I started out my professional career with a dream to change the world one student at a time. I was a teacher for 10 years before leaving the profession in pursuit of new horizons. But even though I moved on, I always love hearing from my former students, all in various stages of “adulting,” and learning about their life and career choices. Recently, I had a different kind of a blast from the past when I reconnected with one of my son’s high-school teachers. It was a very interesting conversation because in those years my son was what could only be described as an ideological slacker. He had a fully articulated world-life-view that the high school years were the best time to live life to the fullest and not the time to worry about life goals, achievements, or the long-term future. He decided he had better ways to spend his time than slaving over homework assignments, doing extra-curricular activities, or preparing for college. Fortunately, he later on adjusted his youthful views with a bit of life experience and a desire to enjoy the good things on life when not on parental dime. As the teacher learned about his current accomplishments, she gave me the proverbial pat on the back saying “wow, your radical parenting antics really worked.”
Well, I always feel I am pretty mainstream and was a bit surprised to learn that I was once viewed as even remotely radical. But it did get me thinking about my core parenting beliefs. We indeed didn’t have many rules at home. And we encouraged the kids to focus their energy on thinking for themselves rather than try and please others. We truly consciously tried to not shove our values down our children’s throats and let them learn (sometimes the hard way) from experience and figure out what worked for them, who they wanted to be, and where their own interests lay. We’ve always believed that love is a stronger motivator than doing things out of obligation. We allowed them to experiment and explore possibilities, and sometimes fail and pay the consequences as par for the course. Looking back, it dawned on me that our children grew up in an environment of idea meritocracy, emphasizing their self-fulfillment pursuing their best ideas.
It is a world-view that I strive to implement as an HR professional and coach entrusted with the well-being of the organization’s greatest asset, its people, to support the business. It’s always been clear to me that a company is only as good as its people – in the way it empowers free thinking and leverages the collective knowledge of the team. But it is certainly easier said than done. This is the million dollar question: how to build diverse work environments where the best ideas flourish? One example of how it’s done is provided by Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, in his Ted Talk describing how the company practices “radical transparency” and maintains a meritocratic work environment.
In a world that seems to be changing at a faster and faster pace, changing the decision-making culture has become all the more imperative. With the enormous challenges that face businesses of every size, companies must identify and pursue the best ideas most worthy of further investment of resources and most likely to yield utmost benefits. But how do we determine which ideas are the best? How do we know whether we are on the right path to making a good business decision? Unfortunately, there is never any guarantee of success. But in establishing a business environment that promotes diversity and encourages novel perspectives, companies can facilitate positive outcomes through idea and knowledge-sharing and a rigorous debate. Let the best idea win!
There’s a lot more to this topic, and I’d love to hear your experiences with workplace meritocracy.
