter because theyre going to move on shortly, anyway.

      This brute force approach is one way to cope with a giant organizations centripetal collapse, but it is so wasteful, I dont recommend it for most shops.

      Exogeny: A Lesson from Anthropology

      A practice Ive been able to instill in a few places is deliberate exogeny. Tribal cultures problem with excessive inbreeding (more of a problem in this case of limited ideas than traits inherited through genetic diseases), quite parallel to that in workplaces, is one survivors learned to adapt to by the practice of forcing people to marry outside the tribe or village. Mandated marriage outside the group is somewhat artificial, but its effective and lower overhead than Suns brute-force approach.

      In a workplace setting, exogeny is something you could carry out in a number of ways. The way Ive seen it succeed is through having mid-range performers who have been around a while shift to a job in a different department for a project or a pre-determined amount of time. These sabbaticals yield results in immediate problem-solving abilities for the receiving group and if the migrant worker is open to the experience, she can pick up extra skills, too.

      The hidden side-benefit is that both groups get an infusion of “otherness.” It will work especially well if both managers make it clear that part of the mission is to be open to the differences and for all concerned to learn new ways of doing things. If they dont make it clear, the migrant will just do his best to conform to the new home instead of having all concerned trying for synthesizing strengths.

      I like this technique best when the originating and receiving groups are ones that share work tasks or process hand-offs. The derived knowledge can, as a side-product smooth connections in the way the groups work together and help each empathize with the consequences of their own decisions on other, partner, departments.

      None of these tools make the gravity field go away. Each is an option that in the right context can help you resist going cherry pie time when gravity is trying to pull you into the black hole of monocultural groupthink.

      eWEEK EDITORS
      eWeek editors publish top thought leaders and leading experts in emerging technology across a wide variety of Enterprise B2B sectors. Our focus is providing actionable information for today’s technology decision makers.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×