Merit

Last month, when it was possible to visit art galleries in London, I spent an hour looking at paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi at the National Gallery.  Despite her reputation in her lifetime as the greatest woman artist of her age – she was born in 1593 and died around 1654 – and, since we never qualify our judgments of male artists in that way, let me say more correctly that she was one of the greatest artists of her age, nonetheless this is the first exhibition devoted to her work in the United Kingdom.  She managed her own career and reputation, living and working at various times in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and London, mixing with interesting people, securing important patronage, and making a significant number of impressive paintings.  This, after surviving the trauma and humiliation of being raped in her late teens by an associate of her father’s, who was later found guilty at trial and exiled.  She was, then, a person who overcame an early crisis, to flourish in her chosen career at a time when the achievement of personal independence and professional success were rare for women.  She did not allow the disadvantages imposed on her by others to deflect her determination to succeed.  Her life is an exemplary case of well-earned success, even if it has taken 350 years for the management of Britain’s art galleries to take due notice. 

The neglect of Artemisia’s achievement, by other artists, scholars, critics, and gallery-goers, is hardly unique.  There are many women whose work has been ignored, trivialised, excluded from the museums and auction houses, despite its evident qualities.  A year ago, the Barbican Centre held an exhibition of work by the American artist Lee Krasner, only her second solo show in London (the first, held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1965), demonstrating that abstract expressionism was never solely a male preoccupation, despite the fact that both public and private collections continue to prioritise work by Pollock, Rothko, and de Kooning over work of comparable quality by Krasner, Frankenthaler, and Mitchell.   One of Krasner’s teachers, Hans Hofmann, once said of her work, “this is so good you would not know it was painted by a woman.”  Under a certain view of the world, this might count as a compliment.  Alternatively, it reflects the impoverished and uneducated character of the standard male gaze.

One of the challenges of looking at art is to avoid seeing what we already believe to be there.  When I observe people in galleries, many make use of recorded commentary delivered through headphones, which explains something about the making and meaning of the work: they are listening not looking.  Others, as they move around the exhibition space, immediately attend to the labels adjacent to the paintings, telling them the name of the artist and the title of the work: they are reading not seeing.   Perhaps it would be considered too difficult for viewers if they were to be shown works of art in the absence of spoken or written words, art that is undescribed.  Imagine entering a gallery and being confronted by two versions of Judith beheading Holofernes, one by Caravaggio and one by Artemisia, painted perhaps a dozen years apart, but not knowing which was by whom.   The point would not be to guess the attribution, but to try to compare what each artist was able to show in their presentation of the scene, and to evaluate each picture according to its intrinsic qualities rather than certain extrinsic (that is, I suggest, irrelevant) features such as the artist’s name or the title of the work,  This would be the visual equivalent of a ‘blind tasting’.  

Consider a parallel case from the world of classical music. In the first half of the twentieth century nearly all members of the leading orchestras of the world were men, as were the conductors who led them.  Very few women, other than vocalists, were permitted onto the stage and generally only when there were no men who could play an instrument to a sufficiently high standard, the harp being the most common example.  This began to change in America during the 1940s and 50s when many men were away on military service.  The numbers of women in the leading orchestras began to increase but remained at or below 10% in most cases until the 1960s.  Then, two significant events occurred.  First, more young women started to attend and graduate from leading conservatoires and university music departments.  In other words, supply increased.   Second, orchestras changed the way that auditions were conducted.  In other words, hiring prejudice was by-passed.

There is a detailed discussion of the introduction of ‘blind auditions’ by leading US orchestras and its impact on the changing sexual composition of their membership, by the economists Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse, published in the American Economic Review in September 2000.   During the forty year period from the start of the 1960s to the end of the century, the percentage of women in nine leading US orchestras increased from 10% or below in nearly all cases (0% in one case) to around 20% in most, and over 30% in some.  Given the low turnover at these orchestras – new hires might average around 6% per annum – the rate of hiring of women players rose significantly.   By examining the hiring practices of these orchestras, and reviewing the lists of successful and unsuccessful candidates at each stage of the process, Goldin and Rouse concluded that around one third of the impact on the changing demographic of the orchestras was attributable to the increased pool of women musicians applying for jobs, and another third was attributable to the introduction of blind auditions, in which the hiring panel could not see the candidates, only hear their playing.

(It is worth noting that there is currently some discussion among conductors and orchestra managers as to why this process has not had much impact on other elements of the diversity profile of orchestras, most which remain overwhelmingly white.  Some have suggested that other strategies might be required to address this injustice in classical performance, especially since it is evident from other areas of musical performance – rock and jazz being obvious examples – that race is no barrier to outstanding achievement.)

If we judge the work – the painting, the performance – on its merits, rather than focussing on the standing and status of the person who made the work, we find that women can paint and play music just as well as men.  Their exclusion from the galleries and the orchestral stages was due to a combination of lack of access – they were unable to find competent people and sufficient financial resources to become well trained – and the preferential selection choices of men for other men.  For work to be judged on its merits, both aspects – access and prejudice – needed to change.

This problem is not confined to the arts, nor is it limited to the exclusion of women.  We live in societies that pay lip-service to merit, but which flinch when confronted by the time and effort required to implement merit-based processes for teaching, training, hiring, promoting, and rewarding.  And those who have occupied the top roles ‘undeservedly’ in the past – that is, BME or Before the Merit Era – have been highly successful at keeping the best and most lucrative jobs for themselves, and for those who look just like them.

Over the course of my career, I have done a great deal of interviewing: to hire people to work for me, or with me, or to work in organisations at which I have some advisory or governance responsibility.  Some of these interviews have been for entry level roles, but I have also been involved in the appointment of CEOs (or equivalents) in several organisations, and Chairs of Boards too.  In addition, I have myself been interviewed a few times, in my earlier years for junior positions and more recently for senior roles, including both CEO and Chair roles.  I have, therefore, sat on both sides of the interview table and frequently I have been disappointed by the process by which decisions were made.

There are two sorts of question that I think about when I am short-listing candidates for interview and, later, during the interview itself, aside from any technical considerations that might apply, specific to the tasks that the person might have to carry out if they are employed.  These are: first, how will this candidate fit with the goals and ethos of the organisation? and, second, does this candidate’s achievements to date reflect well the opportunities that they have been presented with?

The question of fit is problematic in part because it is not always clear how desirable it is that someone “fits in well” with their new colleagues.  There is always some benefit from a certain amount of friction within teams, committees, or boards, to avoid the perils of groupthink and complacency.   It is risky when everyone thinks and says the same things.  That said, too great a divergence of opinion and personality can lead to antagonism and paralysis, with much wasted effort and unhappiness.  Fit, therefore, is always a matter of judgement.  Further, the strengths and stability of the existing team will necessarily determine the extent to which an organisation can benefit from the appointment of someone who errs on the side of creative disruption rather than cultural reproduction. 

That said, the question of what it means to fit well remains unanswered.  In my experience, many people on interview panels think that fitting well is in fact a synonym for “looks like” or “sounds like” the people who are already on the team.   What they want from the candidate is not evidence of the skills, knowledge, and ambition that might be needed for the new hire to be successful in the role, but rather whether they appear the sort of person the existing team will easily accept.   Which is, of course, an indirect way of deciding to relegate questions of merit and diversity below the much easier task of preserving the status quo.   Whether we should primarily consider this approach stupid or unethical I leave for others to decide. 

Assessing fit is also difficult because it is forward looking, it is a judgment about what might be the case.  By contrast, gauging the achievements of a candidate according to the opportunities that have been presented to them, is more objective because it is based on the past, about which some facts can be determined.  I have always been puzzled when my colleagues at a short-listing meeting or on an interview panel comment that a candidate looks promising because of their educational background or because they have worked for a famous, ‘blue chip’ company.  The school they attended tells mostly about their parents’ wealth and attitudes; their university education is better considered an input than an output; and half the employees at the best companies are below average for the firm, just as half the employees at less successful companies are above the average.  If someone has been to a “top school”, a “top university”, or a “top company”, then unless they perform outstandingly in the interview process, my conclusion is that the significant investment that society has already made in them has been partially wasted, and why would I want my organisation to waste additional resource. 

I always preferred to hire those who have done more with less, than those who have coasted along a gilded path.  Rather than being impressed by the quality of the opportunities they have enjoyed, I am more interested in what they have done with their opportunities, however modest.  Which is another way of saying that I want to work with people who have a strong sense of achievement rather than a strong sense of entitlement.  Which is another way of saying that I prefer merit to privilege. 

All systems of selection have weakness and vulnerabilities, and a merit-based system runs the risk that those who thrive within it develop a strong sense of self-regard.  This point was well argued by Michael Young, many years ago, in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958).   Yet, it would be hard to argue that other systems of selection produce better outcomes.  Given the choice between he insufferably smug sense of entitlement that has hung around the corridors of power in Westminster and the equally delusory sense of self-aggrandisement recently on view in Washington, I’m happy to pitch my tent with the meritorious.   There is much to admire in the strand of existentialist thought that argues that we must make our own lives, our own meanings, our own measures of success and happiness, and that to live according to someone else’s values is inauthentic.  Better to be authors of our own lives, responsible for the construction of our own narrative, than to inhabit a tale told by others, in which our story is simply loaned to us from the pre-existing stock of generic types.   

Towards the end of the Artemisia exhibition I admired her wonderful painting of Clio, Muse of History, dating from 1632.  Below Clio’s right hand lies an open book, where the artist has signed the work and its dedication (to a French nobleman and scholar, then living in exile in Italy).  Artemisia has, in her confident manner, written herself into the book of history through the quality of her own achievements.  Most of us will never have exhibitions of our work at major galleries, nor perform on the stages of the great concert halls of the world, but we can still find satisfaction in lives that are lived to the best of our abilities, whatever they are.  And we can find great pleasure in the merited success of others.