Article Title: Why hiring the ‘best’ people produces the least creative results

Article Summary

This article discusses that organisations need people with insight and knowledge about the aspect of work they are dealing with rather than only the ones who have high grades. The author starts with his logic course professor David Griffin who he met again at a conference at traffic modes. There his professor gave a wonderful suggestion to make the task simpler than what suggested by the speakers.

Then further the author discusses the 3 characteristics of the professor Griffin incident. Firstly those problems are complex; they contain contexts that are difficult to explain. Secondly great ideas born from insight and not magic. Process occurs gradually. Thirdly these Ideas are birthed in a team, through various ideas and inputs. The complexity of modern problems often precludes any one person to understand them fully

The author gives us examples that it takes diversity to lead not simply high scores according to some performance criteria. 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. The author emphasis that optimum hiring depends on contest and such teams are bound to be diverse.

The author concludes that the fallacy of meritocracy persists. Corporations, non-profits, governments, universities and even preschools test, score and hire the ‘best’. This all but guarantees not creating the best team. Ranking people by common criteria produces homogeneity. And when biases creep in, it results in people who look like those making the decisions.