In a recent blog post, I lightly touched on an idea that aligns with my fascination with over-corrections that put people at extremes.
When we are in the extreme, we’re unable to see it until it’s so extreme another correction is called for. Inevitably, we overcorrect and start all over again.
I worked in a startup, and I know that DEI and Meritocracy are simply over-corrections of each other. DEI insists on equal outcomes, and meritocracy becomes a meat grinder where what cannot be measured cannot be considered. One focuses on inclusivity based on surface qualities, the other on exclusivity based on data, both missing the point. I may not be as excited as the social media autists who think of life as data points instead of as human. I'm an art major; excuse me for believing STEM isn't the end-all purpose of humanity.
Most of my readers probably don’t need too deep a dive into the problem of DEI since the reasons for its supposed downfall are well-dissected just about everywhere you turn. A reading of Harrison Bergeron will take care of the matter quickly if you prefer literature to do the job, but my opinion on meritocracy might raise a few eyebrows. After all, isn’t that America? The one who works the hardest and does the best should rise to the top rightfully and naturally?
In human theory, yes.
We think that if you do great work, it is noticed, rewarded, and rewarded related to the level and consistency of great work.
We think this motivates people to do better work continually and that those who are lapped by someone who can do better work will accept it as the beauty of the meritocracy and have no problem with losing a spot on the ladder because the glory of the best worker climbing up covers all. We think it’s Star Trek, a Utopia where human nature ceases to exist, and scheming, striving, and conspiring to take someone out of the running and hold onto power are replaced by a loving understanding of merit and why it must be rewarded.
We think it’s ideal because idealism is required for a meritocracy.
The problem with idealists who hold to their ideals too long in such a strangled way is that you end up with brutality.
DEI and external ideals lead to communism, and measured meritocracy ideals lead to…well, ask anyone who worked in a startup and barely emerged alive. They’ll tell you what meritocracy looks like in practice.
It looks a lot like nepotism, it looks a lot like an authoritarian narcissist assembling mini-me’s, it looks a lot like threats and anxiety and the fear that the day you are five seconds slow because you’re tired, you lose your job, it looks a lot like being told you have unlimited vacation time but never taking any because if you do someone will take your place while you’re gone because a person of real merit doesn’t stop working (true story on that one).
Whether folks like to admit it or not, a meritocracy still depends on who you know, when you know them, and who is measuring the merit. What is the standard that is considered worthy of merit? From my experience, the guy at the top determines what has merit, and it nearly always lines up to match who he is and what he values, and it shifts according to whatever book he reads or the thought leader’s podcast he hears.
That means merit varies based on personality and whims unless a higher standard covers it. He’ll give lip service to whoever can do the work best and fastest, but human nature necessarily creeps in, and other things—flattery, manipulation, aggression—can cloud the picture and make a person seem to have merit when what they have is a personality that mirrors what the top dog likes. If you’re Type A, seeing merit in a quiet, passive person is difficult. It’s challenging to assign merit to someone who can deliver unbelievably fantastic work half of the time and struggle with depression the other half.
So, does meritocracy work?
Not really.
There are some careers where structures of merit or capability are necessary to prove you can do the job because others’ lives depend on it—the military, for example, or law enforcement and emergency services. Instead of saying men and women can/can’t do a job, set the true standard required to do every kind of job, and either you hit it or you don’t. You do the job you’re suited for, with no special allowances. If you value the differences men and women can bring to the mix, then you must acknowledge their differences by providing different jobs, gear, and goals best suited to their strengths instead of pretending neither has weaknesses.
However, other careers and life paths are more flexible than that. You don’t have to carry someone out of a burning building. You simply need to process insurance forms with others in the office and not make the office culture into a hellscape.
We all know plenty of people who are just as talented as those who have made it big in some area of life, but the timing was wrong, God said no and closed a door, they flubbed the interview, health or injury took them out, they were Sham in Secretariat’s year—there are lots of reasons people with incredible merit do not make it up the ladder of a meritocracy.1
“Yeah but Elon Musk fired tons of people at X and it works better with half the staff!” is the current battle cry and, indeed, a great reason to put someone of that capability in charge of shaving down government bloat, but it’s not a good reason to rebuild our entire economy around his model. Musk also wants to put chips in people’s brains and has basically said on X that Mars is our human destiny because human consciousness requires it in order to live on.2
We can’t use outliers as measuring rods.
Somewhere between the bloat of admin and too many managerial levels and DEI, and the pared-down model of X that uses AI, autists, and quantitative merit to get the job done, we will find the American dream and a true place of human flourishing.
We can all agree that every family needs at least one income provider, that every person who can work should be working for their mental health and for society, and that when God said it was good that we should all work for our own bread and not find ourselves with free time to get into trouble, he was serious. We can all agree people who aren’t even trying to do a good job or who take every loophole and bit of wiggle room and turn it into a massive gap for their own benefit deserve to be fired and feel some pain and hopefully get their act together.
But what about those sincerely trying and not hitting those points of merit someone set up?
Not every person, when it comes to ability and skill, is the cream of the crop based on traditional merit points of productivity, intelligence, measurables, and efficiency. But they might have people skills that bring joy to the office that you’ll need if you’re cramming your company with everyone striving to prove merit and be the standout star. Again, true story.
How do you measure such a person? What is their merit? What is the quantity? What is their value? Such people are overlooked, dismissed, or forgotten.
Even worse, a true meritocracy is a sliding pile of grasping humans.
Just as our knees and back and memory eventually betray us as we get old, so will our merit in some ways, as it's being measured. Today’s top dog is tomorrow’s dog food. You can never take your nose from the grindstone because they might find out the grindstone doesn’t need your nose. Everyone is a potential competitor; there is anxiety and wariness and gamesmanship because a meritocracy rewards the winners who provide the preferred outcome.
This is very unlike God’s view of merit.
In the Bible, God constantly hammers away that what he cares about is what is going on in a person’s heart. Only he can see what’s in there. We can only see and measure the externals, which DEI and a meritocracy attempt to do. We measure key performance indicators (KPIs), use apps to track productivity and project timelines, and track employee computer usage—we have to find something measurable, some piece of data, to determine merit even if the human heart isn’t so measurable.
Earlier this year, while at a leadership conference with a friend, we got into the discussion of self-scoring and using that to measure merit in terms of promotion and pay increases.
He wasn’t convinced by the women who pushed back on the idea.
“You do understand that a lot of women will not score themselves as high as men do,” I explained. “There’s a higher prevalence of impostor syndrome among women than men.”
“What do you mean?”
“More women feel like impostors at their job than men do.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
“If you asked me to score myself on whether I was a good writer, I would score myself fairly low because what am I comparing myself to? Hemingway? Other writers, who I assume are confident? In comparison, I feel like an impostor, someone faking it. So I’ll score myself low, and I’ll get penalized for not wanting to seem like I’m boasting or prideful.”
As I’ve told clients, I take the Montgomery Scott approach to life, which is to promise low and deliver high because there is nothing worse than the reverse. Trying to live under the minimum viable product (MVP) approach when working at the startup was agonizing, delivering the bare minimum while promising the customer what we hadn’t quite made yet.
Some people aren’t going to self-promote. And they’re not going to do well in a meritocracy because they won’t draw attention to the fact that they’re doing their job well since they assume that’s the point of the job. If your job is to staple papers, you don’t brag about how you’re stapling papers; that’s the expected requirement. Unless the manager notices, they’ll never budge up the ladder.3 We can only see external things, and only then if we’re wise enough to take notice.
In contrast, what does God suggest has merit?
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV)
This is just a drop in the bucket of the qualities God tells us have merit. I assure you that these are not things that will keep you climbing up a human-defined meritocracy. These are not competitive things that’ll get you the big win.
Isn’t it strange how the Bible tells us repeatedly that God delights in using the weaker vessel, the clay pot, the flawed human? That the reward for all the workers is the same no matter what time they show up for work? That human life has value inherently, regardless of whether it’s in a coma or running a Fortune 500 company? These aren’t lessons and parables that are meant to support laziness or sloppy work but are statements about who God is and where he sees value.4
So what’s the middle ground between DEI and harsh meritocracy?
It has to do with the outflow of the heart. It’s a heartocracy, I guess.
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (Luke 6:45, NIV)
You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. (Matthew 12:34-35, NIV)
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23, NIV)
The state of our hearts is the true standard we are all judged on by God.
As I stated, when your only standard is whatever or whoever happens to have power right now—equality, equity, merit, productivity, identity, finances, power, network, appearance, intersectionality—it’s no standard at all. But if your standard is God, it’s an entirely different story because you’re anchored to something that doesn’t move across time or due to feelings, elections, or societal trends.
A meritocracy requires measuring merit, and we can’t truly measure merit. We don’t fully understand how valuable a person is or will be because we can neither see their true inner state nor predict the future. We can see evidence of it in their outflow, but we can’t measure what’s unmeasurable; only God can. We need to ask for his help in understanding a person, so the first step is to ask him about it. Ask him to give you wisdom in dealing with an employee. Ask him to show you what’s going on. Ask him to work the situation out and guide you through.
And then, the things you can measure should be measured with grace.5 In this, consistency is the real metric. It’s where the outflow of the heart bubbles to the surface in habits and patterns of behavior.
Is the person consistently honest or lying? Consistently on time or late? Consistently doing good work or sloppy? Consistently owning their output or making excuses? Consistently effective or someone you go around to get the job done? Consistent in decisions or wildly unpredictable? Consistently kissing butts higher up or considerate to everyone?
Grace sees the pattern and doesn’t smack someone down if they are in a period of struggling. When they break pattern, you know something is up. Either they’re suddenly afraid of losing their job and become a great worker until it’s safe to coast again, or something went wrong in their life and they’re struggling to regain their footing. Knowing the pattern means you aren’t fooled or confused.
DEI uses the shallowest possible measurement to determine a person’s value based on physical appearance or identity preferences. Meritocracy over-corrects by trying to measure data that gets closer to the heart but still misses the mark, determining value by output instead of outward appearance.
In God’s eyes, every human being was worth saving by his son Jesus. Everyone has value and merit.
Even so, some will be lazy and incompetent in the workforce and need to be fired.
1 If a meritocracy worked, it would be less fixated on hierarchy, though the name would need to be changed because anything ending in -cracy suggests hierarchy. It would just be old-fashioned common sense. Highly skilled people who drive away other skilled people are more expensive to keep than get rid of; toss out or isolate the high-merit rotten apples. People who do not show up to work, consistently make mistakes or do not meet the expected requirements of the job get shown the door. Unions, tenure, and other systems make this difficult. The worst leaders get promoted, not removed (see also: the military). Bad employees get absorbed into the payroll and expenses, and more people are hired to fill in the gaps because of the work left undone.
2 Dear Elon. Please find Jesus. Eternity is inevitable, and you don’t need a brain chip or Mars to experience it. You’ll experience it either way, but I’d rather you had a good experience.
3 This could delve into the problem of the Peter Principle.
4 See the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16), and the parable of the Lost Sheep, Coin, and Son (Luke 15) to blow your mind about how God views fairness, value, and merit.
5 I wish I could say that the Christian bosses I had were all wonderful pictures of this, but unfortunately, the male Christian bosses I had were the worst. They viewed merit and value differently from each other, either as slave drivers or lazy, and thought their position of power afforded them a merit that required less work and more work for those they controlled below. For this reason, any talk of ushering in a government packed with Christians doesn’t set my soul at ease because they are just as sinful as the rest it seems.
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