Is our desire to classify the enemy of diversity of thought
/This is the first in a series of articles exploring the nexus between our everyday approaches, choices, or way of life and the concept of balance.
We’ve all experienced it. That unheard, unseen cerebral processing that occurs in someone’s head when meeting you for the first time – like a virtual algorithm of sorting and matching.
“Whereabouts do you live?”
“What do you like to do outside of work?”
“Are you a cat or a dog person? I’m a dog person.”
Human beings’ need to classify can be extremely inhibiting when it comes to promoting or enhancing unbiased, diverse thinking, no matter what the context. For instance, have you ever found yourself labelling someone as “a big shot”, “a drama queen” or a new restaurant as “a bit fancy pants”? Think about the last two or three people you have met. How have you stored them in your memory bank? Chances are you have classified them in one or more ways.
At the same time, this classification is often simply considered somebody forming a ‘first impression’. But by calling it this, are we trivialising something altogether more concerning?
For early hunter-gatherers, life was complex with new challenges and pitfalls emerging all the time. To help make sense of their world, humans developed a propensity to sort and classify information. This meant that when faced with a choice of which berries to eat or which clan members to befriend, an individual would make decisions based on stereotypes that had been formed using small pieces of evidence, such as looks and apparent behaviours. As with other primal emotions and thoughts, those found to be the most beneficial would become ingrained and continue to influence human behaviour to this day.
So it’s clear that our desire to classify runs deep. However, how might this work against diversity of thought – where the focus is on realising the full potential of people by embracing each person’s unique perspective and different way of thinking? Is there any better example of the contradiction implied between these two concepts than the expressions ‘putting someone in a box’ and ‘thinking outside the box?’ Let’s explore the box further. What defines it? In the first expression, the box represents a forced categorisation or pigeonholing. In the second, it is a constraint of innovative, diverse or unconventional thinking – essentially thinking differently.
Do we need a box? My view is… we would stand to make a lot of progress in the way we approach many different aspects of our lives, were we to put the box in the recycling – where it belongs!
In summary, while this tendency to classify is easy to dismiss as human nature, it can start to cause problems in the workplace if it tips over into bias or discrimination in workplace practices. One of the last things any organisation needs is its teams comprising replicas of one another, simply because their leaders were influenced (either consciously or not) by their inherent need to classify when recruiting, promoting or managing their teams.
As business professionals, advisors, coaches and mentors it is up to each of us to:
inform our people of how this way of thinking may influence their behaviour;
identify where this may or may not be happening;
indicate this so that lessons can be shared widely; and
implement solutions that work for our businesses
What initiatives do you put in place to help your organisations think outside the box?
bestfit HR offers people and culture services which discover and put into action the best human resources solutions for your business. For an approach to match your needs contact Matt on +64 21 801 164 or email bestfitHRnz@gmail.com