Stop Hiring People Who Think Like You

Leaders say they want new thinking on their teams. Then they hire people who think exactly like they do.

We use phrases that sound harmless. This person is "a good fit." This person "shares our values." But in practice, those phrases often become filters that screen out anyone who might challenge the way things are done. We say we want different perspectives, and then we build shrines to conformity.

We have entered an age of personalization, but organizations still largely operate by the rules of the age of standardization. That tension shows up everywhere, and nowhere more clearly than in how we hire.

Everyone Is a Unique Mix

People are more aware of and proud of their individuality than ever. One person on your team may be an introvert, a morning person, a trained economist and a big-picture thinker who anticipates roadblocks. Someone else with the same credentials and title may excel at meticulously plotting the day-to-day path to a project's success.

Every one of your employees and customers is a unique mix of strengths, expertise and preferences. Corporate strategies were not designed to handle that much variation. They were designed for efficiency, and efficiency requires standardized thinking, standardized action and the silos that come with them.

When A + B No Longer Equals C

Standardization works when actions produce predictable results. If A plus B equals C every time, you can organize your As and Bs and combine them to produce as many Cs as efficiently as possible.

But business outcomes are no longer predictable. Supply chains shift with geopolitical events. Customer expectations change constantly. Predictability itself is no longer predictable.

Plenty of leaders spent their careers perfecting the A plus B equals C equation. Now their organizations need a different skill: hiring people who think differently, and then resisting the temptation to mold their thinking to match their own.

The Experience Trap

Leaders tout their commitment to diversity of thought while continuing to hire only people who demonstrate thoughts that have already been deemed worthy. Have the right credentials, the right skills and say the right things, and you'll get the job. In other words, be like us.

That isn't openness. It is a system designed to make sure people conform, and it values efficiency over innovation.

Experience isn't bad. It matters when you need to fill a short-term gap in a specialized area, or when knowledge directly affects safety. You wouldn't hire a chief of surgery who had never been in an operating room.

But in plenty of cases, an overemphasis on experience is about protecting hierarchy and status. It's born out of fear: if a hire doesn't work out, we can point to the résumé and say they had all the right credentials. It's also lazy, because it requires no thought beyond checking boxes.

The risk grows as the skills themselves change. AI is shifting which skills matter so quickly that yesterday's experience can be a poor predictor of tomorrow's contribution. The capacity to learn, adapt and think independently is often more valuable than a long record of doing the same thing.

Four Questions Before the Offer Letter

• How much does industry-specific experience really matter for this role?
• How much of that experience is time served versus the proven ability to do the work?
• What skills come with that experience that genuinely can't be taught?
• What is my focus on experience blinding me to?

Let me help with that last question. You are probably blind to a person's capacity to contribute. If you only hire people with the same work experience, you aren't opening your organization to new thinking. You're hiring people who already think like you.

Hiring for capability and potential starts before the first interview. Rewrite the job posting around the problems the role will solve, not the years of experience required. Put interviewers on the panel who think differently from the hiring manager, and ask candidates how they would approach a problem your team hasn't solved yet. Define what "fit" means before interviews begin, and challenge whether it is really sameness in disguise. Then, after the hire, protect the new perspective instead of pressuring the person to assimilate.

Individuality Is a Skill to Practice

Working alongside people who think differently is a skill. Like any skill, it has to be learned, developed and practiced. When we practice it at work, we get better at it everywhere else, too.

When people feel they must match a narrow template to be hired or promoted, they lose motivation to develop the talents that make them distinct. It squashes their individuality, and it teaches them to squash the individuality of others. That is the opposite of what organizations need. As I've written before, original thought is not optional.

Stop hiring for conformity. Start hiring for the thinking your organization doesn't have yet. That is how you lead in the age of personalization, and it is at the heart of my method.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.