A meritorious approach to merit (part 1)

One might wonder based on earlier posts (here, here, & here), but I’m a true believer in merit. I don’t believe in the empty “merit” of status credentials, or the superficial “merit” of “he seems a lot like me, so he must be great.” I also do not believe in the crony carnival we’ve all been watching lately, which makes a farce out of actual merit (turns out that picking Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense sent the wrong Signal on being merit-based).

And I’m especially tired of the specious claim that diversity, equity, and inclusion are somehow the opposite of merit, when the reverse is so plainly true. DEI is what helps ensure that people different than me in one or more ways, who have merit, will have a fair shot when I make hiring or advancement decisions.

What I do believe in is the merit of having the talents, competencies, and drive to add meaningful value to an organization – to make it successful. But how do we best go about discerning actual merit when we make decisions on who belongs?

When I chatted with Dr. Arin Reeves for an earlier post, I asked for her take on finding merit. Dr. Reeves believes that a candidate’s merit should be determined at the end of an evaluation process, not at the beginning: 

This makes sense to me. So, in this and the following post, let’s dig deeper.

Be clear about what we‘re looking for

It’s human nature that our default instinct is to pick folks who remind us of ourselves, or of that hazy, idealized recollection of what we were like way back when we were hired. This is a bad move, for it’s a missed opportunity to raise the bar. And making selections without criteria clarity opens the door to our biases.

So, being merit-based means first getting clear about the talents, competencies, and aptitudes we seek, and which will lead to success. For new(er) lawyers, these likely include professional competencies (written and verbal communication, research and analytical ability, creativity and flexibility, judgment, professional ethics, and crisis management); work ethic (diligence, efficiency, effectiveness, timeliness, initiative, ambition, and drive); interpersonal skills (teamwork, cooperation, tact, delegation, and supervision), and demonstrated potential for client relations (client interaction, client management, business development). BTW, it’s no coincidence that these selection attributes can be built out as lawyer evaluation competencies across the various stages of a lawyer’s career. It only makes sense to select folks with criteria that align with performance expectations going forward.

But why stop there? If we’re selecting for our firm’s future, shouldn’t we also be looking for what we may not currently have? For example, shouldn’t we be looking for more advanced technology aptitudes than merely “proficient in [basic Office apps]”? If our firm’s practice is industry-focused, why not look for education or involvement in that industry? If our need is in a specialty practice, why not look for specialty certifications, or a commitment to diligently attain them? And since succeeding in law practice is hard, and getting harder, isn’t the demonstrated ability to overcome obstacles a key selection criterion?

The point is to be as clear as possible about what we are looking for, filling the zone with selection criteria to crowd-out our default urge to make gut decisions driven by comfort and bias instead of strategy. Of course we can still select opportunistically, but we shouldn’t do that in a criteria vacuum.

Broaden the candidate pool

Once we’re clear about what we are looking for, why not broaden the candidate pool? Why not look widely, instead of limiting ourselves to the “right” law schools, the “right” backgrounds and experiences, or worse yet, only considering folks who are walking the same path we did? Aren’t we looking for our firm’s future success, instead of what’s merely familiar and comfortable?

We make a huge mistake if we use ineffective proxies for success to arbitrarily limit our candidate pool. That’s an exercise in pointless scarcity. For example, as explained in an earlier post, top law school ranking and high class rank are simply not effective predictors of future lawyer success.

I think some lawyers still use these unreliable proxies because they fear an open-floodgates scenario. But remember Dr. Reeves’ merit analogy above, looking for excellent runners: first we set up trials (we get clear on our selection criteria), then we “are very expansive in who can participate in the trials,” and then we select the top-X finishers. If we are clear about what we are looking for, a broad pool is a benefit, not a detriment. The criteria we’ve chosen will do the winnowing, and with a broader pool we’re less likely to miss out on the talent we truly want.

That leaves the third element – how to use effective techniques to identify actual merit. More on that next time.