Hi, Leigh:)

Excellent observation about an ongoing issue for managers and organizations.  We do indeed gravitate to those who are like us, due to both comfort-seeking and a very basic human desire to connect, which is easiest when the person resembles me:)

This is so subtle sometimes that we are not even aware of it.  Your advice to examine the discomfort over those who are not like us is essential to understanding this and changing that internal bias.

As we continue to explore the relationship between intuition (gut instinct) and formal learning, the idea of internal bias is central.  A person may say of a hiring decision "I can't put my finger on it, but I just like candidate A better", which can be indicative of an positive bias of some kind or just a prejudice in favor of certain types of folks.

Intuition can be powerful, but not without the kind of introspection beforehand that you advise, so we are sure that our intuition is taking all into account, and not just our personal preferences.

Thanks so much for responding:)

John