Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Want greater diversity? Try being less fair

Use identical criteria when hiring and you’ll end up recruiting identical people

issue 26 August 2017

In its hasty dismissal of James Damore, Google showed a worrying disregard for one of the most important freedoms within a company — the freedom to ask: ‘What if we’re wrong?’

A business culture that can attract and accommodate people with complementary talents benefits everybody. So even if you don’t believe Damore’s theories (in which case you probably shouldn’t hire any systems geneticists), he’s surely right to speak up if he believes the complex question of diversity has been hijacked by wishful dogma.

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