[richmarr]

> Cultural fit getting a lot of flack these days for reinforcing unconscious bias is hardly proven fact

Talking about things as a "proven fact" (or not) is not a helpful mental model. It's an impossibly high burden of proof that would mean we never learn anything. All we will ever have is a bundle of findings from studies with finite funding and various shortcomings. Right now we have a fair number of studies that found statistically significant increases in productivity from more diverse teams, and (to my knowledge) none showing the reverse. Perhaps there are some but they weren't published.

Is this a conclusive law of nature? No.

Does it seem probable on balance that the types of situations studied experienced the effects reported? Yes.

It's also not useful to talk generally about "cultural fit" because it's broad enough to be essentially meaningless. Companies that hire for "fit" well do so by unpacking exactly what behaviours they're looking for; entrepreneurialism, directness, risk taking, etc. and finding ways to assess those qualities.

If folks want to hire people they want to drink beer with, that's their choice, but failing to unpack the components of culture fit means that their choice is uninformed and unmeasured.

[hueving]

It would be nice if you could link to some of the key studies in this area. Just because there were a few flawed studies is hardly a reason to take it as actionable information.

Has it even been determined that diversity leads to productivity or is it just that diversity is a result of the same thing the productivity is?

[richmarr]

> Just because there were a few flawed studies is hardly a reason to take it as actionable information.

It's interesting that you (someone apparently unaware of the work in this area) is reducing my "a fair number" as "a few" and tainting them as "flawed" when all I did was to acknowledge "various shortcomings". Were you conscious of trying to minimise the weight of evidence without having actually seen it? I'm not judging you for it, it's normal, I'm just calling it out so that you're aware if you previously weren't.

As for whether or not this is actionable, I'm not aware of anyone acting on the basis of diversity carrying a productivity dividend. As far as I've seen (my company works in this space) it's used as a supporting argument to help justify measures to reduce the effect of unconscious bias (a separate area of study) which carries its own dividend, i.e. better employees.

> Has it even been determined that diversity leads to productivity or is it just that diversity is a result of the same thing the productivity is?

That's right, correlation and causation are not the same.

It's been correlated using real world company data, theorised under social capital models, observed under lab conditions relating to jury decision accuracy, and causally shown at a GDP level using computer models. There may be others. There may be publishing bias. There may be flaws. I've already spent enough time writing this so you can google them yourself. These studies each have various shortcomings, eg. self-reporting, scale, assumptions (in the case of the models) and relate to specific contexts rather than generally... so this is a case of the balance of evidence rather than "proven facts".

[wanderer2323]

Have you noticed how you dodged the request to link the related studies by bringing disproportial attention to the rest of grandparent's post in a condescending manner? I'm not judging you for it, it's normal. Just calling you out.

Also can you link what you consider to be representative studies on the topic?

[richmarr]

You're right, it was a little condescending, I was irritated by the way hueving minimised the evidence without apparently knowing anything about it.

(I'm sorry, hueving, that was immature of me.)

wanderer2323, I used to cite studies but no longer consider it a useful way to discuss topics like this on HN. Too often it descends into methodology theatre and too rarely does it result in useful dialogue.

So, with my apologies, no. I won't link to studies. If you're curious I've shared enough background in other comments for you to get started with your own research.

[sheepmullet]

> Too often it descends into methodology theatre and too rarely does it result in useful dialogue.

That is what happens when you present weak evidence.

I have yet to see any convincing studies despite it being straightforward to test in small repeatable experiments.

It is not hard to get 20 different 5 person teams to perform a complex task for a couple of weeks and see what impacts different types of diversity have.

[richmarr]

[Just to address the other points you raise because I was in a rush last time]

> I have yet to see any convincing studies despite it being straightforward to test in small repeatable experiments.

If these experiments are so "straightforward", and your resistance to these ideas is well-founded, then where are all the experiments demonstrating that there is no such effect?

Alternatively if you believe publishing bias and/or feminist conspiracy are combining to quash all this budding anti-diversity research then why don't you run one yourself and show everyone how it's done?

If you're not up for doing the actual experiment I'm happy to pass your protocol around for some feedback, maybe I could find someone to run the experiment for you. Maybe I can even help with funding.

[richmarr]

> That is what happens when you present weak evidence.

In a perfectly rational world you would be right. That's not where we live though, is it.

[wanderer2323]

>Too often it descends into methodology theatre and too rarely does it result in useful dialogue.

That must be because your studies have glaring methodology defects, like most of the social studies these days. (It's easy to predict the things you'll see: vanishingly small sample sizes, no preregistration, data massaging, etc.)

You however are trying to get other people to update on methodologically bankrupt information and, when asked for proof, are taking the high ground "I won't link to studies, it leads to methodology theater and I'm above that". With my apologies, your opinion that 'diversity leads to improved productivity' is unsubstantiated, likely false and you delude yourself if you think you are right.

[richmarr]

> That must be because your studies have glaring methodology defects...

How delightful it would be to live in such a simple world.

Here's a study for you:

Handley, Browna, Moss-Racusinc, and Smith (2015) found that men are more likely to judge evidence of gender biases as low quality, and that effect is particularly pronounced in STEM fields

[lr4444lr]

There are two separate claims:

1) Ensuring that factors not relevant to job performance like age and gender are not excluded for in hiring or antagonized in workplace hostility under the vague protection of "cultural fit", because skills, knowledge, talent relevant to business success can be found across demographic subgroups. That's supported in studies.

2) Packing a company with people of those non-relevant characteristics with the assumption that diversity itself is the causal instead of the correlative factor. That claim I believe is not supported, and I challenge you to cite evidence for it, or else to qualify the statement "statistically significant increases in productivity from more diverse teams".

[richmarr]

I've addressed this in a bit more detail in other comments, if you need more you're welcome to look into it.

[lr4444lr]

I don't see citations in your other comments, nor sentiments that clarify controlling for factors identified as occupationally non-relevant. If you're advancing the idea (which I deduce from your other comments) that people who are diverse insofar as they have separately relevant attributes which the individuals themselves perceive as incompatible and deleterious, then I have no argument about it, and can admit I don't know anything about the research specifics in that sub-problem of management. But you should explicitly spell out that this is your claim. Furthermore, that's an internal problem, not the problem of rejecting people at the hiring phase for being a bad "cultural fit". For example, if you don't write tests, "move fast and break things", and feel strongly about that, but we have mission critical code and clients who will drop us for competitors if our software is buggy, you're flat out not going to work here. The "diversity" you bring will be objectively bad for the company, barring some proven god-like irreplaceable ability to deliver value on another front.

[rhizome]

If you're advancing the idea (which I deduce from your other comments) that people who are diverse insofar as they have separately relevant attributes which the individuals themselves perceive as incompatible and deleterious, then I have no argument about it...

This looks like an incomplete sentence to me; what is the "it?" "People who are diverse insofar as [condition] which they themselves [see negatively]" defines a certain (sub)set of people, but the idea, assertion, or conclusion that you're agreeing with appears to be missing.

[richmarr]

I have to confess I don't follow a lot of your comment, but I wouldn't describe whether writing tests (or not) as diversity.

[sheepmullet]

> Right now we have a fair number of studies that found statistically significant increases in productivity from more diverse teams

Are there?

Diversity defined how?

Repeatable experiments or statistical analysis of groups of companies?

It could be studied experimentally and so I am sure it has been.

The studies using statistical analysis to compare across companies are always weak and should be taken with a grain of salt.

[richmarr]

> Are there?

Yes.

> Diversity defined how?

Depends on the study. Usually gender or race.

> Repeatable experiments or statistical analysis of groups of companies?

Depends on the study. See my other comments in this thread.

> It could be studied experimentally and so I am sure it has been.

It has been. See the study into racially diverse juries making more accurate judgements.

> The studies using statistical analysis to compare across companies are always weak and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Everything sould be taken with salt because salt is awesome.

[notyourday]

> Right now we have a fair number of studies that found statistically significant increases in productivity from more diverse teams

People (manager/HR/VPs of Diversity/etc) do not understand the implication.

Here's an intellectual exercise:

Would a team of two people - one being a foaming at the mouth antifa and another being card carrying garb wearing KKK dude be very diverse? Certainly. Would this team be productive? Unlikely.

[richmarr]

I'm not sure your hypothetical is as clear cut as you think it is.

> ... be very diverse? Certainly.

Very diverse?

Okay, for the sake of your hypothetical let's assume that this antifa member has a different educational and socio-economic background to the KKK member. Otherwise they're just differ on one axis and may be identical on every other.

Let's also assume that this anti-KKK person isn't Daryl Davis, who has talked around 200 KKK members into hang up their hoods by engaging with and befriending them. He's an unusual case.

> Would this team be productive? Unlikely.

What's the timeframe? Can we assume that these people have rent to pay and need this job?

Social capital models indicate (and experimental evidence supports) that people in diverse teams feel like they've been less productive (despite actually being more productive). Reduced social capital makes people less comfortable collaborating and more willing to disagree, but the flip-side of that is reducing group-think.

Think how little group-think would be evident between these two individuals, they'd disagree on everything. Yes it would be uncomfortable, but they both need the job so there's a limit

But let's go national with this pairing hypothetical. Southern Poverty Law Center estimates KKK as 5-8000 members. Assuming 8000 and that antifa is similar and all are working-age, that means that in a US-sized of 320,000,000, maybe halved to focus on working age adults, you'd be lucky/unlucky to see many (if any) instances of this type of pairing. Even assuming that all 8000 were paired directly against a mortal enemy that still only represents 0.01% of the total pairs. Even if we assume that each organisation has 100x its official membership in sympathisers that's still only 1% of the pairings (and remember we cheated to make sure they were always matched up).

If we can't assume that these people need their job then that narrows these numbers (and hence the probabilities of occurrence) to include people in well-paid positions or with inherited wealth, or who would rather be homeless than work with someone they disagree with politically.