Lockheed Martin was once a great place to work. I had a great career there initially and for many years to come. There was real opportunity for advancement if you had the drive to grow and change as the business and the world evolved. But time marches on and our country has changed and so has Lockheed Martin. Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion was once a noble effort to help to raise “underrepresented” people up in our society with opportunities so that everyone could have a shot at being prosperous and doing well as long as they put on the work and got some training or education or both.
Now a few years ago things started to change – a DE&I tipping point if you will – where our culture war changed a key term from “equality” to “equity”. They sound almost the same like “fish” and “fishy” for example. You have to be listening very closely to even notice the swap and yet they could not be more different in meaning or practice.
You see “equality” meant that regardless of race and gender and sexual or religious preference, employees who put in the effort could be treated equally both in terms of salary and position as it should be.
“Equity” on the other hand meant an equal result regardless of the effort put in. This seemingly subtle swap of terms has driven LM and our country to places we did not want to ever go. It has created and now fostered an environment where certain genders and races can be treated with never-before-seen levels of sanctioned bigotry and relentless and brazen marginalization.
DE&I now puts goals and quotas on hiring and promotions within certain industries based on race, gender, and sexual preference. It sounds altruistic and good on the surface though and diversity does contribute to innovation without a doubt after all. Well so does character, brilliance, skills, fairness, and freedom. So hypothetically speaking let’s say that you have arrived: You have hired and promoted thousands of employees based primarily on race and gender and put less importance on character or skills for the most part. Try to imagine how well a corporation’s or a society’s ability to think critically, manage through crisis, or be creative, or to succeed overall might be. Can you still conceive of or build great airplanes or rockets?
“Inclusion” is now code for promote or hire anyone except for those fully qualified yet unlucky souls that find themselves to be in no way diverse enough in one way or another.
“Diversity” is code for reverse racism.
What is missing in all of this? God and His goodness are missing. He’s really still right here, all around you though if you listen to your heart closely. God will teach us that true diversity is truly great as long as it includes brotherly love and does not seek to divide. Think of humanity as a human body. The hands respect and love the feet. The ears love the eyes. What if the hand refused to protect the eyes from getting stuck by a stick?
Diversity is great until it goes beyond its intention. Equality is a great achievement for a society. Equality is just and fair while equity is not. Equity is quite a different concept than equality. Equality concerns itself with opportunities, while equity concerns itself with outcomes.
Diversity needs to have love in it and should not create a whole new era of bigotry and exclusion.
Today in our country, employers including Lockheed Martin, are employing a new as yet unnoticed and unnamed type of bigotry to quietly and unjustly manipulate and stifle many people’s careers. This cancer will harm all people of all races and genders ultimately. We need to grow up and stop this runaway DE&I train. Let’s get back to hiring and promoting based on skills and character and treat all human beings equally and fairly.
