I’ve noticed something about myself that makes me uncomfortable: I’m naturally drawn to people who are like me. When I’m hiring, my instinct is to bring on team members who share my perspective, my values, my way of thinking. It feels good. We all get along, we’re inspired by the same things, and there’s minimal friction. Everyone generally does what I say without too much debate. The meetings are pleasant, the conversations flow easily, and I rarely feel challenged.
The problem? This is the exact opposite of what I should be doing.
I learned this lesson the hard way. What I actually need are people who are NOT like me. People who fill the gaps I cannot fill. People who think differently, approach problems from angles I’d never consider, and care deeply about things that barely register on my radar. They’re good at things I’m terrible at, and they get excited about aspects of the business that I find tedious or confusing.
I remember one time my grandfather made a funny comment to me while we were talking to a group of hired laborers who were digging a long trench for a new underground irrigation system. He looked at me and said, “If you want a trench dug, at some point you need to hire people who don’t mind digging trenches.”
That simple observation rings in my head whenever I’m hiring salespeople, marketing people, product developers, user interface designers, and all the other required roles. Sometimes we get cross-eyed at a person because they see the world from their perspective, yet that is precisely why we hired them, because they see the world through the lens of what makes them excited.
The Diversity You Actually Need
You really need project management, so don’t get upset with your project manager for requiring everyone to spend time estimating work effort. That’s what they do. That’s what they care about. That’s why you hired them.
You need marketing, so don’t get mad at your marketing person for thinking that click-through rate is the only thing that matters in life. To them, it kind of does. That’s their world, their expertise, their contribution.
If you hire a sales person, don’t get upset when they ignore your best friend’s cousin and choose to focus on a client that will actually pay them. Sales people like to make money, the same way a person who digs trenches likes to get dirty. That’s not a character flaw, it’s their nature, and it’s exactly what you need them to be good at.
The Cost of Comfort
The reality is that a thriving, successful organization needs living water, not a stale and stagnating pond. When you surround yourself with people who think exactly like you, you create an echo chamber. Your blind spots become organizational blind spots. Your weaknesses become systemic weaknesses. Your biases go unchallenged and multiply.
Diversity isn’t just a label you tack onto your website so that millennials will work for you. It’s a mentality about creating a living flow of new people, new ideas, new capabilities, and new perspectives. The only way to gain real diversity is by bringing a constant flow of people into the business who genuinely see things differently than you do.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Here’s what I’ve discovered: the people who make me most uncomfortable are often the ones I need most. The designer who pushes back on my “brilliant” ideas. The engineer who explains why my timeline is unrealistic. The accountant who questions my spending priorities. The operations person who cares about processes I find boring.
These people don’t make me feel good in the moment. They challenge me. They slow me down. They force me to explain myself and justify my thinking. But that friction? That’s not a bug. It’s a feature.
When you hear a different perspective, you don’t need to adjust your view or even change your behavior immediately. You are only obligated to listen and to understand. Armed with more information, you can then deliberately choose to modify your own perspective. Sometimes the answer is a resounding “yes” to doing things your way. But frequently, if we’re honest, the answer will be “no.” And that honesty can be freeing.
The Expertise You Don’t Have
I used to arrogantly believe that I could do a better job than anyone else, so I tended to trust only myself. This led to countless wasted hours and a great deal of trial and error at my own expense. I’ve learned that cutting to the chase early and admitting that I am not the total expert is wiser.
Having an opinion doesn’t equate to having expertise. Expertise comes only from experience. The field of marketing continually evolves with new strategies and technologies. The same is true for design, engineering, sales, operations, and every other function in your business. You can’t be the expert in everything, and pretending you are only weakens your organization.
Building the Right Team
So how do you actually do this? How do you overcome your natural inclination to hire people who make you comfortable?
First, recognize the instinct for what it is. You’re not a bad person for wanting to work with people you like. There’s a natural drive for similarity that makes us feel safe. But survival and success require something different. This requires adaptability, disease resistance, and enhanced potential that only comes from diversity of traits and perspectives.
Second, get specific about what you’re actually bad at. Not what you don’t enjoy—what you’re genuinely not good at. Those are the gaps you need to fill. If you’re a visionary who struggles with execution, you need someone who loves the details. If you’re a relationship builder who hates conflict, you need someone who can have the hard conversations.
Third, when you interview candidates, pay attention to the moments when you feel uncomfortable. That discomfort might be a red flag, or it might be exactly what you need. Ask yourself: Is this person challenging me because they’re difficult, or because they see something I don’t?
The Long-Term Payoff
Moving people out who don’t fit is hard, but keeping someone who doesn’t fit costs the team energy, trust, and speed. Both hiring the right people and moving out the wrong ones are required, but the second is where many leaders fall short.
The goal isn’t to create a team of people who all think alike. The goal is to create a team where everyone brings something different to the table, where the whole is genuinely greater than the sum of its parts. Where your weaknesses are covered by someone else’s strengths. Where your blind spots are illuminated by someone else’s perspective.
If you want a trench dug, you need to hire people who don’t mind digging trenches. And if you want to build something great, you need to hire people who see the world differently than you do. It won’t always be comfortable. But comfort isn’t the goal. Growth is.
