What I learned today about the Church

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

Shouldn't God decide if the leadership is diverse enough? After all, he is the one calling the leaders. The person making the calling is only speaking for God. Maybe He hasn't taken the diversity training classes yet.

It depends on how the calling process works. My posts above describe how I think it works (though I am admittedly just guessing).

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

It depends on how the calling process works. My posts above describe how I think it works (though I am admittedly just guessing).

Bingo. I think that says it all right there.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Bingo. I think that says it all right there.

And so is anyone else (including you).

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

And so is anyone else (including you).

I'm not the one accusing them of wrongdoing.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

I'm not the one accusing them of wrongdoing.

My statements this entire time have been premised on my belief of how the calling process works. You would know that if you took time to read any of the posts before responding.

[BigFatMeanie]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

Again, you have necessarily disqualified everything as a factor used in decisionmaking.

Should we look at a person's experience in deciding if they should be a CEO? Why should we? We have no possible way of measuring the net outcome of promoting experience absolutely. While the one with experience may tend to provide better leadership, we could be overlooking the one person who would be the greatest leader the company has ever had, even though they have no experience.

Should we look at education for hiring a CEO? Why? While statistics may show that education predicts better success as a CEO, we can't possibly know if an uneducated person would do better.

Should we limit applicants for CEO to a certain age group? Why? A 14 year old could turn out to be fantastic (did you see "Big" with Tom Hanks?).

You are demanding a standard for diversity that isn't possibly satisfied with any other standard. How can we ever know the absolute net effect of an action or decision?

As a result, you go with what statistically is best. And, for the record, the studies linked do discuss negative possible consequences of diversity.

Your threshold of tolerance for risk appears to be very low. How do you decide each day if you should drive to work or walk? You couldn't possibly know all of the net outcomes of each decision. If you walk, you could bump into Donald Trump who could give you a slot on the Apprentice where you could become a millionaire. If you drive, you could be killed in an accident. If you walk, you could be hit by a bus. If you drive, you could get to work really early and impress your boss for a huge promotion. But if you walk, you could get really sexy legs that could land you a spot on a soap opera when a talent agent sees you. So many choices!!! Better to stay in bed. Unless...

Including past experience in the qualification equation is far less risky and has far more proven benefits than something as amorphous, ephemeral, and subjective as "diversity" Your attempt to engage in social engineering for the purpose of achieving dubious benefits without accounting for any costs.

The first study that I read so far (the Stanford one conducted with groups of people at four different universities) didn't measuring any risks of social engineering to achieve diversity. In addition, the biggest benefit they could cite was "the novelty factor". The benefits of increase in IC factor (Integrative Complexity) were less than the "novelty" of having diversity. The study also noted that all other studies performed to date on diversity had subjective criteria and the participants were self-selecting. The Stanford studies participants were also self-selecting but went through a screening process beforehand. I haven't read the other ones yet.

When I hire an employee I can tell you exactly how much experience I am looking for, I can also tell you what skillset they need. I can come up with measure and quantify their experience and skillset and measure the results. You can't even tell me how much diversity you need - you just think you need it. Far less risk in using experience and skillset in my qualification equation than in using "diversity".

[BigFatMeanie]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

1. It starts by assuming that zero blacks isn't enough and goes from there.

2. It is a religious organization with pretty rigid rules. Aren't we getting a bit silly by suggesting we should have religious diversity in the ranks? And gaining diversity among classes, races, geography, etc. will create the other kinds of diversity you are asking about (like political affiliation, etc.).

3. The difficulty of determining an ideal level of diversity isn't an argument against seeking out diversity. In effect, your argument could just as well read, "How can we ever attain perfection? Since we know we can't ever attain perfection, why should we ever strive to attain it?"

Re: #2 - Although the thread started out about religion, I have repeatedly geared my discussion towards diversity in general and not as it pertains to what the thread originally talked about. Thus, you know full well that I'm not referring to religious diversity in a religious organization.

Your suggestion that promoting diversity in geography, race, etc. will lead to diversity in other areas is not supported by the lack of political diversity in the "Academy", collectively one of the biggest diversity pushers, of which I believe you are a member (or want to be a member).

Cheers,

BFM

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

Including past experience in the qualification equation is far less risky and has far more proven benefits than something as amorphous, ephemeral, and subjective as "diversity" Your attempt to engage in social engineering for the purpose of achieving dubious benefits without accounting for any costs.

The first study that I read so far (the Stanford one conducted with groups of people at four different universities) didn't measuring any risks of social engineering to achieve diversity. In addition, the biggest benefit they could cite was "the novelty factor". The benefits of increase in IC factor (Integrative Complexity) were less than the "novelty" of having diversity. The study also noted that all other studies performed to date on diversity had subjective criteria and the participants were self-selecting. The Stanford studies participants were also self-selecting but went through a screening process beforehand. I haven't read the other ones yet.

"Experience" isn't as solid as you are pretending it to be. What do you mean by experience? Length of time as an employee? Actual time working for that employee on a certain type of work? Does it factor in the ability of that individual to learn the type of work in which the employee has "experience?" In other words, I could work for 3 years in the biotech industry, but I could be a slower learner than most other people and actually only get what you would consider to be 6 months of real experience at that job. How do you define experience? How do you measure it? What is the perfect level of experience? How do you know when someone has that perfect level?

The only way you can measure if someone has just the right amount of experience you are looking for is to hire them and then begin measuring. The same could be said of diversity.

Take the legal profession as an example. They go through several rounds of interviews, they scrutinize academic performance, they require personal recommendations (frequently), they look at past experience, and after all of that, the turnover rate is at over 30% per year. Are you sure you want to hang your hat on the determinative nature of "experience?"

Take a look at the rest of the studies and get back to me.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

Re: #2 - Although the thread started out about religion, I have repeatedly geared my discussion towards diversity in general and not as it pertains to what the thread originally talked about. Thus, you know full well that I'm not referring to religious diversity in a religious organization.

Your suggestion that promoting diversity in geography, race, etc. will lead to diversity in other areas is not supported by the lack of political diversity in the "Academy", collectively one of the biggest diversity pushers, of which I believe you are a member (or want to be a member).

Cheers,

BFM

And I have repeatedly drawn it back to religion. I am not pretending to be able to speak about how diversity can function in a vacuum. I am focusing on the specific nature of the church (and using scientific studies that are available to analogize where applicable).