“The more managers believe their organization is a meritocracy, the more likely they be to display the very biases they seek to prevent.” That is the conclusion reached by Emilio J. Castilla, Professor at MIT;s Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute of Work & Employment, based on his extensive research of meritocracy in the workplace.

The idea of selecting and promoting individuals based strictly on job-related performance was once a progressive response to hiring and promotion decisions biased toward inherited wealth or race. The word “meritocracy” is today being used to reduce hiring/promotion decisions that use non-job related factors such as race, physical disability, or gender as positive factors.

As the late expert in organizational behavior Chris Argyris observed, many companies “espouse” meritocracy. They provide time and money to train hiring managers about the dangers of unconscious bias and the importance of focusing on merit. Nevertheless, as Castilla’s research shows,........

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