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Comment by Earw0rm | Hacker News Reader

All employment processes discriminate, the question is for and against what traits, and to the exclusion of what else?

"Culture fit" is pretty much trading off communication efficiency and high trust against diversity of thought.

You don't have to set so many guidelines as people already know how to behave, and what's expected of one another, but you're more vulnerable to groupthink and related cognitive biases.

"We're every shade of the rainbow on this ship, but even our Klingon thinks Klingons are evil."

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> "Culture fit" is pretty much trading off communication efficiency and high trust against diversity of thought.

I think I understand now: if the structure of your company is strictly top down, then you will have to value "communication efficiency" and "high trust" criteria higher than "diversity of thought".

However, you might not be able to pivot efficiently, if your core assumptions are disproved. That's the situation where you might need "diversity of thought" - and the ability to incorporate different kinds of feedback.

Though I don't quite think that you will find this insight in this frigging book.

I'd say it's the opposite. Diversity of thought is what requires a top-down structure to force everyone to eventually go down the same path despite believing it's not the right path.

If require everyone to just organically align based on whatever argument is made that the group sees as the best then, congratulations, you have a mono-culture around that. That's not how most people act or react.

It can go either way. A top-down company can be interested or disinterested in culture. Some would argue that for a company to affect disinterest is an active and consequential choice. Consider the "bring your whole self to work" touchy-feely open-plan Valley startup vs a trad IBM-style cube farm. The latter is arguably more accommodating of genuine oddballs, for "good fences make good neighbours" kind of reasons.

As regards pivoting, think about it like a joint having freedom of movement on more than one axis. You want to keep flexibility in as many as possible, but also straight-line speed/strength/efficiency. Somewhere there's going to be a trade-off. A genuinely diverse team (I don't mean just "ticking all the DEI boxes", but profound differences in background and life experience) takes longer to find their groove than a bunch from similar social backgrounds, but they'll have insights that a "TV sitcom cast"-looking team never will.

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