Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration.
Even as the world becomes saturated with seemingly unlimited information, “the benefit that ought to come with having a variety of opinions” writes author Bill Bishop, “is lost to the righteousness that is the special entitlement of homogeneous groups.” The result is divisiveness, polarization, and rancor in our national discourse – First World tribalism – with crowds gathering at the poles of every issue.
If you have rooms that are very homogeneous, that have all had the same life experiences and educational backgrounds, and they're all relatively wealthy, their perspective on the world is going to mirror what they already know. That can be dangerous when we're making systems that will affect so many diverse populations.
Populism is an ideology that separates society into two homogeneous and antagonist groups.
This is one of the best definitions of “populism”.
Unfortunately, oftentimes people hire and give opportunities to people that look like them. They don't realize how much their own internal lives or privilege gets in the way of looking for people outside of the traditional spaces where they always find people.
You have six math Ph.D. Caucasian gentlemen from the Northeast of the country, great. You put one more in the mix, you haven't added much. It's only when you add something different that you really are able to accomplish more.
To the uninitiated, the Hasidim constitute a rather homogeneous sect of orthodox Jewry, but this is far from being true.
If you have an overwhelming majority of one sex over the other, and clearly in our case at the moment - and it has been like this for a long time - it is male over female, you tend to have group thinking. You tend to have common references, combined with competition, combined in this case with testosterone. I'm not suggesting it's a toxic mix, but I'm saying it needs to be tempered and altered and modified and made better by diversity.