Is Diversity Ruining Meritocracy? 👀 (Issue #5)

You’ll always find an excuse to not hire and promote minorities if you’re constantly looking for one.

True story: A friend of the Grinch, a thoughtful fellow, earnestly related to me the other day his concerns about increasing diversity at his workplace. "If you're looking for a heart surgeon, you choose the best one no matter what. If you start hiring for diversity, you could die."

There are so many racist assumptions stuffed into this stupid analogy, it's hard to know where to begin.

1. Let's start with the fact that you're not choosing a surgeon, Steve. You're looking for a systems analyst. No one's going to die here. You're already distorting the picture by pandering to the self-importance of the corporate world. Not to mention that 7+ year process that all doctors go through known as “medical school.” But I digress.

2. Then there's the fact that this (again, very stupid) analogy glosses over a key element: Who and how are we determining merit? Your company’s version of meritocracy is riddled with unexamined fallacies like “culture fit,” “likability,” and being “qualified” based on arbitrary standards. These are all craptastic excuses to keep hiring and promoting the same kind of people. Your companies’ dominant culture, topped with a delicious sprinkling of racism, has skewed your so-called meritocracy.

3. The larger world is broken and segregated AF. At work, leaders might be compelled to mouth words from the equity hymnal, but more likely than not they reside in a segregated community (the norm in America), and don’t think about how much of that homogeneous world they bring to work. Similar-to-Me Bias is real. It’s the inclination to incentivize people with similar interests, skills and backgrounds as yourself. It’s human nature to like people that are like us.

4. But perhaps the most racist thing about this is the assumption that there is a conflict between diversity and merit. That you must sacrifice one to achieve the other. To accept that assumption is to racialize merit. The idea buried in here is that “merit” is the status quo that favors white employees. All the while, minorities are forced to struggle with the reality that they are constantly being evaluated against who they are in that moment, while their white counterparts are not only evaluated for who they are, but who they can be. And even after proving yourself, never forgetting the fact that “they” are “taking a chance on you”.

5. We haven’t even gotten into the phenomenon of “failing up.” But instead of Grinching on about that, I’ll let my close personal friend Stephen A. Smith explain how it’s “beautiful to be a white guy,” as demonstrated by the unsuccessful-coach-to-general-manager pipeline of the Boston Celtics organization:

Only in Boston, right? Yeah, no. White NBA coaches have nothing on corporate CEOs, who are overwhelmingly white. CEO pay has grown almost 1000% since 1978 and is 287x more than what the average worker makes, even when their companies do poorly.

The amount of merit in the workplace is wildly overestimated anyway

Look, the corporate world is not filled with geniuses. Sure, job descriptions call for “rock stars,” and the “everyone is awesome” corporate culture hands out kudos like candy, but work is basically filled with just … like, regular people doing regular stuff at a regular level.

Mediocrity is widespread. It's basically the norm, as suggested by the word itself. And that’s not even bad! Why shouldn't you prioritize your own life, and what makes you happy, over a job that’s never going to love you back? Why should your health, prosperity, and sense of self-worth depend on your ability to create more value for shareholders?

But being average is a privilege. Minorities are evaluated against a rock star criteria to receive an average-level recognition, compensation, and promotion. The wild-eyed social justice warriors at management consulting company McKinsey reported that everywhere we have data that shows a level playing field, white people are still consistently given more opportunities. It doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t go to college, went to an Ivy League, or were previously incarcerated.

There's an expression at a large tech company (I don't want to Microsoft mention any Microsoft names, but it’s Microsoft) about the attitude of veteran employees: “vest and rest.” Meaning you basically chill with your high salary, not trying that hard, and just waiting for all your shares of company stock to vest.

Again, nothing necessarily wrong with this, but no one ever points to stuff like that and says, wow, looks like all these white people chillin’ are the problem. They should though if they’re serious about the life-or-death importance of “merit.” And God forbid a single minority get in on the just-cruise-and-enjoy-life action. I love the hashtag #blackexcellence, but maybe we need to champion #blackmediocrity with that same energy: Black and Brown folks being celebrated and rewarded for just being average.

Just another racist time-waster

As if we needed more evidence that merit is a moving goal post to perpetuate the racist status quo, there was a story recently about the Black valedictorian and Black salutatorian at a Mississippi high school who were forced to share their titles with two white students? (Warning: This story might make your head explode.) The powers that be at some level already know the score. That’s why the CEO of Snowflake apologized for setting diversity and merit against each other.

Toni Morrison taught us all about this years ago:

“The function, the very serious function of racism is a distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

Add “merit” to that list. Grinch out.