Mindset, Expectations, and Clarity Overcome Meritocracy's Limitations
Mindset, Expectations, and Clarity Overcome Meritocracy's Limitations
Chapter Eight of Reconstructing Inclusion is entitled “Meritocracy.” The chapter discusses the limitations and virtues of meritocracy.
Baron Michael Young, author of The Rise of Meritocracy, who coined the term, wrote the book as social satire. He forecasted that the social mobility of the British system was at risk of being usurped by elites purporting that their status, influence, and resources would translate into a belief that those who had these advantages had more extraordinary ability, capacity–and merit than others.
He said in a 2001 op-ed (a short time before his death), “I expected that the poor and the disadvantaged would be done down, and they have been. . . In the new social environment, the rich and the powerful have been doing mighty well for themselves. They have been freed from the old kinds of criticism from people who had to be listened to. This once helped keep them in check . . . The business meritocracy is in vogue. If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get . . . [They] believe they have morality on their side.”
While I frame the meritocratic ideal as a myth and believe it to be so, I don’t see myths as entirely bad or good. Thus, meritocracy, despite its satirical origins, makes sense to me.
Related article: The ideal of meritocracy is flawed
Where inclusion or DEI is concerned, I believe in agency. Thus, merit is required to expand and evolve our agency, capabilities, and capacity to contribute to the world in a meaningful way. Agency is not a stand-alone requirement, nor is it a concept that is about standing alone. It links to one’s community, support systems, and resource access. No one does anything alone.
And, summing it up, “capability + effort = merit,” not “exposure + network + capability + effort = superior merit.” If we are serious about the ‘E’ in DEI, we will assess our similarity biases and be intentionally and incessantly reflective in our perceptions about an individual’s exposure and network. Many of us might find our inner meritocrat if we willingly hold up the mirror.
It’s common, even “normal” to have biases for established standards, especially when it comes to class as they are so pervasive. And, without mindfulness of these conventions, whether you believe meritocracy is a myth or not, the likelihood that your upstream thinking will create a downstream challenge (particularly for the least privileged) is high.
But you can do something about it. On pages 118-120 of Reconstructing Inclusion, I refer to the work of Michael Hyter, a pioneer in the DEI space. He suggests moving away from an ideal such as a mythological system of meritocracy to a system of inclusion. Integral in creating a system of inclusion are the following principles:
Mindset
Believe that most people are capable of high levels of performance.
Hyter encourages organizations to believe in everyone's potential to grow and contribute at a high level. This is a mindset. There’s a reason people were hired in the first place: to do a job and do it well. They are not necessarily the top 10 to 15 percent in the performance management scores. Most are not. However, the belief that everyone can perform at high levels neutralizes the organizational faux pas of giving the lion’s share of work to the “cream of the crop.” The result is that, yes, the top-rated tier performs, but they also can get burned out and go from the cream on the top to the sediment at the bottom. The shift from metaphorical cream to sediment is the result of their virtues suffocating from organizational pressure and a lack of adequate complementary skills from colleagues who don’t have the highest performance ratings.
Expectations
Position everyone for growth and development.
Hyter highlights the idea of “position,” which he frames as the nature of assignments given and the quality of support received, and individuals growing their understanding of how their responsibilities connect to fulfill the organizational mission and business objectives. Hyter states that, “Not only does such Positioning benefit the bottom line, it also impacts that person’s ‘Disposition.’” This positive impact on the idea of “disposition” is closely related to what many of my colleagues might see as a feeling of “belonging.” When people feel like they can learn, their confidence grows, their commitment deepens, and they become determined to stretch for more of that feeling.
Clarity (with affordances)
Coach performance based on clearly defined standards.
Winning teams are those that are supportive and act as coaches with one another. Coaching goes beyond those having the title of “coach.” If one looks at historically great teams, they had coaches and players who were clear about what the team needed to win and what the various roles could learn, share, and do to best contribute to their success. Peer coaching is perhaps one of the better capability-building inputs in an Inclusion System.
Everyone learns, social capital expands, and the probability of creating extraordinary results elevates because of intentionally working toward everyone’s growth rather than the development of an exclusive minority.
Coaches, as Hyter shares, “[take] the time to think through and communicate clear expectations . . . ensuring that employees focus their effort on what’s important to the business.” Hyter continues stating that while many managers feel as though they are good at the above, their propensity is to remain rooted in fixed notions of what great performers and performance look like. The result is that they default to coaching everyone in alignment with a mental model of the organizational status quo, which many will equate with what is meritorious. The result is vague and ambiguous direction, spotty sharing of critical information, and ongoing assessment based on loose, biased, and unhelpful criteria.
If your managers lead with a coaching style based on team members’ strengths, a laser focus on business strategy, and how each member can improve, then you are well on your way to a system of inclusion. Systems based on meritocracy won’t help you fulfill each organizational actor's potential and possibilities to develop and make a meaningful contribution. Those with a system of inclusion as their foundation can and more likely will."
Related article: Are you creating an “Inclusion System”?
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿
In this episode of the ‘Reconstructing Inclusion’ podcast, I chat with Dr. Starling David Hunter III, whose research, teaching, and consulting all focus on the application of social network analysis to questions of organization design and performance. We delved into the dynamics of teaching in diverse cultural contexts and how adapting teaching methods has unveiled the cultural underpinnings of organizational theories and the challenges of making Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) a necessary component in people analytics and organizational development.