I had over 20 years' experience as an officer of corporations. I had the pleasure of working with some amazingly talented people of all races even some that were hired under quota hiring but turned out to be very talented in spite of that being the reason they were hired.

But the reality is you can tell good employees from bad ones pretty easy. When you start off not trying to hire the best workers, but rather trying to achieve some racial, gender, orientation mix, you get an underperforming workforce with great racial, gender, orientation diversity.

Is it possible, to achieve both. Yes, but it is really hard. For example, I had to fire 42 old black women. She was terrible... HR said I was "buying" a lawsuit as the employee was over 40, black, and a woman (the trifecta), I responded then "find me a 45-year-old black woman that can do the job, and I will pay her as much as 10% more than market if I have to. Paying 10% over market is a "better deal" than paying market for a terrible employee who undermines the whole department.

It took a lot longer to find the woman's replacement, but we did. But is that really fair, to all the other people that never got a shot at the job, so we could avoid a lawsuit? As an aside, the woman's direct manager, who agreed we needed to fire the woman was a black woman.

Regarding hiring women and minorities, generally speaking they come in two flavors. The first group make great hires, they come in with the belief they have to "prove themselves" and they do. And historically, they outperform white people, who can sometimes enter a company believing they are entitled. I had no need for that attitude.

But I also know people who were promoted over more qualified individuals based on race and gender. Rather than invest the work to find talented minorities, the company simply managed by the numbers. Overtime, the produces bloated companies full of marginal workers being managed by marginal managers.

Early in my executive career, I was in the room when those decisions were made. I always thought race should not help or hinder someone. Who wants to work for a company, where you could lose out for simply being the wrong gender, race, or sexual orientation... isn't this exactly what minorities, gay people and women complained about in the past. Is it okay today, what they considered wrong when it worked against them?

I was in the health care business; our vision was simple. To provide the best possible care to patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. I will share a true story with you. We had an awesome black nurse, that a white family did not want to care for their father believing she was somehow less qualified. We responded that she was the best nurse we had available, and if after four weeks the family found good reason not to have her care for their parent, we would try to find someone else.

Around three weeks had passed when another white nurse became available, and we had another job for the black nurse to take. So, we called the family to see if they were happy. They told us they did not want anyone other than the black nurse caring for their father, she was amazing. So, we sent the white nurse to the other job.

I am not blind to racism or bigotry. During my career I did my best to confront it. But confronting bigotry does not translate to creating a workplace where people feel skin color matters. It undermines the workplace.

So, to your point, there are plenty of minorities that get ahead because they deserve it based on talent. When companies discriminate against blacks or for blacks, they hurt themselves. For gays or against gays, they hurt themselves. For women or against women, they hurt themselves.

So, I am not saying that blacks only get promoted due to their skin color, I am saying I have been in the room where the decision of who to promote was based not on talent but skin color, gender, or some other characteristic that is simply unfair.