Cancelling DEI? Then Out With the NFL Draft
Do you believe that those who are struggling should be given intentional advantages to help them succeed?
What if those advantages are deliberately more favorable than what's offered to those already at the top? What if we created entire systems designed to give extra support, resources, and opportunities to those who are behind?
If you felt a visceral "no" just now, I get it. Such suggestions often trigger immediate pushback about merit, fairness, and earning your way.
But what if I told you that some of America's most beloved and profitable institutions have been doing exactly this for decades? And not only do we accept it - we enthusiastically tune in every week to watch it work?
Welcome to the NFL draft.
Every year, we watch a system that deliberately advantages struggling teams. The Browns don't get told to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." The Giants aren’t accused of cheating when they get early picks of top talent. Instead, we've built entire structures to ensure that those at the bottom get extra help, additional resources, and preferential access to new opportunities.
And here's the kicker: Look at the Kansas City Chiefs heading into Super Bowl 2025 this Sunday. Despite a system that deliberately gives advantages to struggling teams, the Chiefs are appearing in their fourth Super Bowl in five years. Having systematically lower draft picks hasn't destroyed their ability to excel. They've simply had to continue working hard and making the most of their opportunities - just like everyone else.
Giving advantages to those who are behind doesn't automatically diminish those at the top. The Chiefs aren't losing because other teams get better draft picks. Excellence, merit, and hard work still matter – we've just created a system that gives everyone a better shot at achieving them.
Why? Because we understand something fundamental about sports that we seem to struggle with in other contexts: Sometimes, helping those who are behind lifts up the entire game.
Now, let's be clear - the challenges faced by struggling NFL teams aren't directly comparable to the systemic barriers and historical disadvantages faced by marginalized communities in our society. Professional sports franchises worth billions aren't the same as generations of families who've been denied access to education, housing, or career advancement opportunities. The parallel isn't perfect.
But the principle illuminates something important about how we think about advantage and opportunity. If we can understand that giving struggling teams extra support makes the whole league stronger, why do we resist programs designed to give historically disadvantaged groups better access to opportunity? If we celebrate systematic advantage every Sunday, why do we question it on Monday morning?
I don't claim to have the perfect policy solutions for addressing generations of systemic inequality. These are complex challenges that require thoughtful, nuanced approaches. But what I do know is this: There are people and communities who need us, as a society, to create better pathways to opportunity - not handouts, but real chances to compete and excel. Just as we've done in sports, we can create systems that both maintain high standards and ensure everyone has a fair shot at meeting them.
The timing couldn't be more relevant. As we debate dismantling DEI programs in 2025, millions will gather this Sunday to watch our most profitable sports league showcase a system built on the principle that those with the longest distance to cover need extra support to compete. So perhaps before we rush to declare victory over "unfair" corporate DEI initiatives, we should ask ourselves: If we can cheer for equity on the field, why not in the workplace?
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Finding Common Ground
Across the political spectrum, there's broad agreement on these fundamental principles:
- The best person for the role should get the job
- Talent and potential exist in every community
- Hiring decisions should be based on objective criteria
- Unfair advantages or disadvantages shouldn't determine outcomes
- Organizations perform better when they hire the right people
The challenge isn't in these shared values – it's in how to achieve them in practice.
The Power of Data-Driven Hiring
This is where the science of psychometric assessment offers a path forward. By focusing on measurable, innate attributes that predict job success, we can help organizations:
1. Define Success Objectively
Instead of relying on subjective impressions or traditional proxies like education and experience, we can identify the specific cognitive and behavioral traits that drive success in each role. These attributes don't care about demographics – they care about how someone is naturally wired to work.
2. Standardize Evaluation
When every candidate completes the same scientifically validated assessment, measuring the same job-relevant attributes, we create a level playing field. The assessment doesn't know or care about a candidate's background – it measures their innate capabilities.
3. Remove Human Bias
By providing objective data about job-relevant attributes, we reduce reliance on individual opinions or unconscious biases. The numbers don't play favorites – they simply show how well someone's natural drives align with role requirements.
4. Focus on Potential
Rather than overemphasizing past experience or credentials, attribute-based assessment helps identify candidates with high potential who might be overlooked by traditional screening methods. This naturally expands the talent pool while maintaining focus on merit.
Real Results Through Scientific Rigor
Our validation studies demonstrate that focusing on innate attributes leads to:
- Higher performance ratings
- Increased retention
- Greater job satisfaction
- Improved team dynamics
Importantly, these results hold true across all demographic groups because we're measuring fundamental aspects of how people are wired to work – attributes that exist independent of background or circumstance.
Moving Forward Together
Rather than debating abstract concepts or political positions, we can focus on the practical goal we all share: getting the right people into the right roles. By using objective, scientifically validated data to identify and match talent with opportunity, we create better outcomes for:
- Organizations that want high performers
- Candidates who want fair consideration
- Teams that want capable colleagues
- Leaders who want strong results
This approach transcends political debates because it focuses on what actually predicts success in the role. It's not about quotas or preferences – it's about using better tools to identify and select talent based on merit and potential.
The Path Forward
As we move into 2025 and beyond, organizations have an opportunity to rise above political divisions and focus on what works. By adopting scientifically validated, attribute-based assessment tools, we can:
- Make better hiring decisions
- Reduce reliance on biased processes
- Expand access to opportunity
- Drive better business results
This isn't about politics – it's about performance. It's about using the best available tools to identify and select talent based on what actually matters for success in the role.
The future of hiring isn't about picking sides in political debates. It's about leveraging science and data to make better decisions that benefit everyone involved. That's something we should all be able to get behind.
Most leaders spend years building an image of unwavering confidence, believing that showing any weakness will undermine their authority. But research reveals a different reality: the armor of invulnerability that many leaders wear doesn't protect their effectiveness. It limits their impact.
What if everything you've been taught about projecting strength is actually making you weaker as a leader?
The Armor We Wear
Most leaders craft personas of unwavering confidence, always having the right answers, never showing doubt. We wear our invulnerability like armor, believing it protects our authority and earns respect from our teams.
But organizational psychology research consistently confirms: that armor isn't protecting you. It's suffocating the very qualities that make leaders truly powerful. Vulnerable leaders build deeper trust, foster more innovation, and create higher-performing teams than their seemingly perfect counterparts.
The Science Behind Strategic Vulnerability
Research demonstrates that leaders who practice strategic vulnerability see measurable improvements:
76% increase in team trust when leaders acknowledge their limitations
27% higher employee engagement with authentically vulnerable leadership
40% better problem-solving outcomes when leaders admit uncertainty
67% higher psychological safety scores in teams led by vulnerable leaders
These translate directly to business performance through improved employee retention, faster innovation, and more effective decision-making.
Choosing Vulnerability
Every leader faces moments when their old approach stops working. When the armor becomes too heavy. When maintaining perfect facades becomes exhausting and counterproductive.
These are transformation opportunities. Chances to move from image management to authentic leadership that drives real results. The choice to embrace strategic vulnerability requires tremendous strength and confidence, but it's what separates truly effective leaders from those who simply manage through authority.
Three Levels of Vulnerable Leadership
Level 1: Intellectual Vulnerability
Admitting what you don't know instead of pretending to have all the answers. A CEO transforms meetings by starting with "Here's what I'm struggling with this week," creating cultures where problems surface early.
Level 2: Emotional Vulnerability
Sharing appropriate concerns and pressures you're facing. During uncertain times, saying "I'm honestly concerned about how this will work out, but I'm committed to figuring it out together" creates shared determination that false confidence never achieves.
Level 3: Capability Vulnerability
Acknowledging your limitations and seeking help to fill gaps. When leaders admit they're not skilled in certain areas and bring in expertise, they become more effective by leveraging everyone's strengths.
The Vulnerability-Trust Connection
Trust isn't built through perfection. It's built through authenticity. When leaders are vulnerable, they signal that it's safe for others to be human too. This creates psychological safety, the foundation of high-performing teams.
Think about the leaders who have had the biggest impact on your career. They likely weren't the ones who seemed perfect. They were the ones who showed their humanity while maintaining their competence and commitment to others' success.
Practical Applications for Leaders
Start with Intellectual Vulnerability: Admit when you don't know something in low-stakes situations. Ask questions that reveal genuine curiosity about others' perspectives.
Create Feedback Culture: Regularly ask "What should I stop, start, or continue doing as your leader?" Actually listen and act on what you hear.
Model Recovery: When things go wrong, demonstrate how to take responsibility and learn constructively. Frame failures as learning opportunities for the entire team.
Share Learning Moments: When you discover new insights, share them as useful information that models continuous learning at every level.
The Business Impact
Organizations with vulnerable leaders see:
Enhanced Innovation: Teams feel safe to take risks and propose unconventional solutions when leaders model intellectual humility.
Improved Retention: People stay with leaders who see them as whole humans, not just resources to manage.
Faster Problem Resolution: Issues surface earlier when people aren't afraid to bring challenging news to defensive leaders.
Better Decision Making: Leaders access more information and diverse perspectives when team members feel safe to share honest input.
Stronger Culture: Authenticity at the top creates more genuine, productive workplace relationships throughout the organization.
Common Leadership Misconceptions
Strategic vulnerability requires tremendous strength, not weakness. Authentic leadership increases rather than decreases respect and trust. Modern organizations require psychological safety that only vulnerable leaders can create. The real risk is maintaining facades that prevent genuine connection and honest communication.
The Leadership Evolution
The most impactful leaders aren't those who never face challenges. They're the ones who show others it's safe to encounter difficulties, learn from them, and keep moving forward together.
Your team doesn't need you to be invincible. They need you to be real, committed, and brave enough to model the behavior you want to see throughout your organization.
When leaders embrace strategic vulnerability, they create permission for everyone to bring their full capabilities to work. That's when organizations truly thrive.
Modern leadership requires the strength to show your humanity. Are you ready to discover what authentic leadership can accomplish?
You find the candidate.
Flawless resume.
Impressive credentials.
References that sound like fan mail.
You hire them.
Ninety days later, they’re gone.
Or worse, still there, but underperforming.
Sound familiar?
We’ve all been sold the same illusion: that the “perfect hire” exists, and you can find them by skimming for the right buzzwords, schools, and job titles.
Here’s the truth: The perfect hire is a myth. And chasing it is costing you more than you think.
1. The Resume Tells You What They've Done, Not How They'll Work
We've built entire hiring processes around a flawed assumption: that past success in one environment predicts future success in yours.
It doesn't work that way.
A resume shows you what someone has done. It lists skills they've learned and companies they've worked for. But it can't tell you how they're naturally wired to work, which matters far more for long-term success.
Take two candidates with nearly identical backgrounds, same degree, similar experience, comparable skills. Put them in the same role, and their performance will likely be dramatically different.
Why? Because one might be energized by independent problem-solving while the role needs constant collaboration. The other might thrive on structure when your environment demands comfort with ambiguity.
The credentials match perfectly. The natural fit doesn't. And that gap is where 46% of new hires fail within 18 months.
The Better Question:
Instead of "Can they do this job?" The real question is "Will they thrive doing it?"
Skills can be taught. Your systems can be learned. But you can't train someone to be energized by work that drains them.
2. Experience Can't Compensate for Misalignment
We assume experience solves everything. Hire someone with enough years under their belt, and they'll figure it out.
Except they often don't.
Working against your natural wiring is exhausting. It's like being right-handed but forced to use your left hand for everything. You can do it, but it requires constant effort and never feels natural.
When someone's natural drives match what a role requires, something different happens. They don't just work harder, they work more naturally. Tasks that would drain someone else energize them. Problems that would frustrate others engage them.
Organizations tracking this see real differences:
- 40% fewer people leave when natural drives match role requirements
- 3x better productivity compared to misaligned placements
- 67% higher engagement when people work in naturally fitting roles
Experience still matters for knowledge and expertise. But alignment determines whether someone will sustain high performance, or burn out trying.
3. The Real Cost Isn't the Salary. It's the Momentum Lost
HR often cites the cost of a bad hire as 1.5 to 3x the annual salary. SHRM estimates it's closer to 500% of annual salary for mid-level roles once you factor in recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and team disruption.
But even that number misses something bigger: opportunity cost.
Every day someone is misaligned in a role, you're not just losing money. You're losing momentum. You're losing the compounding gains that come from having someone naturally wired to excel.
Think about the projects that don’t launch. The clients who never close. The innovation that stalls. The team morale that drifts.
The cost isn't just what you're spending, it's what you're missing.
4. “Culture Fit” Isn’t a Personality Match, It’s a Drive Match
Everyone talks about hiring for culture fit. But too often, that gets confused with hiring people who seem familiar or agreeable.
Real culture fit means alignment between how someone is naturally driven to work and what your environment actually demands.
Common Misalignments:
- A brilliant analyst in a relationship-first role
- A structure-driven thinker in a fast-paced, chaotic environment
- A natural collaborator placed in solo project work
None of these are skill issues. They’re energy mismatches. And those mismatches compound over time.
The best organizations don’t guess. They get specific about what drives success in each role, and they assess whether candidates are wired for those dynamics.
5. Building Teams That Actually Work
The perfect hire is a myth. Perfect implies someone who excels across all roles, in all environments, under all conditions. That person doesn’t exist.
But the right hire? That’s real.
That’s someone whose natural drives align with what the role truly demands. Someone who doesn’t have to fight their wiring to succeed. Someone who fits, not just on paper, but in practice.
This Isn’t About Lowering Standards
It’s about getting sharper. More precise. More honest about what truly predicts success in your organization, not what reads well on a resume.
Extraordinary teams aren’t made by collecting top credentials. They’re built by aligning the right people with the right roles and letting their strengths do the work.
The Shift Forward
It starts by redefining what success looks like in each role.
Then it takes the right tools to uncover how candidates are naturally wired—not just what they say in interviews.
And finally, it requires the courage to hire for alignment over familiarity.
The question isn’t whether alignment matters, the data confirms it does.The real question is: Are you ready to stop chasing “perfect” and start hiring for what actually works?