Many workplaces hire, reward and promote on culture fit. But that can come with real costs to individuals and organizations. In this episode, Adam dives into the evidence on why overemphasizing fit can overlook promising people — and shows how organizations can fight conformity and support self-expression. Guests include Ellevest founder Sallie Krawcheck, IDEO innovators Jim Yurchenco and Diego Rodriguez, and organizational behavior expert Patricia Hewlin.Available transcripts for WorkLife can be found at go.ted.com/WLtranscripts
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Thanks to Jira for sponsoring this episode.
There are very few people who looked like me and very few that I could really speak to in terms of my career development, who I could relate to with respect to being a black woman.
This is Patricia Heughlen.
When she first started her career, she was working in the corporate world, and she often felt like a misfit.
This was in the 1990s, and so being a black woman in an environment where most of my colleagues were up and coming white guys, I often did not know exactly how to fit in.
Growing up, she was warned to be careful about expressing herself.
My grandparents who lived in the south, they would always say, look, you do your work, you keep your head down, that no one is trying to hear about your personal life and experiences.
I felt that I needed to look more like my colleagues in terms of how I spoke and the types of things we talked about.
I couldn't change my color, so she.
Focused on doing what she could to fit in.
So I didn't talk a lot about my personal experiences, and I learned more about sports, just having conversations about what happened in the recent basketball game, being able to talk about who won that night.
She wasn't a big sports fan.
She wasn't talking about what actually interested her.
And she even changed her appearance, even with my hair.
I wear my hair naturally now.
I have locks, very long locks.
But back then, I straightened my hair, and a lot of it has to do with just the old way of thinking, is to be like your boss, look like your boss.
And that was really the message that has carried on.
In many ways, all of this felt inauthentic.