Diversity Vs. Merit: It’s A No-Brainer
We take Black History Month very seriously where I work. For the second consecutive year, our Black Employee Resource Group (ERG)—called The Collective—is managing content and activities from the bottom up. It’s a far more effective and authentic—and less prescriptive—approach than having leadership deliver it from the top down.
As the head of communications (and, I like to think, a Collective ally), I’m doing all I can with the equally enthusiastic support of my department colleague to support the effort. We are sharing profiles of employees who have joined The Collective since last year. We are promoting a panel discussion featuring Collective members answering race-related questions from employees. We are featuring a “Black History Month Fact of the Day” on our intranet and on our companywide general interest Teams channel. The Collective is preparing an update on its activities and successes over the last year.
Another feature we support is a series of video interviews between Collective members and the company’s senior leadership. The question that begins the conversation is simple: What have you learned, and what has changed since last year’s Black History Month?
All of the answers our leaders have shared have been thoughtful, positive, and sincere. I was struck by one in particular who noted an increased awareness of the value and importance of a diverse team, “the diversity of thought and the diversity of experience,” he said. “Diversity lives in conversation,” he added.
The recognition of Black History Month here is part of a larger DEI effort that was revitalized by the George Floyd murder. (You can read our former CEO’s LinkedIn article explaining how the Floyd murder motivated him to resurface DEI as an important initiative.) According to the leader interview I mentioned above, one outcome of our DEI efforts is that “it’s cool to feel safe about being able to have vigorous debates and share those ideas because you end up with a better answer.”
It’s About Profit, Not Wokeness
The ideas about which he was speaking are those that team members bring to the table based on their diversity and different experience. His belief—that being able to share those perspectives and experiences at the table, in a place where it is psychologically safe for everyone to contribute candidly—is not just a liberal talking point or a “woke” ideology. It’s based on hard data.
In 2015, McKinsey found that organizations whose managers were in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity were 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean. Those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15 percent more likely to achieve those returns. Another analysis by Credit Suisse determined that organizations with at least one female board member produced higher returns on equity and higher net income growth than boards with just men.
According to a Harvard Business Review report, a body of research produced in recent years found that nonhomogenous teams are just plain smarter. “Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance.” The article is chock-full of examples. (One example: Individuals who were part of diverse teams were 58 percent more likely to price stocks correctly, while those in homogenous groups were more prone to pricing errors.)
The Idiocy of Banning DEI
All of this leads me to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Yesterday, news outlets reported that Abbott has banned diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as an employment consideration. Abbott’s chief of staff, Greg Pate, wrote in a memo, “When a state agency adjusts its employment practices based on factors other than merit, it is not following the law.” The Dallas Morning News is among the news outlets that reported the news.
Abbott appears to be in lock-step with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who announced plans to defund DEI initiatives in academic institutions across the state last week, replacing them with ones that favor “merit” and “colorblindness.”
The emphasis on merit as the key (or only) criterion for hiring is deeply misguided. The diversity of team members adds insight and dimension to conversation, ultimately leading to better decisions and (as the data demonstrates) higher profits.
There are other problems with merit since what is considered to be meritorious is highly subjective. In organizations that employ merit-based systems, workplace inequalities continue to flourish. If this were not true, women would earn the same pay as men in the same job with the same qualifications, as would Black employees. Yet, according to well-publicized data, they do not.
The Meritocracy Fallacy
Further, as a Princeton report notes, “The belief that merit rather than luck determines success or failure in the world is demonstrably false. This is not least because merit itself is, in large part, the result of luck.” The report also points to one study that found, “in companies that explicitly held meritocracy as a core value, managers assigned greater rewards to male employees over female employees with identical performance evaluations. This preference disappeared where meritocracy was not explicitly adopted as a value.”
As for colorblindness, it is a form of racism in its own right, denying the lived experiences of others. Those lived experiences are precisely what contribute new dimensions to decision-making processes leading to significantly better outcomes.
Of course, whatever they and their representatives are saying, De Santis and Abbott are not interested in advancing equality by decimating DEI initiatives. They are racists appealing to a growing racist contingent within the Republican Party (often labeled “the base”). How else does one explain Abbott issuing his edict in the middle of Black History Month? Some might call it tone-deaf, but it is clearly intentionally designed to appeal to “the base.”
Self-Destruction in Pursuit of Power
Ultimately, however, their focus on merit and the canard of colorblindness will damage their states and universities because, as the research demonstrates, diverse teams are smarter and produce better results. Meanwhile, companies populated based solely on merit suffer from sameness and underperform.
Abbott and De Santis are more interested in winning elections than they are in the outcomes delivered by their government and academic institutions to their constituents and students.
I’m proud to work where I do, where the value of true diversity is recognized, appreciated, and celebrated. I would be ashamed and embarrassed to be part of an Abbott or De Santis regime. Some people seem to have no problem dragging their stakeholders backward in a cynical effort to obtain and hold onto power, all to the detriment of those they purport to serve.
There is nothing “woke” about assembling teams based on a range of criteria, including diversity. In fact, it’s wholly capitalistic since the outcome is better decisions and a greater return on equity.
The image at the top of this post was created at Midjourney.
02/09/23 | 0 Comments | Diversity Vs. Merit: It’s A No-Brainer