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DEI Derangement Syndrome: Monoculture, NOT DEI, is the Real Threat

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Image Credit: Do What Matters Data Sources: McKinsey, Gallup, Accenture, Deloitte

The DEI-Deranged spread their rage, paranoia, and misinformation about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) like a virus on a cruise ship. For my stalwart efforts to relieve their suffering through education and data, I’ve received public and private messages that go something like this:

“You’re a racist!

“You write drivel.”

“DEI IS STUPID! HIRED QUALIFIED PEOPLE!”

“Isn’t preferential treatment illegal? It’s just racism in reverse.

I am besieged by personal anecdotes that regale me with sad and tragic tales of losing a job to a DEI hire. These correspondents believe they were more qualified and deserving of these positions. Many of these tales highlight the years invested in searching for what they say is “the job I deserved,” only to be thwarted by the multitudes of diabolical “DEI Hires.” Even though the numbers don’t support their argument, it’s the only explanation that makes sense to the monoculturalists faced with the competition of an increasingly global and multicultural world.

Riled up by the monoculture infecting the current U.S. presidential administration, the DEI Deranged, the people shouting that diversity is killing merit, businesses, and America, are a noisy bunch, making the signal of rationality almost impossible to hear. They mockingly use the code of so-called “DEI hires” to imply that talented people of color, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ professionals, veterans, and those of, shall we say, a certain age, defy the probabilities and are somehow being gifted jobs out of charity rather than competition.

So, using my own code, I’ll call out the real performance problem: the Monoculture Hire.

We’ve all seen them. It’s the sea of sameness in offices and boardrooms. They’re often underqualified cronies, never truly vetted by those who know what and who is really needed. Always overconfident. They perpetually whine about a meritocracy that never existed, thinking their grievance hides the well-traveled path of cronyism.

They sail into leadership roles thanks to connections, not competence. They’re not just common in corporate America — they’re dominant. And when leadership teams are too similar in background, education, and worldview, bad decisions get mistaken for bold ones. That’s not a culture of excellence. That’s a monoculture — and it’s bad for business.

🧠 The Data Doesn’t Lie (Even If the Monoculture Does)

Let’s start with the numbers.

I’ll lay the groundwork with foundational data on white-collar workers in the U.S. Why? Well, some have called me a racist because I have focused many of my articles on the experiences of those with Black lives, mainly because I HAVE ONE. I also do this because my correspondents inundate me with anecdotal stories that may reflect individual experiences but rarely provide a larger, verifiable picture of corporate America.

  • Disability Related Bias: A 2024 survey revealed that 25% of disabled workers experienced discrimination during the job interview process, indicating significant barriers to entry into white-collar positions. ​hr-brew.com Approximately 33% of workers with disabilities reported experiencing discrimination in the workplace, highlighting ongoing challenges in achieving equitable treatment. ​Inc.com
  • Age-Related Bias: A large-scale U.S. study involving over 40,000 job applications found that older applicants (ages 64–66) received significantly fewer callbacks than younger applicants, despite having similar qualifications. The discrimination was more pronounced for older women. Bureau of Labor Statistics
  • Race Related Bias: A 2023 study involving 83,000 applications to Fortune 500 companies revealed that white applicants were approximately 9% more likely to receive callbacks than Black applicants, with disparities reaching up to 24% at certain firms. American Economic Review
  • LGBTQ+ Related Bias: A 2023 survey by the Williams Institute found that nearly half (47%) of LGBTQ employees reported experiencing workplace discrimination or harassment, such as being fired, not hired, or not promoted, due to their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their careers. ​Williams Institute
  • Veterans Related Bias: Research by Keeling et al. (2018) found that veterans frequently encounter discrimination during the hiring process, especially if they served in combat roles. Employers often express concerns about potential mental health issues, leading to reluctance in hiring veterans with such backgrounds. ​ResearchGate
  • Gender Related Bias: In 2021, women working full-time earned approximately 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. This gap was wider among managers, with women earning about 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. ​GAO

If I’ve missed key groups, I sincerely apologize. For those who call me a racist for advocating for DEI, this should offer you proof that DEI programs aren’t just about Black and Brown lives and livelihoods.

Now, let’s review data from respected research sources showing how most DEI programs in corporate America outperform the monoculture.

  • 💰 Companies in the top quartile for ethnic and gender diversity outperform those in the bottom by 36% in profitability (McKinsey, 2023).
  • 🧩 Diverse teams make better decisions 87% of the time (HBR, 2016).
  • 🧠 Inclusive teams are 6x more innovative (Deloitte, 2018).
  • 📉 Diverse organizations show 27% higher profitability, 22% lower turnover (Gallup, 2020).

So no, DEI isn’t a charity program. It’s a strategy — one that works.

When Monoculture Runs the Show, It Does Not End Well

So much for the data. I know how much the DEI Deranged love anecdotes, so let’s look at a few cautionary tales:

1. The 2008 Financial Crisis

A catastrophic failure of risk management led by all-white, mostly all-male executive boards. Their greed, without guardrails, compelled them to sell subprime mortgage-backed securities to people they knew shouldn’t have them. Then, they watched the economy collapse. The monoculture thought it was smart. It was greedy and stupid. They got bailed out, and the rest of us paid the price.

2. The Trump Organization

The current president and Monoculture-in-Chief managed to bankrupt six businesses, including a casino. A casino. How is that even possible? That’s like losing money selling water in the desert. Yet he markets himself as a business genius. He surrounds himself with sycophantic, monocultural loyalists who wouldn’t recognize a qualified candidate if handed a résumé with a gold-embossed cover.

3. The Crony-in-Chief

Take a look at Trump’s cabinet of Monoculture Hires. We’ve got:

  • Convicted criminals with no security clearance.
  • Appointees chosen for loyalty over competence.
  • Foreign policy disasters and economic faceplants. All brought to you by a team that’s about as diverse as a Vineyard Vines outlet in Idaho.

Scaling Back on DEI? Let’s Talk About That

Yes, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Accenture have all recently scaled back their DEI programs. Not because DEI didn’t work, but because public pressure from the monoculture mob made it risky to be rational.

Ironically, here’s what they’ve all said about DEI:

Scaling back isn’t about merit — it’s about politics and cronyism. They didn’t get rid of DEI to get the “best people.” They did it to quiet the irrational rage of the DEI Deranged. That’s not courage. That’s cowardice.

Let’s Flip the Script on “DEI Hires”

Next time someone sneers “DEI hire,” try this:

  • “You mean someone who outperformed a monoculture crony who got his job because of a LinkedIn cart full of golf buddies?”
  • “You mean someone hired with accountability, instead of for loyalty?”
  • “You mean someone statistically more likely to boost innovation, revenue, and employee retention?”

Yeah, I’ll take that “DEI hire.”

Here’s My Bottom Line: Inclusion-First DEI Drives Growth

DEI doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means widening the lens.

As the CEO of an inclusion-first consultancy, I never supported preferential treatment. Our teams go beyond DEI to ensure talent, ALL TALENT, feels safe, heard, valued, and productive.

Our approach:

  1. We train our clients on how to fish in bigger ponds. We advocate for a broader and more diverse pool of candidates to ensure broad representation during the hiring process. Meritocracy is a myth, but finding the right people to do the right jobs requires searching beyond the typical boundaries.
  2. We implement team-based hiring systems, enabling our clients to move beyond the chains of cronyism. There’s nothing wrong with referrals, but team-based hiring allows more employees to vet candidates, ensuring that referral candidates are more than just someone’s golf buddy. Team-based hiring also reduces the interview-to-hire time by 50 percent, making it more efficient than the one-on-one interviewing that allows monoculture to thrive.
  3. We train clients to craft more effective, transparent job descriptions clearly outlining the jobs to be done and the path to job success, backed by achievable metrics.
  4. We provide interview training so our clients limit themselves to asking relevant questions about what candidates need to fulfill job objectives and successfully meet success metrics.
  5. We provide our clients with our Job Success Index, which is built on a standardized rating scale to enable our clients to evaluate candidates more objectively. This ensures that preferences for playing golf, kayaking, or belonging to elite fraternities aren’t used to block great talent or hire talent that doesn’t meet the requirements.
  6. We advocate for team-based evaluation and promotion processes of employees’ colleagues and managers, whose primary responsibility should be guiding their hires to job success. This approach minimizes the likelihood that a single, biased opinion will end someone’s career before it even begins.

Successfully implementing these practices, whether you refer to them as DEI or not, empowers employers to hire beyond the same schools, backgrounds, and circles. In turn, they experience less groupthink and more creativity and innovation. Groupthink erodes the creativity, innovation, and revenue necessary to remain competitive in the 21st century.

Ironically, DEI, if done right, doesn’t start with diversity. It begins with radically changing how we manage talent in the 21st century. Progressive talent management practices, when executed effectively, view inclusion as an input and diversity as an outcome. The result is a talent force that is more competent, creative, and innovative, representing the experiences more relevant to driving growth and achieving successful global business outcomes.

Monoculture? It just drives companies — and countries — off a cliff.

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Age of Awareness
Age of Awareness

Published in Age of Awareness

Stories providing creative, innovative, and sustainable changes to the ways we learn | Tune in at aoapodcast.com | Connecting 500k+ monthly readers with 1,500+ authors

Dr. Lauren Tucker
Dr. Lauren Tucker

Written by Dr. Lauren Tucker

A subversive writer looking to save humans from themselves, an exile, not an expat, and a founder of Do What Matters and Indivisible Chicago.

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