Meritocracy is an appealing euphemism for hereditary privilege. It is appealing because within our bubble, it makes us feel like we genuinely deserve the success we have achieved. If most of our self worth comes from our identity, crediting ourselves is the easiest way to feel good.
Incentives are the cornerstone of anything that happens. Understanding what drives us to make the choices we do. Meritocracy is appealing because it theoretically drives resources to where they are most effective. Merit rules.
Some challenges to true Meritocracy are (1) size and (2) diversity. When any organisation gets bigger than our capacity for relationships (about 150 people), we end up summarising and classifying. Instead of fuzzy decisions, precedent and fairness become important. Instead of each situation being unique, rules and standards need to be applied. This means that roles get created so not everyone is doing the same thing, and management structures get put in place so decisions can be made higher up the hierarchy.
It is no longer a Rugby Team where a Captain has to be good enough player to make the team, to maintain leadership. Where everyone understands the role of each player, and can have a view on their impact.
Most organisations are quite closeted about pay. Bonuses, Salaries, and Promotions are part of the Meritocracy Machine and yet people are doing very different jobs, under line-managers with different philosophies, adding value that is very difficult to quantify. As organisations become global, physical distance makes it more challenging to have knowledge of what is being done. As human input becomes more cerebral, there are fewer obvious quantifiable outputs, with short enough result time frames, to honestly form views on merit. Ironically, in the Public vs Private debate... the market only ends up deciding the size of the pie to split. The slices of pie end up getting split by neither a market nor a democracy. They get split by men in a room through centrally gathered information.
I believe in bottom-up empowerment. In keeping decisions as small as possible, and the decision makers as close to the action as possible. The "Spontaneous Order" that comes from releasing our Tacit Knowledge - the stuff we understand, but don't know how to communicate without deep relationships and time.
At some point in the story of Meritocracy, someone will point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
Incentives are the cornerstone of anything that happens. Understanding what drives us to make the choices we do. Meritocracy is appealing because it theoretically drives resources to where they are most effective. Merit rules.
Some challenges to true Meritocracy are (1) size and (2) diversity. When any organisation gets bigger than our capacity for relationships (about 150 people), we end up summarising and classifying. Instead of fuzzy decisions, precedent and fairness become important. Instead of each situation being unique, rules and standards need to be applied. This means that roles get created so not everyone is doing the same thing, and management structures get put in place so decisions can be made higher up the hierarchy.
It is no longer a Rugby Team where a Captain has to be good enough player to make the team, to maintain leadership. Where everyone understands the role of each player, and can have a view on their impact.
Most organisations are quite closeted about pay. Bonuses, Salaries, and Promotions are part of the Meritocracy Machine and yet people are doing very different jobs, under line-managers with different philosophies, adding value that is very difficult to quantify. As organisations become global, physical distance makes it more challenging to have knowledge of what is being done. As human input becomes more cerebral, there are fewer obvious quantifiable outputs, with short enough result time frames, to honestly form views on merit. Ironically, in the Public vs Private debate... the market only ends up deciding the size of the pie to split. The slices of pie end up getting split by neither a market nor a democracy. They get split by men in a room through centrally gathered information.
I believe in bottom-up empowerment. In keeping decisions as small as possible, and the decision makers as close to the action as possible. The "Spontaneous Order" that comes from releasing our Tacit Knowledge - the stuff we understand, but don't know how to communicate without deep relationships and time.
At some point in the story of Meritocracy, someone will point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
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