Talking To Your Employees About Meritocracy Can Backfire — Here's Why
I once went to a diversity event organized by a progressive Austin tech company. The panel represented all case study categories of diversity: a stylish African American man, a young and hip white woman, an overweight Hispanic man with a geeky T-Shirt, a queer African American woman and a single-mom with blue hair (the company’s open-minded recruiter).
The panelists talked about their experiences in technology, barriers and successes and the recruiter talked about how her company created a more inclusive corporate culture and ensured that its hiring processes were bias-free. As the session was wrapping up, the company’s CEO (middle-aged white man) made his final remarks. He reinforced the company’s commitment to diversity and suddenly added: “but don’t worry, of course what is most important to us is meritocracy.” In this one statement he wiped out the credibility of the entire panel. I could see the panelists’ happy faces going through all stages of shock, sadness and anger.
The CEO was trying to say the “right thing” but ended up outing his own bias that diversity implies a tradeoff with meritocracy. It was an arrogant statement based on the assumption the dominant group members are somehow more qualified on average then people of other backgrounds. It also reminded me of a mini scandal that ensued in Silicon Valley when Michael Moritz, partner in one of the most prominent venture capital firms, Sequoia, tried to blame the lack of women in venture capital on a pipeline problem and assert that "we’ll hire women, we just don’t want to lower our standards." (read more here).
On my recent visit to Brazil, I met with several companies from industrial sectors and heard similar statements. They all reinforced their leaderships’ focus on meritocracy and credited shortage of women to fact that they preferred to hire engineers and very few women majored in engineering. Having met so many talented Brazilian women and having experienced Brazilian corporate culture firsthand, something was simply not adding up for me.
The Paradox of Meritocracy
Emilio J. Castilla, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Stephan Bernard from Indiana University conducted a series of experiments in corporate and academic settings and consistently found that “When a company’s core values emphasized meritocratic values, those in managerial positions awarded a larger monetary reward to the male employee than to an equally performing female employee.” Minorities and women had to work harder to obtain the same rewards. They termed this "the paradox of meritocracy."
This is counter-intuitive but actually makes sense because “When people think they are objective and unbiased then they don’t monitor and scrutinize their own behavior. They just assume that they are right and that their assessments are accurate. [..] Organizations that emphasize meritocratic ideals serve to reinforce an employee’s belief that they are impartial, which creates the exact conditions under which implicit and explicit biases are unleashed.”
Meritocracy as whole is a great concept that should drive productivity. However, when merit is not defined by clear and objective criteria but instead open to individual interpretations and preferences, this approach can easily backfire and serve as corporate-speak for avoiding change. In a world where the majority of university students are now female, it’s very hard to believe that the only thing that keeps them all away from key industries and key jobs is lack of merit. This is a huge missed opportunity for these companies.
Where to go from here?
Be wary of meritocracy assertions and make sure to question the assumptions behind them. Here are some of the questions that I can think of when I hear about meritocracy and engineering major requirements:
The CEO was trying to say the “right thing” but ended up outing his own bias that diversity implies a tradeoff with meritocracy. It was an arrogant statement based on the assumption the dominant group members are somehow more qualified on average then people of other backgrounds. It also reminded me of a mini scandal that ensued in Silicon Valley when Michael Moritz, partner in one of the most prominent venture capital firms, Sequoia, tried to blame the lack of women in venture capital on a pipeline problem and assert that "we’ll hire women, we just don’t want to lower our standards." (read more here).
On my recent visit to Brazil, I met with several companies from industrial sectors and heard similar statements. They all reinforced their leaderships’ focus on meritocracy and credited shortage of women to fact that they preferred to hire engineers and very few women majored in engineering. Having met so many talented Brazilian women and having experienced Brazilian corporate culture firsthand, something was simply not adding up for me.
The Paradox of Meritocracy
Emilio J. Castilla, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Stephan Bernard from Indiana University conducted a series of experiments in corporate and academic settings and consistently found that “When a company’s core values emphasized meritocratic values, those in managerial positions awarded a larger monetary reward to the male employee than to an equally performing female employee.” Minorities and women had to work harder to obtain the same rewards. They termed this "the paradox of meritocracy."
This is counter-intuitive but actually makes sense because “When people think they are objective and unbiased then they don’t monitor and scrutinize their own behavior. They just assume that they are right and that their assessments are accurate. [..] Organizations that emphasize meritocratic ideals serve to reinforce an employee’s belief that they are impartial, which creates the exact conditions under which implicit and explicit biases are unleashed.”
Meritocracy as whole is a great concept that should drive productivity. However, when merit is not defined by clear and objective criteria but instead open to individual interpretations and preferences, this approach can easily backfire and serve as corporate-speak for avoiding change. In a world where the majority of university students are now female, it’s very hard to believe that the only thing that keeps them all away from key industries and key jobs is lack of merit. This is a huge missed opportunity for these companies.
Where to go from here?
Be wary of meritocracy assertions and make sure to question the assumptions behind them. Here are some of the questions that I can think of when I hear about meritocracy and engineering major requirements:
- How does intake of engineers correspond to gender profile at universities (about 20% of engineering majors are women)?
- What percentage of leaders in the organization are actually engineers?
- Do all the roles really require engineering degrees and / or could individuals be trained to perform them anyways? (I probably learned 99% of my work skills at the workplace and not at university).
- Are there challenges because of the homogeneity of the group? (ex: underdeveloped managerial skills, groupthink, difficulty to innovate, unhealthy social pressures like bullying)
- Are all the smart and talented individuals in the country concentrated among the very small engineering-majors cohort? (I know the answer to this one: No.)
- How does women’s participation in the leadership pipeline look like in other, less technical but still critical, functions?
Answering these questions will help you question your biases and allow you to discover opportunities to do better.
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Miriam Grobman Consulting works with organizations that want to advance more talented women into leadership roles by breaking cultural barriers and giving them the right skills to be successful. Their approach is data-driven, global and collaborative. Contact them here if you’d like to discuss the right strategy for your organization. You can follow them on Facebook page, Leadership and Women for inspiring stories about women leaders and practical career advice. Learn more at www.miriamgrobman.com and sign up for their newsletter.
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