4 ms·

I wonder if corporate D&I initiatives would be more successful if they allowed for genuine debate. When no debate or challenging of the initiative's assumptions

I wonder if corporate D&I initiatives would be more successful if they allowed for genuine debate. When no debate or challenging of the initiative's assumptions is allowed, I suspect that: - Intelligent employees become cynical, and assume a hidden agenda. - The opportunity to change the minds of employees with reasoned doubts/objections to D&I claims is squandered. In fact, it raises (reasonable, imho) suspicions that the D&I proponents know that some of their stated positions are weak, and don't want them subjected to scrutiny. - Proponents of D&I may remain sheltered from valid counterpoints. So they lose an opportunity to refine their positions based on productive discussion. This is based on my experience working in corporate environments for a few decades. And IME, the problem is definitely more pronounced at large companies than small ones.

nullc 6y ago
Some employees may hold materially prejudiced/discriminatory views. It isn't the companies role to morally educate people/employees in general nor may it be possible for it to do so, and any attempt to do so might itself be morally and legally fraught. ("Accept our position on right vs wrong or lose your job" can become awfully close to "become $religion or get fired"). Rather, the companies obligation is to provide a safe environment for workers and customers and to uphold basic standards for non-discriminatory professional conduct in the at-work activities of its employees and the orginization as a whole. It doesn't matter if people think some harmful stuff, so long as they leave that thinking outside of the office and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. Inviting debate might help set some people's moral thinking straight, but it has the much larger risk of inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police. We very much shouldn't want corporate HR forcibly imposing their concept of right and wrong onto people outside of the extremely narrow confines of work interactions: A millennia of debate by philosophers and religious leaders world wide have failed to settle innumerable moral questions. FooCorp HR-- which has almost every ethical incentive set in the wrong direction (e.g. maximize profits for FooCorp), and wields more power over people's lives than all but the most abusive cults-- simply isn't qualified or appropriate for the task of controlling people's personal moral compasses.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  >inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police I don't necessarily disagree with your general sentiment -- I would actually prefer to keep all of this out of the workplace entirely. But I think this sort of behavior is already happening in companies, and it is exacerbated by the fact that there isn't debate. I think it is difficult for a company with an open culture to keep politics away from work. And if we suppose that politics will inevitably find their way into work, I would much rather have debates than not.
  - muyuu 6y ago
    In a company setting, debate more often than not actually exacerbates the issue. You don't want the conversation in that setting because the relationship in the company hierarchy is inherently negative for moral debates.
- afiori 6y ago
  the debate would not need to be about the morality of issues but on identifying the problem to be solved and evaluating efficient ways to do it. For example in some cases the best solution might be too reorganize company values.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
xkcd-sucks 6y ago
To be fair, it's always in the peons' interest to agree with upper management's proposals. And upper management presents a unified front, keeping internal debate hidden except to people of sufficiently high social class. Like, has any lower-level person ever benefited from challenging a corporate initiative?
hooande 6y ago
I would very much like to know for sure which of my co-workers are willing to defend racist points of view
- etrabroline 6y ago
  i would very much like to not be your coworker
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but I think you're saying that you'd condemn them for admitting to hold that viewpoint. I think many of us would as well. It seems to me a downside to that approach, though, is that we'd never learn why they had those views, and probably never get a chance to reason with them about why they should believe otherwise. Perhaps I'm too optimistic about the possibility of talking things out. It's hard to tell.
  - hooande 6y ago
    I think the problem with your approach is that no sane person would publicly defend racism. Because they would be outing themselves as a racist to all of their co-workers. I believe that I understand very well WHY people have racist points of view. Racists are incredibly common and their motivations and beliefs aren't a mystery. I'm not sure what you would hope to change by talking things out. Prejudice is by definition irrational, because it involves pre-judging. You can't really reason with someone about an irrational belief.
- gdyuytgh 6y ago
  Most of your co-workers hold at least some "racist" views. It's a really wild assumption that even one intelligent person has such a sterilized mindset that would make the most radical activists happy. For lulz, you could list here ten pints that you deem racist and we could answer with numbers.
- afiori 6y ago
  To me this sounds like you a saying "if you have a different approach than mine to solving this problem then you are part of the problem". clearly your statement is appropriate in some cases but here is just strawmanning the position of many people that criticize many ineffective efforts.

nullc 6y ago

Some employees may hold materially prejudiced/discriminatory views. It isn't the companies role to morally educate people/employees in general nor may it be possible for it to do so, and any attempt to do so might itself be morally and legally fraught. ("Accept our position on right vs wrong or lose your job" can become awfully close to "become $religion or get fired"). Rather, the companies obligation is to provide a safe environment for workers and customers and to uphold basic standards for non-discriminatory professional conduct in the at-work activities of its employees and the orginization as a whole. It doesn't matter if people think some harmful stuff, so long as they leave that thinking outside of the office and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. Inviting debate might help set some people's moral thinking straight, but it has the much larger risk of inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police. We very much shouldn't want corporate HR forcibly imposing their concept of right and wrong onto people outside of the extremely narrow confines of work interactions: A millennia of debate by philosophers and religious leaders world wide have failed to settle innumerable moral questions. FooCorp HR-- which has almost every ethical incentive set in the wrong direction (e.g. maximize profits for FooCorp), and wields more power over people's lives than all but the most abusive cults-- simply isn't qualified or appropriate for the task of controlling people's personal moral compasses.

bigyikes 6y ago
>inviting into the office stuff that doesn't belong there, invoking avoidable bad conduct, and turning the company into dystopian thought police I don't necessarily disagree with your general sentiment -- I would actually prefer to keep all of this out of the workplace entirely. But I think this sort of behavior is already happening in companies, and it is exacerbated by the fact that there isn't debate. I think it is difficult for a company with an open culture to keep politics away from work. And if we suppose that politics will inevitably find their way into work, I would much rather have debates than not.
- muyuu 6y ago
  In a company setting, debate more often than not actually exacerbates the issue. You don't want the conversation in that setting because the relationship in the company hierarchy is inherently negative for moral debates.
afiori 6y ago
the debate would not need to be about the morality of issues but on identifying the problem to be solved and evaluating efficient ways to do it. For example in some cases the best solution might be too reorganize company values.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

xkcd-sucks 6y ago

To be fair, it's always in the peons' interest to agree with upper management's proposals. And upper management presents a unified front, keeping internal debate hidden except to people of sufficiently high social class. Like, has any lower-level person ever benefited from challenging a corporate initiative?

hooande 6y ago

I would very much like to know for sure which of my co-workers are willing to defend racist points of view

etrabroline 6y ago
i would very much like to not be your coworker
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding, but I think you're saying that you'd condemn them for admitting to hold that viewpoint. I think many of us would as well. It seems to me a downside to that approach, though, is that we'd never learn why they had those views, and probably never get a chance to reason with them about why they should believe otherwise. Perhaps I'm too optimistic about the possibility of talking things out. It's hard to tell.
- hooande 6y ago
  I think the problem with your approach is that no sane person would publicly defend racism. Because they would be outing themselves as a racist to all of their co-workers. I believe that I understand very well WHY people have racist points of view. Racists are incredibly common and their motivations and beliefs aren't a mystery. I'm not sure what you would hope to change by talking things out. Prejudice is by definition irrational, because it involves pre-judging. You can't really reason with someone about an irrational belief.
gdyuytgh 6y ago
Most of your co-workers hold at least some "racist" views. It's a really wild assumption that even one intelligent person has such a sterilized mindset that would make the most radical activists happy. For lulz, you could list here ten pints that you deem racist and we could answer with numbers.
afiori 6y ago
To me this sounds like you a saying "if you have a different approach than mine to solving this problem then you are part of the problem". clearly your statement is appropriate in some cases but here is just strawmanning the position of many people that criticize many ineffective efforts.