Trump Trips into Merit Trap

As President Trump shuts down DEI programs across the USA and promotes appointing 'on merit', the question arises, how do we measure 'merit'? Are we really looking for the best person or just someone like us? The danger with ‘merit’ is that the concept of ‘best person for the job’ can simply be shorthand for keeping things the way they have always been. While selecting those who think, look and act like us may make us feel more comfortable, it is not necessarily in line with an organisation’s future direction.

Too often merit is used to imply a package of admirable qualities that we innately recognise as good and safe. This is a problem for women and minority groups working in male-dominated environments where there are deeply held beliefs and norms about who is suitable for leadership.

McKinsey has been one of the most vocal advocates for diversity over the past decade, and their research revealed that organisations that thought of themselves as ‘meritocracies’ were more likely to show greater bias towards men over equally qualified women. Their study found managers in these organisations tended to believe they were objective and didn’t examine their unconscious biases. Now McKinsey says it will promote a ‘diverse meritocracy’ to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI programs (AFR 12 Feb, 2025). But it has reassured its workforce that nothing has changed. Unfortunately, many other multi-national organisations are leaving DEI programs to keep in Trump's favour.

With Trump's attack on diversity, it's even more important to remember an organisation’s overarching goal for selecting an individual should be to build the most effective team. Don't just select individuals without considering the make-up of the full team. To quote retired General Angus Campbell, former Chief of the Defence Force. “Institutional merit is not the same as individual merit. If you choose a senior executive team based only on individual merit, you get a monologue. Institutional merit creates a strong diverse Army, not a strong list of individuals.” Personally, I think this is a huge point which often gets missed!

Organisations still need to be proactive if they are really going to avoid the ‘merit trap’. In 2016, Chief Executive Women and Male Champions of Change released a report: In the eye of the beholder: Avoiding the merit trap, with a number of suggestions to mitigate biases. It argues that just stating ‘I always appoint the best person for the job’ is not enough.

If you are truly looking for the best person for your leadership team and want to appoint on merit try asking yourself:

·?????? Is your preferred candidate just like you, or the predecessor?

·?????? Does your organisation struggle to retain diverse recruits?

·?????? What is your idea for the ‘best’ candidate? Are you labelling candidates with different styles, skills and experiences as risky or a poor team fit?

·?????? Are the criteria based on the future strategic needs of the organisation or past requirements?

·?????? Are you hiring on technical capabilities, which can be taught or bought, rather than core capabilities like agility, broad-mindedness and ability to operate in an unknown environment?

If you answered ‘yes’, then your bias may be getting in the way of the right outcome for your organisation. One that is based on merit.

When organisations take steps to avoid the merit trap, they open up access to the full talent pool, both men and women, to identify the best candidate for a particular role within a team and consequently take advantage of diverse thinking, perspectives and experiences.

Dr Tessa Boyd-Caine Amanda Blesing FARPI Lesley Jordan Marcus Sandmann Cathy Foley Christina Hardy Krystyna Weston Alexis George Marianne Hutchinson Emeritus Professor Christine Bennett AO Felicity Flack Lindley Edwards Ph.D Simone Wright Kylie Houlihan