Business needs weirdos and wild cards, too
We need some true wild cards… super-talented weirdos.” That was the verdict of new Number Ten brain-in-chief, and occasional chief of staff, Dominic Cummings last week on who he wished to hire to transform the British state.
His argument – in a blog that is best described as forthright – is that there are some profound problems at the heart of the way the Civil Service makes decisions, largely because of its people and the structures around them.
In particular his frustration seems to be that there is not enough “genuine cognitive diversity” in Whitehall – with public school bluffers, as he put it, packing out a variety of positions and keeping out those who might be able to offer something a little different and, by extension, be more open to radical ideas.
“If you want to figure out what Putin might do… you don’t want more Oxbridge English graduates,” he rather indelicately added. And while he accepts that diversity is an issue, he complains that in Westminster those who talk about it mean “gender identity diversity blah blah.”
Cummings, for all his unnecessary braggadocio and rather blunt turn of phrase, is undoubtedly right that some elements of the Civil Service have become on the one hand a box-ticking exercise for diversity, in very limited terms, and on the other a sort of decades-long safety net where middle-to-senior-ranking people can shuffle from post to post.
It is not the fault of the individuals, necessarily, but more what is around them; an environment concerned with management and process, rather than one looking to take risks and thrive.
What has this got to do with business? A new report from Heidrick & Struggles reveals that 93 per cent of Britain’s chief executive officers (CEOs) are men, and signs of that falling remain frustratingly absent.
Cummings, of course, would think this is an entirely pointless statistic, but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Of the cream of the corporate crop, almost a third have MBAs; about half of them have been CEOs elsewhere beforehand.
As those CEOs look round their offices, they may wish to consider some of what Cummings has said. Diversity is not an end in itself. But having different views, different opinions, different upbringings and different outlooks on life is undoubtedly a benefit.
It appears Number Ten is hellbent on blowing up Whitehall, but the private sector can certainly look at less radical steps to achieve the holy grail of cognitive – and gender – diversity.
Main image: Getty