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Why Hiring the 'Best' People Produces the Least Creative Results (qz.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fallacy-of-merit dept.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report written by Scott E. Page, who explains why hiring the "best" people produces the least creative results: The burgeoning of teams -- most academic research is now done in teams, as is most investing and even most songwriting (at least for the good songs) -- tracks the growing complexity of our world. We used to build roads from A to B. Now we construct transportation infrastructure with environmental, social, economic, and political impacts. The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person from fully understanding them. The multidimensional or layered character of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: The idea that the "best person" should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills. That team would more likely than not include mathematicians (though not logicians such as Griffeath). And the mathematicians would likely study dynamical systems and differential equations.

Believers in a meritocracy might grant that teams ought to be diverse but then argue that meritocratic principles should apply within each category. Thus the team should consist of the "best" mathematicians, the "best" oncologists, and the "best" biostatisticians from within the pool. That position suffers from a similar flaw. Even with a knowledge domain, no test or criteria applied to individuals will produce the best team. Each of these domains possesses such depth and breadth, that no test can exist. When building a forest, you do not select the best trees as they tend to make similar classifications. You want diversity. Programmers achieve that diversity by training each tree on different data, a technique known as bagging. They also boost the forest 'cognitively' by training trees on the hardest cases -- those that the current forest gets wrong. This ensures even more diversity and accurate forests.

38 of 333 comments (clear)

  1. The headline is garbage by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The headline is garbage, but there is some truth in the waterfall of words in that summary: we have become a nation of specialists. Not only are we specialists, but the amount to which we've specialized is actually quite stunning.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:The headline is garbage by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The headline is garbage

      Indeed. TFA is pure conjecture. It provides no actual evidence that hiring worse people leads to better or more creative results.

    2. Re:The headline is garbage by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The headline is garbage, but there is some truth in the waterfall of words in that summary: we have become a nation of specialists. Not only are we specialists, but the amount to which we've specialized is actually quite stunning.

      I'm not against the idea that a project might need many different competencies and functions. What I am against is the idea that we'll have better solutions if we put it to a popular vote. Because that's my usual experience with "diverse teams that aren't necessarily very bright", to rephrase the argument. Competent people usually know what they know and don't know. Incompetent people go through life like a bull in a china store, they don't mean to break things but they leave disaster in their wake. I've been through that at work, the only reason my part of the system is working is that I've ignored 90% of the "input". Everything else is so buggy and crappy they're considering a rewrite before 1.0 is delivered. Meritocracy is fine, mediocracy is terrible. YMMV.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:The headline is garbage by msauve · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's all "I don't do well in a meritocracy, so I wrote a paper on why you should still hire me" bullshit. While I agree that past results aren't a guarantee of good future performance, in general, hiring under-performers assures a lack of future performance.

      We've specialized since the hunter/gatherer days. It's worked well so far.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    4. Re:The headline is garbage by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Probably because most of the people clamoring for diversity today don't go much further than skin deep in terms of what they mean by diversity. I think those people are absolutely foolish though, as if what they believed (diversity of skin color or gender being important for its own sake) were true , it would essentially mean that racial and gender groups are inherently different (or else how would the results of hiring these people be any better or worse), which is something those same people try to argue against.

      However, I don't think that this article is making that case at all. The central point seems to be that whatever test you think you have to determine who the best candidates are is likely to be flawed in some way as to produce a monoculture that is likely to be missing something useful in producing better solutions or outcomes regardless of endeavor.

      I think some people are probably getting another wrong impression in that they believe the author is suggesting that companies hire mediocre individuals or something along those lines, but I don't get that impression either. I think it's more along the lines of making sure to hire some people with a different set of skills and tools. This is because if your hiring process filters in some biased manner, you've likely got a team that's missing some skills or tools and the people you do have are not going to magically discover or invent them on their own. Imagine a group full of people with hammers that are trying to pound in a screw when there's a better way that may not be obvious to them because no one ever showed them a screw driver. This isn't because they're not intelligent or only good with hammers, but because there's more to know in this world than anyone could possibly hope to learn in one hundred lifetimes.

    5. Re:The headline is garbage by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is not about not hiring the best people, it is more about hiring people that are smart but perhaps not as experienced with what you want to achieve.

      The best people are well trained, they have been there and done that, the problem with this is that they already have preconceived notions of how to solve a problem. You do not get true innovation unless you have people that have not been there, and have not done that. These are the people that may have a different idea for achieving a solution, and that is where true innovation comes about.

    6. Re:The headline is garbage by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From the headline, I expected conjecture. Then I clicked the article and it struck me as a rant.

      When someone writes an article like this, they should include facts or at least legitimate testable theories. This was more like a one man jam session to listen to his own voice.

      Oh... and what he considered genius with regards to mapping the space between the cars... utter crap. The problem with mathematicians is that they focus on optimization in the worst possible places. If they took a course on algorithms or at least studied graph theory, they would understand that you can model the cars and the space and derive what's not that. In addition, Modelling traffic jams in government sponsored research cannot be done because it requires a great deal of algorithmic data which is highly sensitive. For example, a person driving in direction X in a vehicle of type Y at time Z will close gaps between vehicles(50% chance), block people from merging ahead towards the bottleneck (75% chance), play music rich in bass loud enough to rattle nearby cars (90%). The result of this is that the neighboring cars will behave more aggressively. Seniors will be disturbed but submissive. Middle aged white men who drive larger or sportier vehicles will become extremely aggressive. Etc...

      I've been writing traffic modelling software for decades because I find it entertaining and relaxing. I would then occasionally move a few traffic cones in the morning and traffic would flow nicely both ways... until someone realized the cone shouldn't be there. The #1 factor I considered at all times was how does the behavior of one type of person impact the behavior of those around them. So, I'd place cones in places that would force people to do the right thing as opposed to permitting and therefore encouraging opportunism.

    7. Re:The headline is garbage by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 2

      I'm making a living by automating the mediocre... associate and professional level IT engineers. I'm also doing everything I can to eliminate the associate/professional level IT engineers who think that just because they're in a purchasing position, they're actually expert level.

      Then I'm going to work really hard on eliminating as many jobs as possible for people who are experts in one area and think that makes them understand their job. For example, I shot down a major network design recently after 4 CCIEs were working on it. They are brilliant network engineers. But they have no clue how software defined networking has been implemented in VMware, OpenStack, Hyper-V, etc... they did some studying a few years ago and they never bothered following the other vendors progress. So they were using Cisco's solution (ACI) which basically doesn't work for 90% of the customers who buy it. I then re-engineered the customer's network as a simple layer-3 network with switches with big buffers. Save the customer millions. They actually didn't have to buy anything and were able to remove equipment from their network and save money there too.

      So, I have a big fat budget at a big fat multinational and my one and only job is... reduce the need for incompetent people.

    8. Re:The headline is garbage by lucm · · Score: 2

      But they have no clue how software defined networking has been implemented in VMware

      No surprise there, VMWare engineers themselves aren't too sure.

      Also by using the words "software defined" without getting paid for it, you identified yourself as a phony.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    9. Re:The headline is garbage by nasch · · Score: 2

      I think those people are absolutely foolish though, as if what they believed (diversity of skin color or gender being important for its own sake) were true

      Some people believe that, but I think (hope) the more prevalent view is that since our society treats people of difference genders and skin colors differently, those people will have different experiences. Thus gender and race become a proxy for more underlying types of diversity. If everyone were truly treated alike regardless of sex, race, or sexual orientation, those would no longer be useful proxies for real diversity, but sadly we're a long way from that.

  2. But where are the diversity success stories? by DoctorBonzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, we all want diversity, don't we?

    But it seems evidence in favor is lacking.

    Shouldn't there be numerous success stories, even anecdotal, if it's really all that favorable?

    1. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by Pseudonym · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Good design is mostly invisible. You won't find success stories. What you'll find is failure stories where a non-diverse team failed to notice something blindingly obvious.

      Things like trackballs that are less useful if you're left-handed, or voice recognition systems which can't handle various accents, or the JSF helmet that would kill most women if they tried to eject while wearing it.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
    2. Re: But where are the diversity success stories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe differences in skin color and sex organs doesn't really provide diversity, but rather a crowd of groupthink morons.

    3. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by Z80a · · Score: 2

      You want diversity of point of views and skills, not "that" diversity.

    4. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

      What you'll find is failure stories where a non-diverse team failed to notice something blindingly obvious.

      Been watching CSPAN again, I see. :-)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    5. Re: But where are the diversity success stories? by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, all those dirt-poor kids growing up in Appalachia don't realize how privileged they have it compared to an oppressed person like Jaden Smith.

      Thanks for setting me straight on how effortless the world is with a white privilege card. I'm so woke now.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    6. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by quantaman · · Score: 2

      Well, we all want diversity, don't we?

      But it seems evidence in favor is lacking.

          Shouldn't there be numerous success stories, even anecdotal, if it's really all that favorable?

      For the successes it's going to mostly show up because you have a wider range of technical aptitudes, perspectives, and problem solving techniques.

      But even if you have an example of a gay black woman coming up with a really original idea you can't really attribute the idea to the race or sexuality. It's just something that particular person did. So I'm not even sure what a success story would actually look like other than cultural industries like Hollywood where the personal background is the part of the person's professional expertise.

      But I do know what failures from a lack of diversity look like, because there's a lot of them. You aren't able to properly supply your customers if you don't understand your customers, and if you don't match the gender and backgrounds of your customers you can end up with some glaring blind spots. The medical field has had the same issue with more dire consequences, and psychology suffers from the relative homogeneity of lab ra^H^H^H^H undergrads.

      You also get problems with office culture, the more homogeneous you are the less pushback you get when you say something sexist or racist and you can end up developing a real dysfunctional internal culture. I can think of instances where particular lines of male thinking were starting to go off the rails and female co-workers were able to push back and prevent a screwup.

      The Uber office is one great example of this. It was disproportionately male and was infamous for generating scandal after scandal as a result of their corporate culture. I suspect they would have avoided some needless scandals if they were a bit more diverse.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    7. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by russotto · · Score: 2

      voice recognition systems which can't handle various accents

      Has not a damned thing in the world to do with the diversity of the team (which, I assure you, in any of the major companies doing speech recognition contains people with all sorts of accents). Has to do with it being a hard problem.

    8. Re: But where are the diversity success stories? by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 2

      I've worked with Ph.D.s for much of the last 25 years... racism doesn't tend to exist... sexism... at the parties it happens... the women can be pigs at times... Ph.D. chicks get really grabby after a few :) Ok... maybe I'm exaggerating.

      Here's the thing though. It's about strength and confidence. If you're top of your field... or you're an expert on something... no not the "I'm the computer guy at BestBuy and have a shirt" ... then people respect you. Hell.. if you're competent, people will respect you. It simply doesn't matter.

      The only think I would really recommend if you don't want to experience discrimination in scientific communities. Showers with soap... this is important. We all smell like shit to each other. Using soap often makes it more tolerable.

    9. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by dryeo · · Score: 2

      Diversity in skills, not accents. Think of how many scientific studies could have benefited from including a statistician.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    10. Re: But where are the diversity success stories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Real diversity in the scientific fields is of course in viewpoint and areas of expertise. Legitimate, real.

      Of skin color and gonads? Rubbish for the most part but valid in some areas and in other fields like entertainment or markwting.

      Diversity is the lie of our lifetimes. We're all equal but diversity is desirable? Absurd idea on its face.

    11. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by loufoque · · Score: 2

      People already naturally hire for diversity in skills, because that's actually useful.
      It all depends on what the business needs are, what skills we already have on the team, etc.

      Diversity in sexual orientation, race and all that shit is useless.

    12. Re:But where are the diversity success stories? by apoc.famine · · Score: 2

      I disagree on both counts.

      Plenty of companies don't hire for diversity in skills. HR copy-pastes the same stupid requirements into every job requirement, and artificially limits applicants to those that sort-of have those skills. I've known a lot of people really angry that they struggled to get good employees because of HR's stupidity in this regard.

      Diversity in sexual orientation, race and all that shit is useless only if your customer base consists of straight, white males. If you are trying to appeal to anyone else, it is really helpful to have people on staff who can actually weigh in on whether or not what you're doing is appealing to their demographic, or often more importantly, if it's very insulting.

      I'm not saying that we should have diversity quotas, but if an organization's makeup is very different than it's customer base, there's a very good chance that they aren't going to understand their customers well enough to be successful against any sort of competition that does.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
  3. What a diverse team means to me by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Me doing all the work, and a bunch of other people sitting on their asses.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:What a diverse team means to me by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Me doing all the work, and a bunch of other people sitting on their asses.

      Hey, if it saves me from eventually having to redo all their crappy work, I'm all for it.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    2. Re:What a diverse team means to me by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Every time I hear a professor, boss, etc. start talking "team assignment," I know its just a polite way of having the strong students/employees carry the weak ones. Instead of some people getting A's and some getting F's, everyone gets a C. Kurt Vonnegut would be proud.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:What a diverse team means to me by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Every time I hear a professor, boss, etc. start talking "team assignment," I know its just a polite way of having the strong students/employees carry the weak ones. Instead of some people getting A's and some getting F's, everyone gets a C. Kurt Vonnegut would be proud.

      Anecdotal, but I will note that the team project in my systems programming class (in 1985) to write a linking loader was made easier by the fact that I knew C very well and the retired Navy guy, who wasn't as strong a programmer, could do octal and hex math in his head. (We both got A's.)

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    4. Re:What a diverse team means to me by banjonz · · Score: 2

      Yeah - I've worked with people who think like that - we usually call them control freaks because they think they're the only one able to understand or do anything.

    5. Re:What a diverse team means to me by elrous0 · · Score: 2

      On one of the last teams I was on, half the team didn't even bother to show up for the team meetings. And many of the people who did show up refused to take any roles that required actual work. So if it makes me a control freak to be frustrated by that, then guilty as charged, I guess. Believe me, I would LOVE to be on a team where I could take a backseat and trust everyone else to even *try* to do the job. I'm the last person who wants to take the lead on anything, believe me. But it ends up being a choice of either doing it myself or the team failing completely. Shit, I would even be fine with the team failing completely, if it weren't for the fact that I would be blamed for it too. But no one is going to accept "Hey, I did *my* part" as an excuse when the team falls on its ass.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    6. Re:What a diverse team means to me by sfcat · · Score: 2

      So this always happens to you, for no other reason than everyone else around you are slackers?

      Nothing to do with you as a person at all, right..

      People like you destroy teams. There's no teamwork with assholes like you.

      Just as a counterpoint, on every successful product team I've ever seen, there was at least one person who carried the most weight and was the core of the team. Hell, Weblogic 6.0 was shit because ONE engineer quit after 5.0 was released and the team of 200 other engineers couldn't compensate (or more likely that one engineer kept the bad ideas at bay and without them they crept into the product). Apple fell to shit without Jobs. There are many other examples in software. So perhaps Linus's way is superior to your populist view of engineering. Just a thought....

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
  4. Because "the best people" do NOT change paradigms by shanen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Real innovation involves changing paradigms, and every definition of "best people" is based on the mastery of those people based on existing paradigms. There is only a partial exemption for people who become famous for creating new paradigms to solve important problems, but they were NOT recognized as "best" until AFTERWARDS. More often, they spend most of their lives fighting against the old paradigms. (Any better sources than The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn? It's a classic, but old.)

    Anecdotal evidence, but I spent many years supporting a highly prestigious research lab, and I didn't see much that I would regard as real innovation. Mostly a stream of minor refinements hammered into patents with the support of skilled lawyers and even though most of them should have failed on the obviousness test. I do NOT think it was a cultural thing, though I should acknowledge (and disclaim?) that the lab I supported was located in a country with a reputation for copying and improving rather than innovating...

    Trivial example of a useful innovation that no one has apparently thought of yet: Why isn't there any Android app to turn off the sound for a period of time or on a regular schedule? At least I haven't been able to find one. I already know the answer as regards that research lab: Not likely to generate a patent.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  5. Re:Because "the best people" do NOT change paradig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    https://play.google.com/store/...

    You are welcome

  6. architecture and design approach by digitect · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The architecture profession has never emphasized grades, realizing that creative design is hardly measurable. There are a lot of successful practitioners with hardly notable academic backgrounds. Who cares if they got good grades if they can produce a great building? It is a stark contrast to the helicopter parent types that force their kids through heavy science and math curriculum, while totally omitting relaxed, creative, and intuition growing explorations that aren't as easily measured.

    I'm glad to hear Amazon eschews MBA types, but I'd like to hear of other business grasping the value of a design approach. We've mistakenly use the word "success" for business that make a lot of money, but I see it defined by the usefulness of solutions, individual growth of their employees, long term (>25 years) contributions to their communities, strong consumer reputation, safety and durability of their products, and a noble reputation across several continents. It's a scam that a phone becomes unusable after three years. Is that how we define a successful company?!

    Fortunately, the US is still hanging on to a culture that encourages scrappy, non-linear entrepreneurship. I'm frustrated by universities that value grades above creativity, and the current trend where our youth have to compete on such shallow metrics. (Against youth raised by helicopter parents from other cultures with no other purpose than to have the highest GPA.) Fortunately, these are short term problems and creativity triumphs in the long view. It always will. And that's the original American way. But I wonder why so many businesses grow out of this skill to their ultimate decline?

    --
    There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
  7. Bullshit ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... is not the same as wild honey.

    This piece is a whole lotta words that convey precisely nothing more than horse shit in a garage.

    Some teams work and some don't.

    Mostly, it's character that builds good teams.

    Members can drive other members.

    Like a hit song, team performance is impossible to predict.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  8. Super Chicken TED Talk by rokii · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Reminds me of the super chicken ted talk... Very interesting talk about why you don't want a group of "Best" people...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  9. Gluing by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    The best teams use different skill-sets and viewpoints to compliment each other. Dare I use that word? "Synergy".

    However, selecting and coordinating a well-tuned staff like that is not easy. Good managers are rare. They have to know the corporate kiss-up game, but also relate to and understand technical people and their work.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  10. Still depends on meritocracy by poity · · Score: 2

    So they want people from different fields. I imagine they still want the best of different fields.

    --
    your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
  11. What a load of crap!!! by AftanGustur · · Score: 2
    " We used to build roads from A to B. Now we construct transportation infrastructure with environmental, social, economic, and political impacts. "

    Even the ancient Romans understood the social, economic, and political impact of the roads they built all over Europe.
    We have always understood those things and as time goes forward so have we. Law professors study social impacts of passing new laws and how you can and can't change society by laws.

    I get the feeling that the author isn't very well educated and then just had a epiphany he thought nobody had thought of before him.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc