Emilio J. Castilla’s recent book, The Meritocracy Paradox: Where Talent Management Strategies Go Wrong and How to Fix Them (2025) will likely fall victim to the anti-woke book-ban with the current administration’s exclusive focus on “merit.”
What’s wrong with merit hard work and talent? Nothing. Why is this book a chopping block? Because it focuses on the downsides of Merit when there’s a neglect of Fairness — that’s the paradox. Castilla shows how Merit focus alone can have unintended consequences of inadvertently exacerbating a bias when decision-makers adopt a false sense of objectivity that makes them less vigilant about their biases. There’s an important reality about values — that it is — they come in pairs. However, talking about “fairness” in this current environment will likely get a “WOKE” label — as much as it pains me to say it. Presently, there’s little-to-no supplementing Either/Or-thinking with Both/And-thinking. And I speak from some experience. Recently, a book I used since 2020 in a University Program I’ve taught in since 2014 that deals with paradox (“And, making a difference by leveraging polarity, paradox, or dilemma: Vol. 1. Foundations” by Barry Johnson), was banned. I was told to remove the reference from the syllabus.
We’ll see how Castilla fares with it at MIT Sloan where he is a Professor of Management and Professor of Work and Organization Studies. I hope it survives because it has empirical studies and real-world examples about how biases and inconsistent definitions of merit can undermine fairness in organizations. Part of the problem is one we run into quite often in the Polarity Thinking community that has to do with clarifying values and how we define terms. His argument is that the concept of “merit” is defined and applied inconsistently across managers and contexts with different evaluators — even within the same organization. The varying interpretations of merit then can have the effect of producing subjectivity and inconsistency, at scale.
If talent managers and others used a Polarity Map to clarify the values and language (“Polarity Reality” #48 in Appendix C from “And” mentioned above), it would be easier to see the simplicity behind the complexity — and how to leverage the interdependency at play in the challenge/opportunity. The bottom line is there are downsides to Merit without Fairness and Fairness without Merit — there are two potential ways to exacerbate biases! I’ve seen what he described myself back in my HR days at The Washington Post Company. With all best intensions, I know I was vulnerable to adopting “best practices,” whether DEI training or performance rating systems. The problem wasn’t DEI — it was applying something like it out of context without first diagnosing their specific challenges (or ensuring there is a dual strategy approach in the paradox/polarity). We can address unique challenges and opportunities of an organization without over-correcting with off-the-shelf solutions that frustrate and fail. Misapplying or misusing “fairness” tools/approaches can be just as frustrating “merit” producing subjectivity/inconsistency across a system.
Those involved in talent development processes in organizations can benefit from Castilla’s wonderful work by combining it with Polarity Thinking and the Polarity Map. The pitfalls for both downsides can be captured and data-driven, tailored interventions can be identified in the Action Steps. By organizing the wisdom, organizations can create a more complete picture that shows the focus on transparency, consistency, and accountability in recruitment, evaluation, promotion, and compensation processes. (See his research-backed frameworks designed to reduce bias and improve fairness in talent management systems in Part III, Building Meritocratic Organizations).
While these may not work for every organization or context, they’re a great start. The point is to capture and organized the wisdom to learn from experience to best leverage the “Merit And Fairness” polarity/paradox on the path to attaining and sustaining the Greater Purpose/s.
I’m wishing Emilio the best to avoid his work being banned. My hunch is that even the slightest nuance of questioning meritocracy in this EITHER/OR — BLACK/WHITE environment won’t fare well. If that’s the case, we’ll all be worse-off because of it.
SUGGESTIONS for Leveraging the Talent Development Paradox/Polarity:
- Map the Polarity for your organization with a cross-section of people most impacted by talent development decisions;
- Develop a Dual-strategy that includes:
Action Steps for both upsides; and, - Measurable Early Warning Signs for each downside (to help prevent risk of each downside occurring – for either Merit w/out Fairness and Fairness w/out Merit — that can be tracked, over time.)
