Basis for Selection

Years ago, I saw this sentence at the bottom of an employment ad:

We discriminate solely on the basis of merit.

I've always liked that line. It encapsulates what the employment process should be all about and yet I wonder if any employer can honestly say it. This is in no way meant to excuse the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" old boy (and old girl) selections that you see in many firms, but is merit always the key factor?

Consider this scenario: There are two top candidates for a position. One is a person you know; an employee who is not a brilliant performer but who is far above average, dependable, and well-liked. The other is an outsider who outscores the internal candidate on all objective criteria. The outsider seems nice enough and the references say nice things.

Barring some crisis that may favor selecting new blood, which one do you select?

My guess is that in most cases you'd pick the internal candidate. Is your pick based on merit or is it because:

• You want a known commodity;


• The outsider poses some risk;


• There is little danger of criticism if you select the internal candidate; and/or


• You can cite upward mobility as an added benefit?

Perhaps rather than claiming selections are based on merit, we should state that "The criterion for all selections is the good of the organization."

That may be vague but at least it is far more honest.

Quota Games

Writing in City Journal, Heather MacDonald examines the efforts by university quota advocates to elude equal opportunity:

In1996, Californians voted to ban race and gender preferences in government and education. Ten years later, the chancellor of the state-funded University of California at Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, announced a new Vice Chancellorship for Equity and Inclusion, charged with making Berkeley more “inclusive” and “less hostile” to “underrepresented minority . . . groups.” This move is just the latest expression of the University of California’s unrelenting resistance to the 1996 voter initiative, in every way possible short of patent violation. Stasi apparatchiks disappeared more meekly after the Soviet Empire’s collapse than California’s race commissars have retreated after voters tried to oust their preference regime.

The last decade in California shows the power, and the limitations, of the crusade for a colorblind America led by Ward Connerly, architect of the 1996 anti-preference initiative. Without a doubt, Proposition 209, as that measure is called, has cut the use of race quotas in the Golden State’s government. But it has also exposed the contempt of the elites, above all in education, for the popular will. “Diversity”—meaning socially engineered racial proportionality—is now the only official ideology of the education behemoth, and California shows what happens when that ideology comes into conflict with the law.

When Prop. 209 passed, a few politicians, such as San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, loudly vowed to disobey it. Most public officials, though, were more circumspect. Doubtless they counted on a highly publicized lawsuit, filed the day after the election, to eviscerate the new constitutional amendment before it affected their operations. A coalition of ethnic advocacy groups and big labor, represented gratis by some of the state’s top law firms, had sued to block the amendment from taking effect. The plaintiffs argued, remarkably, that requiring government to treat everyone equally violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Read the rest here.

HR SWAT Team

Some employee problems pose special challenges. Consider this scenario:

The only black employee on a seven person team believes that he is being ostracized by other team members because of his race. He alleges that the team manager is prejudiced and gives him undesirable assignments. The team manager and most of the other team members claim race has nothing to do with their behavior and that they refrain from associating with the employee because he is taping or writing down accounts of their conversations. The black employee says he is simply documenting what has been done. His allegations are supported by one other employee, but that person was disciplined a few months ago and may be seeking revenge against the team manager. A few of the comments by the black employee indicate that he may be emotionally disturbed.

What do you do?

Assuming the employee's discrimination complaint is investigated by Human Resources and a finding is made, will the likely result address the problem? In many cases, regardless of which side wins, the answer is no. The underlying issues have not been addressed. A cauldron of personnel problems has been left on a fire.

One reason is that management's solution has approached only a portion of the problem. The legal issue of illegal discrimination has been tackled but the team problems, the caliber of leadership, and the possible psychological problems have not been resolved.

One solution is an HR SWAT team - composed of an employment attorney, a management consultant, an HR representative, and a psychologist - that is charged with the task of preparing a comprehensive solution. Aside from the expanded expertise, this group has the ability to produce a solution far more quickly than the traditional approach that would involve these professionals at different points and in separate meetings.

Organizations that prefer the separate approach are losing time and expertise. Ultimately, they may lose the chance to solve the real problem.

Personal Appearance Discrimination

If you think personal appearance doesn't play that big of a role in your career, think again.* An excerpt from Fortify Your Oasis:

There was an interesting study in the late 90s which examined these unconscious discriminatory processes. When shown candidates who were apparently indistinguishable in terms of qualifications, experience and track record, 94% of hirers chose the candidate with no facial hair and 96% of them chose the less heavy candidate - even if that candidate was overweight him- or herself. We're back to the tall CEO issue here; for some reason we still select people for important roles who 'look' healthy.

Read the rest here.

[An option, of course, is to go into management consulting. We're expected to look eccentric.]