It’s human nature to feel more comfortable with people who share common traits, habits or values. But there is real danger in surrounding yourself with a bunch of “mini-mes.”
Research shows that “homogeneity” can lead to individuals underestimating the actual complexity of tasks facing a group “because they assume that others’ behavior is more predictable than it actually is,” says Evan Apfelbaum, the W. Maurice Young Career Development Professor of Management and an assistant professor of organization studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Why? Apfelbaum explains that those in homogenous groups tend to believe that because others look like them, they are like them in terms of having similar perspectives, knowledge and behavior.
“This assumption of like-mindedness feels comfortable; it caters to our basic human need for social acceptance and inclusion. But it also creates blind spots in our judgments and behavior,” he says. “We underestimate the potential for seemingly similar others to have substantively different perspectives and ideas, which can lead us to make oversimplified, perhaps even, objectively inaccurate, assessments in these contexts.”
A Harvard University study further underscores the problem of collaborating with those who have similar backgrounds.
Specifically, researchers found that venture capitalists tended (read more here)
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