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The higher up you go the more you need connectiond and informal relationships to progress.what I have seen so far in corporate america tells me a lot of people(

The higher up you go the more you need connectiond and informal relationships to progress.what I have seen so far in corporate america tells me a lot of people(especially older ones) still make friends based on ethnicity and gender. Of course I am only stating my subjective perception. They should audit application of meritocracy and use apparent lack of diversity only as a potential symptom not as the illness that needs curing (unless promotions shouldn't happen based on merit?). Like, "who applied for this internal position and who had the best objective merit?"

watwut 8y ago
First, you would need to be able to define merit. I don't see people even try to define it nor any discussions about it, organizationally we are just not there yet.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Is it possible to objectively measure merit? But anyway, promoting people in to new / different roles based on their present performance says little about how they will perform in the new / different role. And then there's that concern that, in many cases, the CEO may not make a lot of difference.
  - drawnwren 8y ago
    I think as you move up the responsibility chain, the number of confounding variables becomes so immense that only broad measurements are possible.
  - watwut 8y ago
    I don't think it is possible to objectively measure merit nor accurately guess who will perform well in next role. However, it is possible to be more accurate or less accurate in measuring either. Meaning, it is possible to be better, even if better does not mean perfect. I believe that if we spent more time trying to describe merit, overall work culture would become more fair and we would move closer to meritocracy. It could even lead to more effective workplace as incentives would align more with what is actually needed. Right now, it seems to be pretty random too often and based more on impressions then on anything factual. I have seen multiple times that what was rewarded was not what was needed the most for a project. Or literally people who actually have real results and successfully run project (negotiated requirements/time, made larger estimates, kept it organized, asked for what they needed soon enough, customer happy in the end) talked about as less good then people who run messy projects - because basically messy project seemed to involve heroic effort at times and they had fun war stories. It is like someone up thread said - the upper you go the more it matters who you are friend with and who you drink beer with - it is not an evil conspiracy, just results of people making impressions based decisions instead of through out ones. Reasonable definition of merit would help - to steer toward people who had shown organizational skill previously.
coldtea 8y ago
>what I have seen so far in corporate america tells me a lot of people(especially older ones) still make friends based on ethnicity and gender Corporate America? This is in all kinds of America (and probably all over the world). From statistics I've read (don't have the link now), the average white person for example has much less black friends and acquaintances that would be representative by percentage of population in their area. And vice versa of course. Same for men having male vs female friends (and, again, vice versa). We're social animals, but we prefer to associate with people similar to us -- and even when it comes to arts, and media preferences and hobbies and so on, gender and ethnicity play a role. And of course there's the demographics: there are very clear white and black neighbourhoods for example -- this obviously extends to the social circle, e.g. neighbourhoods, other kids you know, etc. That said, severals programs to "fix" this, like busing and forced breakups of communities, didn't work. http://prospect.org/article/moving-hood-mixed-success-integrating-suburbia http://prospect.org/article/moving-hood-mixed-success-integr... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/21/racial-segregation-in-america-causes https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/21/racial-segrega... https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-neighbors-new-evidence-on-the-possibility-of-stable-racial-integration/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-neighbors-new-evi...
- badrabbit 8y ago
  Not everyone is like that. Shared beliefs and common goals are a lot of times more important but people still see each other as different even though they were born in the same hospitals and went to the same schools and sports events all their lives due to appearances. People distrust different especially when the stakes are high.
dagw 8y ago
"who applied for this internal position and who had the best objective merit?" What's the best objective merit for being a good manager/exec? While I certainly believe that, to a first approximation, engineers should lead engineers, I've also found that being a great engineer is at best very weakly correlated to being a great manager. In fact a couple of the worst managers I've worked with where people who where promoted 'on merit' into positions they where completely unable to manage.

watwut 8y ago

First, you would need to be able to define merit. I don't see people even try to define it nor any discussions about it, organizationally we are just not there yet.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Is it possible to objectively measure merit? But anyway, promoting people in to new / different roles based on their present performance says little about how they will perform in the new / different role. And then there's that concern that, in many cases, the CEO may not make a lot of difference.
- drawnwren 8y ago
  I think as you move up the responsibility chain, the number of confounding variables becomes so immense that only broad measurements are possible.
- watwut 8y ago
  I don't think it is possible to objectively measure merit nor accurately guess who will perform well in next role. However, it is possible to be more accurate or less accurate in measuring either. Meaning, it is possible to be better, even if better does not mean perfect. I believe that if we spent more time trying to describe merit, overall work culture would become more fair and we would move closer to meritocracy. It could even lead to more effective workplace as incentives would align more with what is actually needed. Right now, it seems to be pretty random too often and based more on impressions then on anything factual. I have seen multiple times that what was rewarded was not what was needed the most for a project. Or literally people who actually have real results and successfully run project (negotiated requirements/time, made larger estimates, kept it organized, asked for what they needed soon enough, customer happy in the end) talked about as less good then people who run messy projects - because basically messy project seemed to involve heroic effort at times and they had fun war stories. It is like someone up thread said - the upper you go the more it matters who you are friend with and who you drink beer with - it is not an evil conspiracy, just results of people making impressions based decisions instead of through out ones. Reasonable definition of merit would help - to steer toward people who had shown organizational skill previously.

coldtea 8y ago

>what I have seen so far in corporate america tells me a lot of people(especially older ones) still make friends based on ethnicity and gender Corporate America? This is in all kinds of America (and probably all over the world). From statistics I've read (don't have the link now), the average white person for example has much less black friends and acquaintances that would be representative by percentage of population in their area. And vice versa of course. Same for men having male vs female friends (and, again, vice versa). We're social animals, but we prefer to associate with people similar to us -- and even when it comes to arts, and media preferences and hobbies and so on, gender and ethnicity play a role. And of course there's the demographics: there are very clear white and black neighbourhoods for example -- this obviously extends to the social circle, e.g. neighbourhoods, other kids you know, etc. That said, severals programs to "fix" this, like busing and forced breakups of communities, didn't work. http://prospect.org/article/moving-hood-mixed-success-integrating-suburbia http://prospect.org/article/moving-hood-mixed-success-integr... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/21/racial-segregation-in-america-causes https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/21/racial-segrega... https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-neighbors-new-evidence-on-the-possibility-of-stable-racial-integration/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/welcome-neighbors-new-evi...

badrabbit 8y ago
Not everyone is like that. Shared beliefs and common goals are a lot of times more important but people still see each other as different even though they were born in the same hospitals and went to the same schools and sports events all their lives due to appearances. People distrust different especially when the stakes are high.

dagw 8y ago

"who applied for this internal position and who had the best objective merit?" What's the best objective merit for being a good manager/exec? While I certainly believe that, to a first approximation, engineers should lead engineers, I've also found that being a great engineer is at best very weakly correlated to being a great manager. In fact a couple of the worst managers I've worked with where people who where promoted 'on merit' into positions they where completely unable to manage.