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I don't mean to suggest that your experiences are not valid. Or to make you feel like you're on trial. I mean to make you feel that you may benefit from a tweak

I don't mean to suggest that your experiences are not valid. Or to make you feel like you're on trial. I mean to make you feel that you may benefit from a tweaked perspective. What I disagree with is that there is such a thing as 'biasing positively'. People seek to build diverse teams. In my opinion, your colleague wasn't necessarily being done a favor if it happened they were performing poorly and didn't have a good feedback loop. Your CEO may have been profiting from this situation at the long-term expense of your colleague.

daenz 6y ago
I actually agree with most of this. I also think we should actively seek to build diverse teams, primarily by more inclusive pipelines. I also agree that it was a long-term disservice to the employee who wasn't getting the necessary feedback/adjustments, because the CEO wanted to game the system unethically. I just don't think we should be biasing our judgments of a person's value or competency based on their sex or race though, and unfortunately, I have a few experiences that point to conscious decisions in that direction. I'm not saying you are making this argument, but if there is an argument that "we need conscious decisions to counterbalance the unconscious biases," then I really wholeheartedly disagree with that approach. Like you suggested, we're not doing people favors when we shield them from honest feedback about their output.