Last week, I shared an article and some of my own experiences around “culture fit” being a code for discrimination. We all know that is all too common, and an excuse for organizations to continue to hire “people like us”.
I saw another article over the weekend that reminded us that while that is common, there are some cases where someone is a bad cultural fit and there’s no discrimination involved.
Recently, Microsoft released a preview feature, making meeting notes collaborative using MS Loop. As part of the M365 newsletter subscription I offered a deep dive into the eDiscovery implications of the tool and how it works, but there was more I wanted to say about the functionality of it outside of that. Hence, I’m writing a blog post about how I looked at these notes as a trainer and leader as opposed to how I looked at them as an eDiscovery professional.
There’s no simple answer here but I would look at how you define culture. There should be an organizational culture that includes diversity. Think more about “we value a variety of experiences and viewpoints” as opposed to “we like to work in a locker room environment” and then find the diverse group of people who “fit” your culture.
I will agree with Kevin on this though, “culture fit” is too frequently just code for people like me, and that needs to go away.
The idea that I would leave college knowing what I wanted to do, find a company to dedicate myself to, and spend my adulthood doing that thing is a joke to me. It’s been an unrealistic expectation for a long time. GenZ is just the first generation where we stopped even trying to convince them of it because it’s become too obvious.
There is something to this. How many times has someone fallen victim to phishing or drive-by downloads and wondered why the IT department didn’t build better protection? (I’ve seen it!)
The parallels to current events are not hard to see.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – George Santayana
To some in this world today, that quote isn’t a warning, but a playbook.