AppleZulu

gwmac said:

AppleZulu said:

You seem to be confusing the author of the Forbes article as the author of the underlying study, and by extension, the article with the study itself. The Forbes summary isn’t going to include the study’s underlying data. That’s not how that generally works. 

Then, “Data and case studies demonstrate that poorly executed DEI can do more harm than good.”

You’re hilarious. It would be almost axiomatic to say, “Data and case studies demonstrate that poorly executed [insert literally anything here] can do more harm than good.”

In fact, the Forbes article reports statistical outcomes of the underlying study that more or less say exactly the same thing. By comparing companies with “mature,” well-implemented DEI programs with poorly implemented ‘newbies,’ we see that companies that haven’t “done the work” and followed the recommended strategies to (among other things) build trust and buy-in among employees don’t get good results. 

So you took a lot of words to get there, but you’ve essentially reached the same conclusion as the study you mocked. A poorly executed program yields poor results. Nobody in their right mind would argue with that. Your problem is that your rhetoric seeks to conflate that conclusion with one that says any program yields poor results. Those are not the same thing. 

Wow, it’s cute that you assume I’m “confusing” the Forbes author with the study’s author, as if no one realized a Forbes summary isn’t the underlying data source. Here’s the fun part: you’re so busy declaring me “hilarious” for saying “poorly executed [anything] can do more harm than good” that you’ve missed the actual problem—the Forbes piece provides no direct evidence of “well-implemented” DEI success, just a tidy claim that it exists somewhere out there if you “do the work.” That’s a convenient rhetorical flourish when zero specifics are on display.

Sure, the article and study both say “bad DEI = bad results.” Brilliant. Next revelation: water is wet. But since you brought it up, how exactly do we define a “mature” or “well-implemented” DEI program? That’s precisely the point: people keep invoking this mythical “good DEI” without showing robust, replicable data on what it looks like, how it’s measured, and how it avoids the common pitfalls of tokenism, reverse discrimination, and bottom-line bloat.

If your takeaway is that “nobody in their right mind would argue that a poorly executed program yields poor results,” congratulations—nobody argued the opposite. The real question is: Where’s the proof that a so-called ‘well-executed’ DEI program even exists in practice, let alone delivers consistent, measurable benefits? The Forbes summary is silent on that. Hand-waving about “trust and buy-in” does nothing to prove meaningful outcomes if we can’t define them, measure them, or replicate them.

In other words: until someone shows actual evidence for these “mature” DEI programs beyond feel-good references and vague bullet points, you might want to ease up on the self-congratulatory tone. All we’ve got so far is a broad claim that “DEI works when DEI works,” which isn’t exactly the bombshell you think it is.

gwmac said:

So many of these posts are discussing equality, equity, righting past wrongs, and many other noble ideals. However, all of these posts are ignoring the actual topic which concerns DEI programs at companies. 

Are DEI programs effective? I would challenge anyone to provide one single study that proves they cause more good than harm. I can provide dozens of references to support the opposite claim that they do far more harm than good. 

gwmac said:

So many of these posts are discussing equality, equity, righting past wrongs, and many other noble ideals. However, all of these posts are ignoring the actual topic which concerns DEI programs at companies. 

Are DEI programs effective? I would challenge anyone to provide one single study that proves they cause more good than harm. I can provide dozens of references to support the opposite claim that they do far more harm than good. 

SmittyW said:

AppleZulu said:

SmittyW said:

AppleZulu said:

SmittyW said:

AppleZulu said:

hodar said:

Who said that LGBTQ or minorities cannot be qualified?  How about hiring the brightest, the best and most talented without regard to their skin color, their plumbing or things that have absolutely nothing to do with things unrelated to the job?  Hire by merit, that's how Apple got out of the garage.

Funny how “merit” wasn’t important when systematically refusing to hire certain genders and ethnicities was de rigeur. There was no meritocracy then. Now, as soon as anyone talks about systematically extending opportunities to the same people who were previously systematically excluded, we hear how there must be a meritocracy. There’s not much merit in that. 

Agreed. The way to fight hate, is with more hate!

DEI is literally the opposite of hate. Hate is exclusion. Inclusion is literally what the I stands for. Increasing the recruitment pool almost always yields stronger teams. 

Favoring one group or groups over another group is inherently exclusionary to the latter group. Thus, by your definition, DEI is hateful (which is obvious).

You don’t seem to know what the definition of “definition” is. 

Taking down the “whites only” signs in a public high school and escorting black kids in to assure they get the same books and same teachers as the white kids is not “favoring one group or groups over another group.” It is enforcing the opposite. 

Nor is it “favoring” the black kids in that high school to recognize that the deficiencies of the separate-and-unequal jr high and elementary schools they’d been to prior to desegregation means they may need extra assistance to catch up to their white peers who’d always gotten the new books and better facilities. 

Yes, segregation is officially over (though taxpayer funded school voucher initiatives are working hard to restore it), but the unequal treatment continues to this day, and every initiative to change that, from the workplace all the way back to pre-school is met with opposition seeking to retrench the status quo while euphemistically relabeling it as a meritocracy.

It’s just another version of Jim Crow. Remember ol’ Jim? He had a bit of a passive aggressive vibe. “Sure, you can vote, but first you have to correctly tell me how many jelly beans are in this jar.”

Now it’s “Sure, you can compete for jobs in our meritocracy, but first you have to get an education after we’ve sucked the money out of public schools for these new ‘choice vouchers’ that you can’t use because you don’t have transportation to our private schools on the other side of town, and they won’t take a voucher as full tuition anyway. Also, you’d have to apply and be accepted, and clearly you’re unqualified. And don’t you dare accuse us of discrimination, because you can’t prove it. We’ve outlawed collecting demographic info on our admissions, because that would be ‘racist.’ ”

Looks like you've spent a ton of effort asswaging your cognitive dissonance rather than looking objectively at this issue, turning all your positions into unfixable knots. The people pushing DEI are the same ones 'outlawing' demographic info. We spend more money on education for much poorer results relative to other nations. Vouchers don't work because.. transportation? C'mon. Nobody wants to say the "p" word when it comes to education: parents. It's funny how you take the agency away from POC by attributing all of the inequity purely to external factors. It's not a healthy or productive way to deal with this issue. But, people would rather keep the status quo then feel a bit uncomfortable, which, as someone who spent 10 years helping (primarily) POC kids heal from emotional trauma, is disheartening. 

SmittyW said:

AppleZulu said:

SmittyW said:

AppleZulu said:

hodar said:

Who said that LGBTQ or minorities cannot be qualified?  How about hiring the brightest, the best and most talented without regard to their skin color, their plumbing or things that have absolutely nothing to do with things unrelated to the job?  Hire by merit, that's how Apple got out of the garage.

Funny how “merit” wasn’t important when systematically refusing to hire certain genders and ethnicities was de rigeur. There was no meritocracy then. Now, as soon as anyone talks about systematically extending opportunities to the same people who were previously systematically excluded, we hear how there must be a meritocracy. There’s not much merit in that. 

Agreed. The way to fight hate, is with more hate!

DEI is literally the opposite of hate. Hate is exclusion. Inclusion is literally what the I stands for. Increasing the recruitment pool almost always yields stronger teams. 

Favoring one group or groups over another group is inherently exclusionary to the latter group. Thus, by your definition, DEI is hateful (which is obvious).