Boardroom Biases: Do as Apple says, not as they do.
Future of the Boardroom Report - Our 2022 Boardroom Biases Survey results are out. For the most part it’s good news, but boardrooms are still favouring cognitive clones. Read our take on the findings and download the full report below.
Author: Aisling Blackmore
FDI Head of Strategic Projects
There’s an old Apple ad from the 90’s. You might remember it.
In it, a heartfelt voiceover lauds ‘the crazy ones’ – the artists, the engineers, the athletes, the entertainers, the activists – who have shaped the world we live in. Its message? Think different.
It’s a good message. The trouble is, nearly 30 years since this ad was released, directors and recruiting committees are still bringing undifferent thinkers into the boardroom.
The assumption that those who think like the existing directors are the best fit for that board is entrenched. Deeply. That’s the starkest finding from FDI’s 2022 Boardroom Biases survey.
It’s not all bad news. Our survey also found that the authority bias, which sees the board defer to the ‘leader’, most senior, or majority, is down. Age biases are down. Tone policing, down. Explicit race and gender assumptions are down, but covert ones do linger, as does a bias toward those who are well-presented. Overconfidence is down, as the big C word (COVID) and all its associated uncertainty has rattled our bravado and let open inquiry simmer.
But our tendency to favour cognitive clones? The same as always.
Orgs are hearing the world on diversity. Different races, genders, ages and abilities are planting their buttocks in a greater number of boardroom seats. That’s a good thing. But it’s yet to sink in beyond the body. It’s yet to get to the brain level.
Take our friends, Apple.
They’ve got a diverse board of directors. James A Bell from Boeing, Former Vice President Al Gore, Andrea Jung from Grameen America, Monica Lozano of the College Futures Foundation. And more.
If you looked at those names and resumes, you’d expect a contest of diverse ideas in the boardroom. I’m sure there is. But dig deeper and you’ll find – they’re all aged between 61-74, all born in or lived most of their lives in North America, and are all educated in elite North American business schools and universities. Their lived experiences are markedly similar. They all ate the same breakfast cereals. Watched the same TV shows. Attended lectures in the same halls. Their brains were all wired in similar vats.
Which means the board of the company that told us to ‘think different’, all think quite alike.
There’s an acronym that describes a phenomenon in social science studies: Most of the participants are WEIRD. That is, Western, Educated, and from Industrialised, Rich, Democratic countries. And that’s weird. That’s not representative of the entire scope of lived experience or human thought. What’s the point of diversity in the boardroom if everyone in the boardroom is WEIRD?
True diversity is brain deep.
Brain diversity in the boardroom allows for business problems to be grappled with in four dimensions. For different cultural concepts to spy a hidden underside of an issue. For different political sensitivities to describe one thing in two ways. For different childhoods at different times to relay the concerns of different generations.
Brain diversity is uncomfortable. But that’s the point. It gets us out of staid ways of thinking, and make decisions we wouldn’t have come to separately.
So widen your circle. Practice respectful convos with people unlike you. Recruit for cognitive dissidence. Embrace cognitive rebellion.
Now that’s a truly ‘crazy’ idea.
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