Unfair Madness

Fairness is a value I truly believe in, so when I recognize my own short comings in this area I quickly work to improve. For the past 15+ years I have organized NCAA March Madness challenges amongst my staff, friends, and clients. Every year the tournament was only for the men’s side not the women’s. It never even occurred to me that this was a problem until this year. 

As a result of our increased DEI training at House of Kaizen by Liza Talusan, PhD, PCC I have had the opportunity to make significant optimizations in my diversity, equality, and inclusion growth. I am truly grateful for this ongoing training and cannot wait until my next session in a few weeks.

Several weeks before this years tournament I made swift moves to ensure we supported both the women’s and men’s tournaments equally. After locating a platform that would support both (which was surprisingly difficult) I doubled our efforts and setup tournament pools for both across our clients and staff. This was in response to better reflect my personal values and those of my company. I only wish I had come to this realization many years ago. 

Now that the tournaments are well underway there is more and more focus being given to this issue (when none was only a few short weeks ago). Driven by social media posts showing the stark inequality in training facilities and the realization that the term “March Madness” is reserved by the NCAA for the men’s side only, the public is being made more aware of this problem.

While I may not have the same platform as inspiring people like Megan Rapinoe who fight the good fight, I will do what I can and encourage others to as well. This is just one example of a larger effort to be better.

Looking forward to watching some great (men's and women's) college basketball this weekend with my family.