I immediately saw that there was a significant correlation between the independently collected error rates and the measures of team effectiveness from my survey. But then I looked closely and noticed something wrong. The direction of the correlation was exactly the opposite of what I had predicted. Better teams were apparently making more – not fewer – mistakes than less strong teams. Worse, the correlation was statistically significant. I briefly wondered how I could tell my dissertation chair the bad news. This was a problem.

No, it was a puzzle.

And because competencies are unmeasurable, it is impossible to prove or disprove the assertion that everyone who excels in a particular job possesses a particular set of competencies. It is equally impossible to show that people who acquired the competencies they lacked outperformed those who did not—that, in other words, well-rounded people are better. These two statements together are the foundation for most of what companies do to develop the talents of their people, yet each of them is unfalsifiable—you will find no academic papers in any peer-reviewed journal proving the necessity of possessing certain competencies, and no proof that acquiring the ones you lack nets you any increase in performance. Both of these assertions, despite the good intentions that created them, are conjured from thin air—and we can never know if they are correct.

There is, of course, another pedagogical mindset in graduate education: Give students the freedom to find what they care about, a true passion that will sustain them as their careers unfold. In this mindset, it’s reasonable to rid programs of as much structure as possible to allow students’ own talents, ingenuity, and interests to guide their development. This approach has produced generations of distinguished scientists and scholars. But it may not work as well for a diverse student body. The ambiguities it allows into the training experience may impose a special burden on students whose identities put their belongingness under suspicion. The open-ended freedom assumed to foster development could leave them in near-constant churn.

It’s important to stress that the UC Berkley College of Chemistry, like GSU, used multiple practices to reduce ambiguity and give support in the setting. Multiple red buttons. Any one practice alone might not be enough. Take procedural justice— the degree to which a community adheres to nondiscriminatory, transparent practices in matter of hiring, promotion, and adjudicating disputes.

This book argues instead for a “wise” model of inclusion, as practiced at GSU and Berkley Chemistry: meeting the students or inductees where they are, with trust in their potential to develop and with a focus on giving them the red buttons— the information, know-how, resources, timely coaching, social capital, and so on— and showing them the way forward, all of which will enable them to stay in the setting and cope well. These things lower ambiguity and churn— as illustrated in Pat Neal’s effect on me, and in the effects of GSU and Berkley Chemistry’s institution-level strategies.

They haven’t dropped the practice of giving grades, or jettisoned the lecture format, or lessened their commitment to research excellence. They haven’t restricted their commitment to a narrow sector of the population. Rather, they’ve added capacities that detect and meet the developmental needs of all students, including the less resourced and identity-threatened. They don’t lean back, presuming to select students who have what it takes to succeed in their institution. They lean in; take responsibility for developing students’ abilities and talents. And following this developmental approach they’ve built solid foundations of institutional trust that greatly facilitate student success.