Short and sweet. Incredible that the Army has such resources at its disposal. I can’t help but imagine that there are higher-ups in some organizations who hold prejudiced word views that sway their decisions in hiring/firing/promoting certain individuals. Nepotism more often than racism or sexism, I’m sure. I don’t believe we should coerce them to favor minority populations within the organization, but what are some frameworks that might be imposed to ensure that the powers-that-be truly are taking all comers into consideration in equal light on their merits?
Or maybe I missed the point of the article? Has this only to do with interactions among peers?
No, you're right on regarding the point of the article. This has to do with peers, hiring, everything. The imposition of a coercive framework will necessarily generate blowback and will ultimately end up being counter-productive. The idea that you can use force to eliminate the possibility of bad actors getting their way is seductive, and can work in the short run, but fails spectacularly in the long run. This is why adhering to principles is so important. If you're flexible on your principles, you will constantly be tempted to reach for short term results that will doom the organization in the long run. Since this is the case you might think that staying principled would result in a comparative advantage that can't be overcome. Unfortunately, in the military the high turnover in job positions allows some leaders to get away with the short term coercive strategy as they depart from that position before the effects on the organization become impossible to hide. To bring it all back to the topic at hand I'm talking about applying principles universally, in this case, considering ideological diversity to be the functionally beneficial component of diversity within an organization. The other principle that I'm trying to articulate is that diversity as emergent phenomena of freely cooperating individuals is beautiful while diversity borne of coercive policy is a counterproductive lie. To quote Thomas Sowell "In the academic world, diversity means black leftists, white leftists, female leftists, and Hispanic leftists. Demographic diversity conceals ideological conformity. …… The grand dogma of our times, that groups would be evenly represented in institutions and activities in the absence of discrimination, would collapse like a house of cards from a study of societies around the world." You can imagine a leader working in human resources tasked with increasing diversity in the organization as measured by immutable characteristics such as skin color may be tempted to ensure that this is the primary hiring criteria for job positions where "diversity" is demanded. If you want to explore the consequences of such strategies more fully I can't think of a better person to read than Dr. Sowell.
Short and sweet. Incredible that the Army has such resources at its disposal. I can’t help but imagine that there are higher-ups in some organizations who hold prejudiced word views that sway their decisions in hiring/firing/promoting certain individuals. Nepotism more often than racism or sexism, I’m sure. I don’t believe we should coerce them to favor minority populations within the organization, but what are some frameworks that might be imposed to ensure that the powers-that-be truly are taking all comers into consideration in equal light on their merits?
Or maybe I missed the point of the article? Has this only to do with interactions among peers?
No, you're right on regarding the point of the article. This has to do with peers, hiring, everything. The imposition of a coercive framework will necessarily generate blowback and will ultimately end up being counter-productive. The idea that you can use force to eliminate the possibility of bad actors getting their way is seductive, and can work in the short run, but fails spectacularly in the long run. This is why adhering to principles is so important. If you're flexible on your principles, you will constantly be tempted to reach for short term results that will doom the organization in the long run. Since this is the case you might think that staying principled would result in a comparative advantage that can't be overcome. Unfortunately, in the military the high turnover in job positions allows some leaders to get away with the short term coercive strategy as they depart from that position before the effects on the organization become impossible to hide. To bring it all back to the topic at hand I'm talking about applying principles universally, in this case, considering ideological diversity to be the functionally beneficial component of diversity within an organization. The other principle that I'm trying to articulate is that diversity as emergent phenomena of freely cooperating individuals is beautiful while diversity borne of coercive policy is a counterproductive lie. To quote Thomas Sowell "In the academic world, diversity means black leftists, white leftists, female leftists, and Hispanic leftists. Demographic diversity conceals ideological conformity. …… The grand dogma of our times, that groups would be evenly represented in institutions and activities in the absence of discrimination, would collapse like a house of cards from a study of societies around the world." You can imagine a leader working in human resources tasked with increasing diversity in the organization as measured by immutable characteristics such as skin color may be tempted to ensure that this is the primary hiring criteria for job positions where "diversity" is demanded. If you want to explore the consequences of such strategies more fully I can't think of a better person to read than Dr. Sowell.