When conducting executive searches, we invariably are asked to make sure candidates understand the “organization’s culture.” Theoretically, their “culture” represents the organization’s values, beliefs and guiding principles for employees to embrace. (As an aside, I’m always fascinated by how organizations somehow take on a human life although they are really inanimate objects. Oh well…) Furthermore, in screening qualified candidates we are expected to assess whether or not a candidate will fit into the “organizational culture.” Sounds simple enough to do, right? No! This could be made easy if the client themselves had clearly defined what they mean by “organizational culture” and “organizational fit.” Unfortunately, we have not found this to be the case.
Why is this so? To begin with, both organizational culture and organizational fit are nebulous terms often subjective and open to interpretation. SHRM, in an article entitled “Understanding and Developing Organization Culture”, asserts that an organization’s culture is simply based on values and behaviors derived from basic assumptions about such things as:
· Human nature – Are people inherently good or bad, proactive or reactive?
· An organization’s relationship to its environment – How does it define and serve its stakeholders?
· Appropriate emotions – What emotions should employees be encouraged to express, and which should be suppressed?
· Effectiveness – How do you measure if the organization and its individual components are doing well?
Absent a clear definition, terms used to describe an organization’s culture are things like aggressive, team oriented, customer-focused, ethical and trustworthy, merit based, equal opportunity, innovative, forward thinking, hierarchical, bureaucratic, process-oriented, outcome based, risk-taking, fun, and family-friendly. Terms like these are taken as definitions for organizational culture and often used as criteria for who gets selected and promoted; the way employees interact; how customers are served; how knowledge is gained and shared; how information is disseminated; productivity metrics; receptiveness to change; and acceptance of workforce diversity. Edgar Schein (1992), T.E. Deal and A.A. Kennedy (2000) and J.P. Kotter (1992) have found that although an organization may believe they have defined a unique culture, only to learn there often are co-existing and conflicting organizational sub-cultures. These sub-cultures may stem from differences in management styles, organization structures, accepted past practices and traditions, position in the hierarchy, work locations, work schedules, personal values and biases, life experiences, educational levels, and socio-economic backgrounds. Clashes between an organizational culture and its sub-culture can create challenges for an organization in communicating and maintaining a consistent message about organizational vision, values, mission, goals, objectives, and even strategic initiatives.
Over the years, I have cautioned clients to be careful about placing too much emphasis and weight on organizational culture and organizational fit when selecting employees. Instead, I have recommended the selection process focus on a candidate’s knowledge, skills, breath of experience, past performance and accomplishments, the potential for growth, and desired values and behaviors. Regardless, I have found that an inordinate amount of time is spent focusing on the meaning of fit. When queried about the meaning of fit, the conversation quickly turns to a discussion of personal characteristics and personality rather than values and behavior. When there is uncertainty about fit, organizational psychologists are retained to administer psychological assessments like Myers Briggs, Disc Behavior Inventory, and Occupational Interest Inventories. These are tools used by clients to help determine if a person’s personality and behavior are compatible with others in the organization. They are merely for consideration and discussion and not for final determination of a person’s qualification for a position. Clients do seriously consider the results when making decisions about fit. In researching organizational fit, like organizational culture, we have found there is no single accepted definition of organizational fit. It is often used as a “catch-all” term for hiring authorities to justify their decision. Organizations need to be careful about making blank statements like “they’re just not the right fit.”
In an open blog entitled by Courtney Seiter, she cautions that culture fit can unknowingly be an exclusive term (interpreted by me meant to keep people out) and, perhaps a way to discriminate. Katherine Klein, professor at the Wharton School of Management remarks that “It is an incredibly vague term, and a vague term often based on gut instinct.” She goes on to point out that although organizations will argue that cultural fit is a good criterion for hiring someone, it is more often used to not hire someone. The potential downside of using this criterion is the risk of an organization creating a culture in which everyone is similar; or in other words a homogenous workforce. In my opinion, this can result in a boring work environment; stifle innovation; discourage healthy discourse; slow down progress; and, over time and consistent with the second law of thermodynamics, a closed system will create entropy that will result in a lack of order or predictability; gradually decline into disorder; and ultimately be the demise of the organization.
Recently, there have been many articles published in professional journals about the pros and cons of hiring Millennials, and the challenges organizations face in managing and integrating them into organizations. For me this is déjà vu. It reminds me of how my generation was viewed in the 60’s. Of course, the consensus was we were too liberal to work for well-established organizations but good enough to serve in Viet Nam. Millennials have become the largest, most diverse generation in U.S. history. If what is written about Millennials is true, they are not interested in being part of a “cookie cutter team.” For them, this is making organizations perceived as homogeneous a less desirable place to work. This perception may result in an organization missing out on talent at a time when we need a workforce with new, innovative, and progressive ways to deal with a multitude of economic, environmental, educational, technological, ecological, and epidemic perils.
Throughout my early professional career, I was sensitive to, but accepting of, the lack of diversity in top management. I could see that top management in organizations was predominately white males with similar views, backgrounds, interests, predispositions, and ambitions. The two exceptions were in human resources management (personnel) and customer service/relations. These two professional disciplines permitted women to rise through management ranks until they crashed into the glass ceiling. Never did I hear a manager express concerns about unequal treatment of minorities and women. In fact, males made jokes about this. I remember being told by a regional manager of a major insurance company that “here there’s the right way of doing things; the wrong way of doing things; and our way of doing things. If you want to last, you will do things our way.” As the only minority in the management training program at the time, it didn’t take long for me to figure out I better do things “their way.” As Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor cite in “The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English” 2nd ed. (2015) it was all about FIFO (“Fit in or Fuck Off”).
In one major, highly diverse city I found that its Police Department’s executive management team was made up of white males, at least 6’2” tall, wore dark suits and button-down shirts, had short hair, and were in great physical shape. If lucky, a minority male police officer could promote to Captain and a female police officer might promote to Sergeant before retiring. The Fire Department was not much different. What is important to note is that the organizations I am citing touted the importance of organizational fit in their hiring and promotions. They were completely unaware that their paternalistic, “cooking cutter” culture was perpetuating disparities in hiring, promotions, compensation and other terms of employment. FIFO was a widely accepted mantra. Over time, these practices became fodder for allegations of discrimination resulting in anti-discrimination laws and affirmative action programs.
A Northwestern University survey of hiring managers found that the decision makers tended to hire people who were the most like them and who had similar personalities, backgrounds and interests. Essentially, they were hiring their “best friend” rather than the best person for the job. In “Hiring for Cultural Fit?” (2017) Shannon Gauspohl states “if you’re so concerned and wrapped up in what type of person you are looking for to fit your organization, you may be losing out… Many companies miss out on an amazing candidate by hiring to many employees that are just like them.” In my opinion, isn’t it better to have an open system that focuses on valid job related competencies that better align the organization with its vision, mission, goals and objectives.
Fortunately, we are learning that a healthy workplace needs to be made up of individuals with different perspectives and approaches to problem solving and the delivery of services to our diverse communities and stakeholders. The challenge for policy makers is to ensure their organizations reflect the wonderful diversity of their communities and stakeholders. Executives and managers should take advantage of this opportunity to provide leadership and model the behavior necessary to guide a multi-generation workforce made up of different ages, genders, gender preferences, ethnicities, ages, religions, educations, and cultural backgrounds. This is the kind of leadership that will build trust, hope, cooperation, coordination, collaboration and optimism needed to overcome this daunting pandemic.