Cassius wrote:The Chief wrote:Cassius wrote:
Yes, because all of the consistently mediocre and terrible franchises that have only hired men, are focused entirely on bringing in the best expertise and talent.
No franchise has "only hired men," there is zero correlation between gender and how "mediocre and terrible franchises" are fostered, and no one asserted mediocre and terrible franchises were "focused entirely on bringing in the best expertise and talent."
Silver's belief that gender diversity = greater competence is cheap and lazy virtue signaling. If there were two spots being added to a front office of 5 males and 3 females, with two perfectly qualified male candidates and two subpar female candidates under consideration, he'd hire the females just to bring the staff to 5 males and 5 females. Gender is not talent. Talent is talent. Hire accordingly.
Harvard Business Review just came out with a report stating that the Fortune 500 firms that were most diverse actually outpaced the others. The argument is (at a minimum) that the more people you have with different perspectives, the more you reduce organizational blind spots (that, if left unchecked, can lead to a Mavericks situation). For example, I didn't care about changing tables in bathrooms until I became a dad and once had to change my son's diaper on an outdoor bench at a truck stop. I'm sure if ExxonMobil or whoever it was had a woman/mother on the facility design team that would be less likely to happen.
Same as the whole Redskins thing with the cheerleaders whose passports were taken while on a season-ticket holder trip to the Caribbean. I doubt a woman thought it was okay to have a bunch or random dudes watching a topless photo shoot. Or, it's less likely that a woman would have supported that. That's all it is.
In the midst of today's male-shaming #metoo culture, it's probably best to take such reports with a grain of salt. And I'm sure there were extensive studies done on truck stop bathroom uses, with the idea of mothers and fathers taking children into frequently in-use bathrooms simply not making the cut. As a man, just imagining a vulnerable woman changing a diaper while strangers of every strain shuffle in and out with her back turned is enough for me to nix that option. It's neither safe nor sanitary, not to mention that not every convenience can be accounted for in public buildings/spaces.
I'm all for women being in management and leadership positions, but not if it's simply for her female perspective as Silver seems to embrace. One example to consider is AMP in Australia with gender quotas for their board - goal of 50% females in management roles regardless of qualification. They recently were mired in a corporate scandal when 3 gender diversity hire females were part of defrauding clients and were forced to resign and face criminal charges.
This sort of thing happens when candidates are placed in positions that are over their head. They flounder and harm the company. My old company did just that with two females just because they wanted females in management positions. These two teamed up to try to usurp duties of their male counterparts and essentially power grab to protect against being exposed as incompetent. They left together 6 months later.
It's examples like these that tell me we need to pump the brakes on the latest "I am woman, hear me roar" movement. What good is the female perspective if said female can't perform the actual role.
