Adam Grant Module 4: Risks of Cultural Fit on Diversity

Module 4 Highlights:

“The systematic mistake that we see a lot of leaders make is they end up overrepresenting on cultural fit.”

Ideally, employees share your core values — three to five non-negotiable principles. Beyond that, if companies over-index on fit, risks include:

• Becoming too homogenous
• Weeding out diversity of thought
• Becoming vulnerable to disruption, or worse — obsolescence

Questions to hiring, recognizing and promoting people:

• What’s missing from our culture?
• How is this person going to enrich it?
• Don’t just ask, “Is this person going to clone what’s already working in our existing culture?”

Module 4 discussion questions:

1. We’ve often heard, “Hire for culture, train for skill.” If that is your belief and practice, how have you over-indexed on that concept?
2. When have you benefitted from someone who was not a cultural fit?
3. Describe a time when a lack of cultural fit was detrimental to your business.
4. How have you addressed bias in your organization to expand the diversity of thinking and enable re-thinking?

Note: This video content has expired. 

Related Resources

Adam Grant brings insights to Vistage for a member-exclusive event

Discussion guide for Vistage Chairs (Members can request a copy from their Chairs) 

52 views

Share