About 2 years ago now, I received "Diversity Training" at work. Most of it was pretty vanilla but there were some interesting take-aways.

  • Our HR Rep told us we have a problem at our Company and the problem was that our executive team was not diverse enough. (All of the Execs were white males from different backgrounds).

  • The mandated solution (which was disguised as a "goal" from our parent Company) was that 1/3rd of our executive staff would be female. (Why they settled on discriminating against sex and not a race I'm not sure)

  • The majority of the meeting focused on how women and minorities can be discriminated against. (Discrimination against white men was not discussed and men barely at all).

At the conclusion of the meeting, the folks in attendance were asked if they had ever been discriminated at work because of their sex or race. I of course wanted to say "Yes, me, right now" but I stayed silent because everyone knows that a white man can't be discriminated against so I kept my mouth shut.

Against my better judgement, I decided to write an email to the head of my HR department who was also the presenter of the meeting. This sums up what I sent to her:

Stating that **** will be hiring more women is in direct contradiction to the statement we have on our website (which states we do not discriminate based on age, sex, or race) because by doing so, you would be discriminating against the males who apply for those positions or against the ones currently holding them.

I know I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut on this topic because I’m a white man, but I really wanted to speak up about this topic because I felt that others like me might not have the courage to speak up.

I also know that it was not your intention to shame me based on my gender and race, but I felt like I was a part of the problem, and that the solution meant there should be fewer people who look like me who work here.

She replied with a bit of shock and apologized that it was not her intent to offend. I just let it go because I really try not to go around waving the "I'm a victim" flag!

Fast forward 3-4 months later and 2 of the 6 executives were "asked to retire" including the CEO. A month or two after that and we had ourselves a new CEO and you guessed it.. she was a woman. She was actually really over qualified but that didn't seem to matter as much as what gender she was. A month or two after that we had a third white male executive find employment elsewhere. And then our HE Rep was made an executive even though nobody reports to her and we had no previous HR representation on the executive team. And just like that, within 6 months we had our 30% female quota for the executive team.

Fast forward a year after that, and our CEO did a good job but she never really connected with us here. Her family never relocated so she flew home every weekend and back again. Of course, because she was over qualified and perhaps not the best fit, she left after just one year with the company.

You see, our company set out to find the best female CEO, and not just the best CEO. That was their mistake. That's why all this crap about filling quotas and equality of outcome is ultimately detrimental to society. Hire the best person for the job regardless of their sex/ age/ race/ sexual preference. It should be that simple, but it's not.