Bringing external views to a team makes it richer
The Paradox
Over the years we’ve had some paradoxical successes.
Companies often look too much internally. Of course companies prefer to solve their issues internally.
Bringing external people may bring confidentiality issues. Bringing external people may expose teams to things they are not ready to comprehend.
By the same ways people tend to recruit people like themselves. Technology companies often have departments filled in majority with specific categories of the population with regards to age, sex, color, nationality, and beliefs. While this could be clever as to attract and retain these categories this also creates a ground for less creativity and a certain level of conformism.
At the beginning of this article we wrote that we had paradoxical successes: most of our successes were brought by factors that were different. Factors that forced us to rethink our relationship to technology, our products, our market, our customers, ourselves.
Sometimes it is good to hear what others have to teach us. As Albert Einstein said, “the ideals that have lighted my way and, time after time, have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth”.
Be kind and be true.
