My book club was recently discussing the ways people avoid talking about problems. One woman said that her daughter, who is Jewish, was being shown homes in several suburbs of Chicago. Her realtor would steer her away from listings in towns that would not welcome a Jewish family by saying, “You wouldn’t get a carpool there.” This meant that Mrs. Goldberg would not be able to find 3-4 other mothers who would be want her children in their carpool. Obviously “You wouldn’t get a carpool there,” sounds better than “People in that town are prejudiced again Jewish people.”

I was reminded of this when I heard a Critic’s Choice with Andrew Patner on discrimination in the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. Most orchestras now have a system where new members audition behind a screen, so they are selected on their musical abilities, not their appearance. Wouldn’t it be great if every first encounter worked that way? No wonder so many new romances blossom on the web.

But the traditionalists in Vienna have always wanted a symphony orchestra to be all white, all male, and all European, and actually only from those European countries that touch the Danube River. The Austrians’ idea of diversity was hiring a cellist from Budapest. So their prejudices caused them to reject the best players if they do not look Austrian. In his 1970 memoir, Otto Strasser, a former chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, put it this way, “An applicant qualified himself as the best, and as the screen was raised, there stood a Japanese before the stunned jury. He was, however, not engaged, because his face did not fit with the ‘Pizzicato-Polka’ of the New Year’s Concert.”

Under pressure to diversify, in 2003 Vienna hired a world-class tuba player Yasuhito Sugiyama from the New Japan Philharmonic. However, his colleagues in the brass section made the Japanese tubist feel very unwelcome, made it clear that he was not welcome in the carpool. He was fired before his first year was over, but he showed them. Sugiyama won the tuba audition at the Cleveland Symphony, a much more competitive position, and has been Principal Tuba there since 2006.

From symphony orchestras to soccer teams, every organization struggles with overcoming the history they inherited about how their employees should look and fit in. It is never easy. But in 2010, it is clear that doing the right thing, finding a fair way to choose the best players regardless of their appearance, is better for the team in the long run. Then you can pick the best people because of what they are able to do now, rather than settling for the people who conform to a look and mindset that is out of date.