The end of DEI (at least in America)

[Revan]

All the stats show that more diverse executive teams perform better. Now obviously there's a limit to that - they still have to have relevant skills, interests and experience - but pushing for a deliberately more diverse representation in leadership is shown to benefit organisations on average. By all means it can be taken too far but the stats show that it rarely is, and much more frequently the opposite still.

It is very unclear that to be the case. It is mostly attributed to a study of McKinsey, and as we all know, everything McKinsey does is flawed. There have been some studies recently showing the exact opposite, albeit from quickly skimming them, they look kinda bullshit.

This is a very nice essay on it which tries to be quite balanced: https://medium.com/@alex.edmans/is-there-really-a-business-case-for-diversity-c58ef67ebffa

Personally, I think the diversity of thought is far more important than other forms of diversity for a company to be successful. You can have different genders, LGBT, people from different countries and races, but if you create an echo chamber of thought, you are going to massively suffer. Which has been what lots of companies have been doing for the last few years and then crying 'bigots' when their products got ridiculed (Google Gemini most recently).

 

[talking robot]

What you'd need to do though would be ensure that already highly qualified white men didn't take all the places in the training courses while, say, black men didn't really know it existed. One way to do that would be to specifically target, say, black men to offer the training too. That's known as...?

...Marketing

 

[VorZakone]

All the stats show that more diverse executive teams perform better. Now obviously there's a limit to that - they still have to have relevant skills, interests and experience - but pushing for a deliberately more diverse representation in leadership is shown to benefit organisations on average. By all means it can be taken too far but the stats show that it rarely is, and much more frequently the opposite still.

Article:

But does that argument actually hold up? University of North Carolina’s Sekou Bermiss, Texas A&M’s Jeremiah Green, and UNC’s John Hand (a visiting professor at Chicago Booth since 2017) analyzed data for the full set of companies in the S&P 500, and they find no evidence of a relationship between greater diversity on executive teams and better subsequent financial performance.

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/do-diverse-leadership-teams-produce-better-performance

I'd be wary of studies looking at already well performing companies who then increase their DEI initiatives for whatever reasons and then draw the conclusion that diversity made them perform better.

 

[P-Nut]

All the stats show that more diverse executive teams perform better. Now obviously there's a limit to that - they still have to have relevant skills, interests and experience - but pushing for a deliberately more diverse representation in leadership is shown to benefit organisations on average. By all means it can be taken too far but the stats show that it rarely is, and much more frequently the opposite still.

Yeah I have no doubts on that to be the case. A more diverse leadership team (or team of any sorts) will bring different backgrounds and ideas to the role. However, as you say that person still needs to be qualified to do the role and if equal opportunity can be enabled then those people will still get roles that way, rather than having an actual amount that HAS to be diverse.

The problem for me has always been a lack of opportunity, rather than an insistence on regardless of skill or qualification.

 

[unchanged_lineup]

Is this a serious question?

What % of China's population speak English? What % of India's population speak English?

Out of those that do speak English, how many of them work in that particular field or market, understand the American business culture and/or even have the rights to work in the USA?

India is 100m people officially and many more with varying levels.

They were a colony, remember.

 

[oneniltothearsenal]

Are quotas about equality of opportunity?


https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ndmark-40-quota-for-women-on-corporate-boards

I don't live or work in the EU so not familiar enough based on that article to comment but Cheimoon left you a great reply that sounds about right to me.

Financial-wise, Indians and Chinese Americans do much better than white people (or any other group) in the US. I think Afonso's point is pretty clear, that if there was a systematic discrimination or racism in the West/US against non-white people, then Indians, Chinese, Taiwanese and co. (basically Asians) wouldn't do near as good as they are doing. Asian Americans median household is around 112K while White Americans at 89K. If you check when it comes to getting accepted at top universities, it is kinda similar. If an Asian American and an Afro American have the exact same CV, and if the Afro American has a 90% chance of getting accepted, I think that the chances of the Asian American are at just around 10-20%. With the same CV. So if there is some systematic discrimination in the US, it is against Asian Americans. Who nevertheless, still do much better than others.

Lots of people would argue DEI and affirmative actions are inherently discriminatory, if not racist policies. So kinda fighting racism/sexism with more racism/sexism. And in some cases, it is absolutely stupid, like the previous head of secret service wanting to have 50% women in Secret Service, despite that there is absolutely no good reason for that.

On the other hand, there are some reasons why DEI and affirmative action are good things. The most obvious one being that people need their own heroes, and let's be fair, humanity still does not have either equality of opportunity. In an ideal world, there should be equality of opportunity, and then everything else being merit-based. We are not in such a world, so maybe some type of DEI initiatives are needed. On the other hand, a lot of these initiatives have been absolutely stupid and have mostly irritated everyone while basically helping only the people who benefit from them, not their communities.

My best answer of what can be done different is to have a much better public education system. Invest in communities and public schools, especially in poor communities. And if you want to have some type of DEI, be it based on socio-economical status instead of race, sex, gender or other attributes. A poor kid being raised with no father and from an alcoholic mother needs help regardless if they are white, black, Asian or mixed. With the current DEI initiatives though, such a person if white or Asian would get overlooked in favour of someone who is Black or Latino even if they are much richer and coming from a functional family.

The first bold is just not a valid argument. For one thing, Indian, Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants to the US are, on average, much wealthier to start with than immigrants from Central and South America so that's a big part of what is going on there.

And the second bold is not accurate. Asian-Americans, for example, make up a huge majority of the most prestigious public universities like UC system (30% Asian at Berkeley and 35% Asian at UCLA) despite Asians only making up 16% of the California population. Also, college admissions are not and should never be just about test scores so I call BS to you asserting those percentages and even you being able to categorize the "same CV". There is definitely systemic discrimination against Asians (Trump was a big part of accelerating that during COVID), but its not this right wing angle that is really attempt to pit minorities against each other.

 

[Peter van der Gea]

I don't live or work in the EU so not familiar enough based on that article to comment but Cheimoon left you a great reply that sounds about right to me.



The first bold is just not a valid argument. For one thing, Indian, Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants to the US are, on average, much wealthier to start with than immigrants from Central and South America so that's a big part of what is going on there.

And the second bold is not accurate. Asian-Americans, for example, make up a huge majority of the most prestigious public universities like UC system (30% Asian at Berkeley and 35% Asian at UCLA) despite Asians only making up 16% of the California population. Also, college admissions are not and should never be just about test scores so I call BS to you asserting those percentages and even you being able to categorize the "same CV". There is definitely systemic discrimination against Asians (Trump was a big part of accelerating that during COVID), but its not this right wing angle that is really attempt to pit minorities against each other.

Thank you for explaining it far better than I could.

 

[utdalltheway]

I don't live or work in the EU so not familiar enough based on that article to comment but Cheimoon left you a great reply that sounds about right to me.



The first bold is just not a valid argument. For one thing, Indian, Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants to the US are, on average, much wealthier to start with than immigrants from Central and South America so that's a big part of what is going on there.

And the second bold is not accurate. Asian-Americans, for example, make up a huge majority of the most prestigious public universities like UC system (30% Asian at Berkeley and 35% Asian at UCLA) despite Asians only making up 16% of the California population. Also, college admissions are not and should never be just about test scores so I call BS to you asserting those percentages and even you being able to categorize the "same CV". There is definitely systemic discrimination against Asians (Trump was a big part of accelerating that during COVID), but its not this right wing angle that is really attempt to pit minorities against each other.

On the Asian %s at Cal and UCI it seems more like 40% for undergrads. And even that seems low if you walk around those campuses. I work really close to UCI, known locally by some as the university of Chinese immigrants or the university of Chinese and Indians.

 

[Peter van der Gea]

So, basically, it's total normal for 40% of CEO's to be of Indian or Chinese decent?