Culture: uniform in some areas, diverse in others, but always updating
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time:
Summary = 4 min
Details = 5 mins
Summary: I think you can hire for hard skills and cultural attributes… but you should also try to build new cultural attributes in people and constantly update a company’s culture. Done well, I think culture is uniform in some areas, diverse in others, and constantly updating.!
Hard skills Vs Cultural attributes
Almost everyone is aware you can hire for ‘hard skills’. E.g. can Candidate A code? Then the candidate is given a coding task to see how well they can code..
I was aware that people have different cultural attributes, I wasn’t aware of how to hire for cultural attributes for so long.
See below for thoughts on how to do this.
Build vs Buy
Some hard skills you can buy, some cultural attributes you can buy. But others you have to build.
This blog is on ‘culture’ so I’m going to focus on cultural attributes. I normally think of cultural attributes on this continuum:
Pointing the wrong direction ⇔ Neutral ⇔ Pointing the right direction
Reasonable to expect someone to know about an area Vs Not reasonable to expect someone to know about an area
Example: I think it’s reasonable to expect someone to know about: diligence, developing emotional intelligence, building themselves. A more extensive list is below.
Example: I think it’s not reasonable expect someone to know about: Sufficiency > Perfectionism, Learned Help Yourselfness, high level systems thinking.
For areas that are reasonable to expect someone to know about: I want people who are ‘pointing in the right direction’.
For someone pointing in the wrong direction, it is normally hard to turn around. Typically, I don’t mind how strong someone’s hard skills are if they have key cultural attributes that are pointing in the wrong direction.
Diversity as a feature Vs Diversity as a bug
There are areas where I think you want cultural uniformity: eg diligence, hard working, show initiative, growth mindset, build themselves, intellectually flexible, no fuss, interested in the field your business is in (eg education).
But there are other areas where I think you want diversity: what books you read, how you think it’s best to help students, general interests, the areas you have tried to build empathy in.
I think I’m about to contradict myself, haha! I think you want as much diversity in your team for = 1. Diversity in understanding of other humans' experience + 2. Diversity of interests and consuming different viewpoints + 3. Diversity of skills beyond the core skills required.
Details on this below.
Jingle: So we want uniformity in everyone having diversity… Well, we want uniform diversity in the right areas.
Cultural values that update over time - the only constant is change
From Wait But Why:
In 1953 it was mainstream to think smoking was fine. In 2017 it was mainstream to think smoking causes cancer.
Cultural values update over time, company's cultural values should also update over time.
“Try to go to bed a little wiser each day.” Charlie Munger.
In some respects society is constantly building more and more cultural attributes. There used to be only ‘10 commandments’ and now the body of law is so large no one person can know it all!
Learn cultural attributes from others, influence people in a positive sum fashion, and build your own new cultural attributes.
What is one key strategy I have for doing this? Writing these blogs. An example of a cultural attribute I believe I came up with: Sufficiency > Perfectionism
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Details
A list of cultural attributes I currently think people should have for Content at Edrolo and how I think about testing for them
Diligence:
Do they prepare for the interview and think things through properly (hopefully to the point of being a systems thinker)?
What do you know about Edrolo?
Why did you apply for this role?
What questions do you have for me?
Interested in the field your business is in:
E.g. is there an education researcher/author you like and why?
Show initiative:
Have you made any resources for your classes?
What is your favourite resource and why?
What is a resource you’ve made that you don’t like so much? Why? How would you improve it?
Growth mindset: (reasonable for people in education to know about this, not outside IMO)
Are you able to outline how you might think about good feedback vs bad feedback to a student?
What is something you’ve changed about your teaching vs 2 years ago?
Can we talk through something that didn’t go well and why?
Build themselves:
At work:
Is there a new idea you’ve come across in the last 12 months that has changed how you teach?
How do you reflect on your teaching in order to improve?
Non-work:
Are you able to please describe a time you taught yourself a new skill, started a new hobby/found a new interest etc. and how you went about it?
Can you share one of your favourite podcasts/youtube channels/non-fiction books/documentaries etc and explain why you like it?
Describe how you learn most effectively?
Social and emotional skills:
Please talk through one relationship with a student that went well and why?
Can you please talk through one relationship with a student that didn’t go well and why? If you had your time again what would you do differently?
What is something you have learned about relationship building with students in the last year? (I want to time cap it so they need to show recent growth. If someone says nothing in the last year that is a signal).
Intellectual flexibility - pragmatists not idealogues:
Is there something new you’ve found for teaching recently that you like?
Is there something where you changed your mind? What happened and why?
Was there a diversity teaching approaches in your department? Can you explain some of what they were please? (I’m looking for how they articulate differences in either a positive sum or negative sum fashion).
No fuss
What type of people do you like to work with? Why?
What type of people do you not like to work with? Why?
A non-exhaustive list of cultural attributes that I think are reasonable for someone NOT to have before starting at Edrolo in the Content team (i.e. that we try to build in people after starting):
Learned help yourself-ness / Post traumatic growth
Resilience (one rearticulation of this is stress management skills)
Many of the blogs on CloudStreaks are attempting to build skills in myself and others. So have a look through here if you want more ideas.
I think you want as much diversity in your team for = 1. Diversity in understanding of other humans’ experiences + 2. Diversity of interests and consuming different viewpoints + 3. Diversity of skills beyond the core needed skills
1. Diversity in understanding of others
Diverse Teams vs Diverse People is a blog I wrote a while back. I think you want diverse people.
First hand experiences ONLY VS Importing the experience of others VS Building profiles that represent different types of people allowing you to ‘masquerade’ as someone else:
L1: non-diverse human = only has their first hand personal experience to draw upon
L2: diverse human = systematically imports the experience of others (e.g. walks a mile in the shoes of others through reading, speaking, podcasts, documentaries, etc) and thereby broadens their ability to empathise.
L3: ‘L2’ + ability to masquerade as other types of people = builds experience sets into defined profiles one can inhabit = one creates profiles from the imported others experience that she / he can draw upon to see how a type of person would view the world
E.g. create the following teacher profiles:
P1: Traditional vs P2: Hard Worker/Traditional vs P3: Innovator.
This means that if you are making a textbook you ‘pretend’ to be each of the profiles (e.g. if I was an Innovator (P3) how might I view the textbook?)
I find this extraordinarily fun.
One of the best parts is figuring out the areas of similarity and difference between the profiles!
Comment
It’s impossible for one human to know all of the humanities experience… but it’s possible to know more than just your own personal experience.
2. Diversity of interests and consuming different viewpoints
Diverse Reading vs Undiverse Reading AKA Building Knowledge vs Digesting Facts.
Consume information about as many areas as possible.
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.” Bertrand Russle.
Consume many different perspectives from a variety of sources . (e.g. education, politics, economics, philosophy etc.)
3. Diversity of skills beyond the core needed skills
Example: you might need to write well and have quality systems thinking skills for Content at Edrolo, but on top of this it is good if people are into game design, script writing, acting, standup comedy, etc etc.
If you only take away one thing
They say culture eats strategy for breakfast. Well I try to make culture for breakfast 😜
In some respects: Future ability = 1. Cultural attributes today * 2. Effort
Getting cultural attributes right (ie uniform in some areas and diverse in others) and having an ability to influence and upgrade culture I think is key to your personal growth and those around you.