You might know the parabel of the three blind men and the elephant, right? If not, I suggest you read it here on Wiki. But if you are an HR reading this, you can use the parable in a fun way to talk HR! If you are an HR, I would suggest you take the opposite stance. Because most people know the parable. Its obvious.
Hence, you can make it interesting by saying,
“This is where we HR would like to differ. We the HR care talent. Please have a look at the image below. In that image, a wise HR sees three talents. If an HR wanted the ‘truth’ as such, then we will feed the three blindmen’s observation to an AI. Now AI can do a better job and tell us that it is an elephant. Because by nature, humans think to not think. Hence humans created the AI!
Or we HR will use our common sense and interviewing skills to know the ‘truth’. To the guy who says it is a rope, the HR will ask, “What can you smell?”. To the guy saying it is a snake, the HR will ask, “What can you hear?”. And to the guy saying it’s a wall, “What else can you feel?”. Then use the observations to know ‘truth’. Or again, feed the additional info to AI and get at ‘truth’ faster.
For us HR, people with diverse perspectives or people with different personal experiences are a benefit. It saves our organization from death by monoculture. Because humans got designed to act as teams. In the savannas, a group with better skill diversity or neurodiversity had better chances of survival. Diverse groups will always have a wacko in them. Wackos often wander off. They are the first to warn about an approaching enemy, first to take the bullet, or first to discover greener pastures.
And our markets today are like the savannas. Less diversity, less an organization’s chances of survival. Hence, some of us in HR prefer to hire in batches, as teams, rather than as individuals. Ultimately, individuals have to work as a team, and the skill or performance dynamics of a group is different from those of the individual. The gestalt changes. So thus to conclude, we can say: Our own experience is neutral to the whole truth, because we, the HR, see talent, and truth follows!“
Things in theory are different than what practice presents. Be it theory or practice, nothing is set in stone. So look for divergent perspectives; look through divergent perspectives.
Truth is truth. Your experience is your experience. Enjoy both; use both.
– Dr. Foo.
Image credits: Image © Sketchplanations. Used for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. Thanks to Sketchplanations for this beautiful sketch explanation! But I must admit, I can’t unsee the snaker guy’s other hand after I saw it! The interplay between truth and experience is fun 😉