D. E. I.

Diversity, equality, inclusion.

Opposition to what Trump calls woke policies has been a major messaging platform for the President who says he wants to dismantle such policies. At the same time, his cabinet is fairly diverse, maybe not as diverse as President Biden, but it includes men, women, minorities, immigrants and gays.

Trump would argue such diversity is good for decision making. I have to agree. Group think is an enormous problem in all organizations. You can’t make good decisions if everybody in the room is all coming from the same background. Robert McManara in very early 1960s was concerned about such problems in the Defense Department, and it remains a lingering concern in many people’s minds.

Trump would argue though that D. E. I. has gone well beyond that. He would say that the ideal of including all in decision making and hiring, leads to an over emphasis in considering diverse backgrounds over actual competence in the job. I am not sure that is true, if anything existing biases most likely to less qualified people with less diversity finding positions in organizations.

It is a lot harder then one would think to recruit skilled people of diversity. Unfortunately, incumbent players – and familiar faces have such a leg up in recruiting – you are missing out in a whole pool of talent people who never apply for a job or get interviewed because they’re out of the normal circle of people knowing about your position. Group think is too often reinforced in organizations because diverse people are not at the table.

That said, while diversity is important, also is institutional knowledge and group cohesion through shared experience. It is often a bad thing to hire people from outside and organization to lead it, unless you are in a need of radically shaking up an organization and taking it wherever the changes bring you, regardless of the pain endured.

There is a strong case in many ways to promoting within, but also that is caveat that it makes it all the more important to seek diverse individuals in entry-level positions whenever possible to maximize the strength of organization as they grow to be leaders with diverse experiences while also understanding the strength of the institution.