Yesterday’s
Headline
Google fired James Damore, the author of the internal
memo espousing his non-conforming views of diversity. Google’s CEO is reported to have said that
Damore’s piece advanced harmful stereotypical views about the female gender.
Damore will surely sue Google for wrongful termination.
Google and other high tech companies are being
scrutinized by the EEOC for potential discrimination in hiring and pay equity.
The news media has feasted recently on accusations of sexism and the macho
culture of Silicon Valley.
My Initial
Reactions
It is about time that we bring human resources
policies to 21st century standards. No one can with a straight face justify
policies that permit one employee performing similar work to be paid less than
another because of gender nor can anyone with a clear conscience accept the
notion that people should be denied jobs, promotions, and other benefits
because of their gender, race, sexual orientation, national origin, handicap or
age.
As a former Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) of a
publically traded multinational company, it was my professional priority to
combat discrimination and other remnants of a not-too-illustrious employee
relations’ legacy. I discovered, however, that there is a difference between
what senior executives espouse versus what they actually practice. Bias is so
ingrained in most folks that we can be either oblivious to its consequences or
blind to its existence.
Reality
Testing
In the waning years of my career, I saw the emergence
of well-crafted policies and narrative to convince employees and the public of
the inclusion in the corporate credo affirmative action and diversity. These
statements adorn many lobbies and conference rooms.
Departments to combat violations from the espoused
policies have been created with powers to “police” and bring to “justice” those
in management and in the employee population who do not adhere to the company’s
talking points.
One of the unanswered questions is who checks on the cultural or diversity police? As the
power of the police increases, in the eye of the general population, so does
the likelihood that non-conformance goes underground, and that what folks would
not say in public would be said in whispers or in code. Net-net, a good
management intention morphs into a de-facto secret
police.
Informers start to come forth to accuse managers of
unsubstantiated discriminatory practices based on flimsy or concocted critical
incidents. Employees could be labeled as fitting or not fitting the company
culture thus silently dooming their future and hurting their tenure. Afraid to
being labeled misogynists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, or worse, some managers
might take decisions that are not in the best interest of the corporation. This
is not to deny or discount that there are real cases of discrimination!
Ultimately, the resulting lack of candor becomes
corrosive as trust takes its toll, openness disappears, and the Teflon façade that
masks an unhealthy work environment begins to fall apart. Sooner or later, the
thin veneer will give way and the whole system starts crashing down like the
paper house it may become.
Back to the
Headline
I do not agree with what James Damore wrote in his
infamous memo. However, I rise to
defend his right to say it. An organization to be successful in the long run
must cultivate and reward candor. When candor is shortchanged, stuff can go on
in an organization that is undesirable or even illegal.
We laud the whistleblower about going public with wrongdoings,
but we get rid of those whose ideas dissent from ours. James Damore is entitled to the benefit of
the doubt. We cannot ascribe to him motives or intent other than his interest
in starting a dialog. His right to
speak without repercussions must be respected. The notion that speech with
which we do not agree is to be shut off is, in my view, foolhardy.
Like the culture or diversity police before, speech
police is not the antidote we need to combat stereotyping and discrimination.
Let’s hear all opinions! Some will be laughable, others perhaps scary, but let’s
air them out. Preventing people from speaking is akin to muzzling them, raising
the likelihood that our civil discourse gets diminished.
We do not need to purge out those colleagues with
different ideas. It defeats, in my view, the very notion that diversity is more
than skin color or gender. Diversity of ideas is crucial to effective team
problem solving and decision-making and must be protected.
We live in a divided nation. What is happening at
Google mirrors what is going on in our society. You have those who are in and
those who are out, those who have power and those who don’t, and somewhere in
between.
Google’s
Challenge
The CEO of Google missed a great opportunity of
turning a lemon into great lemonade … How? By using the ruckus the memo created
to defend Google’s commitment to candor. He has announced a town meeting with
all employees. I don’t know what he might say, but I suspect he will not defend
free speech. I hope I am wrong!
Great leaders
get in front; they do not lead from behind!
I agree. The CEO could have created an opportunity for dialogue. We claim to me a nation where there is freedom of speech, so why not at Google?
ReplyDeleteI'm splitting my comment into several parts because this blog does not accept comments with more than 4,096 characters...
ReplyDeleteTony, I read Damore's memo. On the one hand, Damore was incredibly brave to raise the concerns he did in his memo given how counter-cultural they are at Google. On another hand, I find his memo clumsy because he makes assertions that purport to be factual (at least the way he expresses them makes it appear he intends them to be such). However, the differences he asserts between men and women may or may not be supportable by social science research and he does not provide any supporting evidence. Had he supported his assertions with reasonable references or had he expressed those assertions as his own opinions I would have found the memo better-constructed.
I do have sympathy for most of his basic points: men and women are different on average, it is worth considering whether those average differences may be relevant to suitability to tech/ leadership in a given work environment, those average differences mask significant overlap in individual differences, and efforts to indoctrinate to the contrary are misplaced. I agree with his point that fewer women in software engineering or in the leadership of companies whose core business is software engineering is not prima facie evidence of gender discrimination.
However, I do NOT have sympathy for fundamental intention of the memo: to stir debate in Google in a public forum about a matter of settled corporate practice. (Unless, of course, it is Google's policy to encourage people to do so...I am assuming it is not.)
Companies get to determine, within our laws, how they want to operate: what values they want to champion, what attitudes and behaviors they want to encourage or discourage. A company has every right to fire employees who do not align with those stated values, attitudes, and behaviors. Allowing people to publicly argue contrary to what a company is trying to achieve in its culture is not acceptable.
For example, let's imagine a company whose executives and policies are clear it wants to promote people based on their performance and on their ability to contribute to the success of the business. What would we say about a manager who wrote a public memo decrying that policy and arguing she felt it far more important to promote people based on their loyalty irrespective of performance or potential?
Is this manager engaging in acceptable "freedom of speech" (more on that below)? Should this different viewpoint be welcomed for discussion? Or should this manager be fired because she is actively undermining company policy?
....more
.....
ReplyDeleteIn my view, if you do not like/ agree with a company's corporate policies or culture, you have three choices: (1) put up with it, (2) work within the norms of the company to change it if you are in a position to do so (not everyone is), or (3) or leave. Upon leaving you have every right to make public your displeasure/ disagreement with that company (unless you agreed contractually not to do so).
As an aside, the most shocking aspect of his memo for me was the degree to which it suggests that polarized political thinking (Left versus Right) permeates so much of Google's culture and colors so much of the thinking of its employees, from execs on down. And, by implication, how much that coloration exists throughout the culture of Silicon Valley/ technology companies. I guess I'm from the "old school" in which your political views are private to yourself and not relevant to your broader social and business relations.
Mr. Damore makes the mistake of assuming -- or expecting/ desiring -- that the workplace is like academia: a place in which open debate about any subject is permissible, indeed, encouraged. It is not. Nor should it be. The workplace is not another forum where any ideas can and should be allowed their free expression. I emphasize "any." Indeed, companies have a strong interest in encouraging debate about problems that confront its economic success...but always within given strategic/ cultural boundaries. Too many people, IMHO, imagine that "Freedom of Speech" as imagined by our Founders means that anyone can and should be allowed to say whatever they want, whenever they want. That's certainly not what our Founders meant by Freedom of Speech.
The whole point of the concept of "organization culture" is that culture sets the rules for what is debatable and what is not. And, not everything is debatable within an organization.
Great points, JP. I wish you could also comment on the impact on candor - a factor that I know you support.
Delete