📝 usncan Note: How To Get Better Results By Committing To The Less Well Known
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Young professionals meeting at job fair
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Most organizations stick to the tried-and-true when they don’t see obvious downsides. It can be especially difficult to shift longstanding internal processes like recruitment and hiring. But at best, those old processes only replicate the results you’ve had in the past and can even lead to diminishing returns.
In recent conversations, Stephanie Chung, author of Ally Leadership: How to Lead People Who Are Not Like You, and Shari Dunn, author of Qualified: How Competence Checking and Race Collide at Work, each make the case for reorienting your organization’s processes to attract talent that you’re currently overlooking. Taken together, their strategies provide a framework for fostering more effective practices for talent management and improving business outcomes.
Ensure Access To Missing Talent
Leaders often complain that they can’t find the talent they need. But the talent pipeline itself may not be the problem. Chung notes that recruiters and hiring teams often return to traditional sources rather than investigating less familiar networks or associations where new candidates can be found.
Dunn agrees. “The pipeline is not empty,” she says. “It is broken. It is blocked.” As causes, she spotlights class bias—a preference for candidates from higher socioeconomic backgrounds—and prestige bias—an assumption of competence based on elite academic or professional affiliations. Candidates without these advantages “may have to show more skills and knowledge” to be considered at all.
When job postings or screening tests use “words that are really applicable to very upper-class people,” says Dunn, “then that’s still going to X-out a good number of people” who may self-censor and not even apply. To mitigate these blocks, consider a formal audit of hiring practices, either internally or by a trained third party, to eliminate ineffective assumptions and expand the hiring pool.
Provide Equivalency In Interviewing
Both Dunn and Chung emphasize the importance of applying the same standards and courtesy to every candidate. Chung encourages diversifying interviewing teams to gain different perspectives on the candidates. Dunn contrasts the informality of referral-based hiring with the stricter scrutiny of what she calls “front-door hiring,” in which unknown candidates must navigate the hiring process without the support of an internal sponsor, sometimes known as “backdoor hiring.”
For instance, says Dunn, “The majority of Black folks, other people of color and women come through the front door” and often face “competency checking” in which they are “required to prove their knowledge, skill and competency at what data tells us is a higher, harder standard and bar.” These candidates are asked to demonstrate or justify their skills and experience rather than having their resumes taken at face value. She suggests reducing organizational reliance on referrals and giving all candidates consistently rigorous and respectful screening.
Elevate Performance Over Familiarity
Chung sees diversity as a business imperative. “You’re more likely to do it better, bigger, faster, from a competitive perspective, when you have a team that does not think alike, act alike and have the same experiences,” she explains. But unfamiliarity can trigger unconscious, unintentional resistance: “The brain is designed to keep us safe, so if it feels like something is a threat—and a threat, for the brain, could just be unfamiliar.” Chung says you can override this sense of threat by feeding, the brain new information, “It’s okay to realize that you have a bias, and don’t beat yourself up over it.” She suggests starting with simple exposures to varied cultural experiences, like visiting new neighborhoods and trying new foods.
But improved hiring is insufficient on its own. To foster fairness, Dunn recommends reviewing how expectations are set and appraisals are conducted. For example, she notes, Black P&L leaders are often “given more complex projects, projects with a higher chance of failure,” and women may be asked to lead initiatives that are unlikely to succeed. She also recommends looking internally for “lateral up-hiring.” Perhaps you need a new vice president and don’t have satisfactory candidates; try seeking an experienced senior director in an adjacent space who could be prepped for promotion.
Build Teams That Solve Problems
Leaders can help employees communicate across their differences, says Dunn, by asking questions like: “This is how I see it—how do you see it?” and “Is there something I’m missing from this discussion, this interaction, this process?” Then leaders should listen deeply to the answers. She also recommends that leaders intentionally and explicitly “use more words to be more transparent. You have to be clearer in what you’re asking, why you’re asking, and you have to confirm receipt of that information. You can’t assume receipt happened, just because someone is looking at you, smiling.”
Chung says that diversity itself boosts performance: “Diverse teams simply outperform traditional teams, period,” and that diverse teams are “twenty-five percent more likely to outperform less diverse teams according to McKinsey” research. But simply assembling diverse teams isn’t enough; leaders must ensure that team members feel safe sharing opinions and challenging assumptions. If cultural assessments or 360-degree reviews suggest otherwise, Chung recommends revising promotion criteria explicitly to reward healthy collaboration and candid communication.
C-suites function best, notes Chung, when everyone feels comfortable working through conflict and disagreement. Leaders must be willing to say, “This doesn’t work—let’s try this again,” and then facilitate others through the discussion.
Be A Leader Who Gets Everyone’s Best
“Leading today’s modern workforce, you’re going to lead someone who’s not like you,” Chung says bluntly. “So you better figure out how to do it right.” Leaders can’t afford one-size-fits-all approaches when they face generational differences, varying physical abilities and neurodiversity, and a wide array of racial, cultural and gender identities. “If you’re not supporting all kinds of people for career growth, you bottleneck your own results,” and constrain your opportunities for career trajectory and compensation.
And don’t depend on assumed similarities among your team members, says Dunn. To engender more effective conversation and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, ask questions like “How do you best learn?” and “How do you best take feedback?”
Chung advises leaders to stay curious: “I have to just be a student and to realize that my way is one way—it’s not the only way. I’ve got to ask, listen, learn and then take action.” It’s vital to lead with neutrality rather than trying to sell or “win” something, says Chung. She recommends that leaders state explicitly that they’re trying to take everyone into account.
When employees feel they’re seen, heard and treated fairly, they contribute more, unleashing organizational potential and generating better results. Intentionally choosing the unfamiliar can lead to more effective teams and better, more sustainable performance.
