For an Inclusive Culture, Try Working Less

The author contrasts two tech workplaces: one strict and professional, the other hip and social. The first was the most diverse team he had ever been on, while the second looked like the tech industry’s familiar white, young, male culture. From that contrast, he argues that inclusive environments can come from keeping work centered on business, professionalism, boundaries, and reasonable hours.

He says cultures that expect long hours, off-hours socializing, drinking, or constant participation increase the strain on people who are different and make it harder to retain a diverse workforce. At Fog Creek and Trello, he saw a minimum culture where people could show up, care about good software, and leave without career pressure to join every social ritual. He extends that lesson to the idea behind Getting to Yes: constraining what people must agree on can make agreement, and inclusion, more possible.

Reading notes

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• The author reports that his team at J. D. Edwards, although marked by a rigid dress code and not very “cool,” was the most diverse he had ever seen in the technology industry.
• He compares this environment with internet startups and with another “hip” software company, which seemed more aligned with the young and social style, but were much less diverse.
• The central thesis is that a culture focused on work, professionalism, boundaries, and reasonable hours reduces the pressure for everyone to adopt the same social habits.
• For the author, when the company expects long hours or socializing outside working hours, it increases the effort required from those who are different and decreases the ability to retain a diverse workforce.
• He says he saw this at Fog Creek and Trello, where there was a minimum culture, without much hallway conversation, with leaving at 5 p.m. and little pressure to stay after hours.
• In those places, participating in drinking, playing, running, or other social activities was not a requirement for one’s career.
• The author states that diversity had to be actively built at Fog Creek, with effort to widen the hiring funnel and internship programs.
• The conclusion he draws for himself is that, to build inclusion, it is worth reducing the number of things people need to share in order to belong, just as in negotiations where restricting the points of agreement helps reach an agreement.