The Meritocracy Myth

There’s been a lot of talk lately about a “Meritocracy.” Since I only had a vague idea of what it meant, I went to the online dictionaries to look it up.^1,2 The dictionaries said “ability” and “talent” are essential requisites of meritocracies. They also pointed out that it had nothing to do with “privilege” or “wealth.” I was more confused than before I looked it up. Who decides what constitutes “ability” or “talent?” For example, if you’re working at a job, staying busy, saving the company money by improving their Return on Investment, is your work more meritorious than someone who creates problems but has a better personal relationship with the department manager? In a workplace, the manager is the default assessor of employees’ abilities and talents. So, does job performance outrank personal relationships in the workplace even if a manager may show personal bias, or have no basis to judge your knowledge, abilities, or talent?

Managers Decide Merit, not Job Performance

I thought about my professional career as a senior systems programmer on IBM mainframes. On one job, my manager gave me insight into workplace merit. He told me to go to lunch with him because he had something to discuss with me. We went to a barbecue place. When we sat down, he looked me in the eyes and said, “I don’t like you, and if you weren’t so good at your job, I would have fired you a long time ago.” I thanked him for the recognition of my work, but I couldn’t leave since we were in his vehicle. He was surprised by my display of gratitude. I considered it complimentary to hear someone say it out loud. My professional abilities were the reason I had the job, not my ability or talent to cater to my manager’s ego or whims.

I always believed job performance was more important than a personal relationship with my manager. At work, I considered all relationships “working relationships” with the goal of making the company successful. There were a few other people in the department. The manager’s interactions with them made it obvious that their interpersonal relationships were favorable. I worked in his department for six years. Two months after I left, the person he hired to backfill my position replaced him as the department manager.

From Nepotism to Favoritism

As the years went by and I worked with other companies, I realized it was variations of the same theme. There needed to be at least 20 percent of the workforce to do 80 percent of the work and address issues created by the 80 percent of the workforce who did 20 percent of the work. Now, a contrarian might say all jobs depend on workers’ “ability” and “talent.” Let’s put that to the test. We’ll delve into a slight bit of historical analysis, continue with workplace folklore, and end with the current trend which is based on workplace wisdom. First, history. The word “nepotism” became part of the vocabulary around the 14th or 15th century.³ Favoritism over merit started with putting relatives in positions of power, but later it rewarded any person who displayed certain qualities.

That brings us to workplace folklore. If you work in an office environment, you may have heard of the brown-noser, the boot-licking-lackey, the butt-kisser, or my personal favorite with a Latin American flare, the “lambiscón.⁴” They may be part of workplace folklore, but they’re easier to find than a fresh pot of coffee in the break room. Favoritism in the workplace has existed for centuries, and workers who survive layoffs and Reductions in Force (RIF) are aware of what it takes to stay employed. In practice, professional “ability” or “talent” is a requirement if a company expects to survive, but personal relationships offer a way to compensate for lackluster job performance and capricious management styles.

Digital Age Merit

The current trend is a digital age addition. It’s based on conventional workplace wisdom. The old saying, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” or variations of the adage, has been true for decades, if not centuries. The current trend of “professional networking” has added a new dimension to the equation. “Who you know” has expanded to include not only people with whom you have personal interactions, but with a network of former coworkers and others who know someone you know. Are all the people a person “knows” via social networking familiar with their abilities, talents, or work ethic? Probably not, but in the world of social and professional networking, it’s not what you know, but who you know.

Favoritism and Meritocracies are Conflicting Concepts

That brings us back to “What is a meritocracy?” Exactly what are the abilities and talents that merit pay raises, promotions, and continued employment? History, workplace folklore, and conventional wisdom suggest abilities and talent can be whatever a manager wants them to be. Might it be fair to say that meritocracies exist in a few small companies but have gained a folklore status of their own? If you work in a corporation, an office, or a department where personal favoritism exists, then job related rewards are subject to the whims of a manager’s subjective opinion. In terms of the classic definitions of a meritocracy, the “wealth” and “privilege” ideas come from those who enjoy an elite status, like a movie star who can buy their children’s way into an ivy league university.⁵ Most of us don’t have that elite status. Regardless of the fanciful tales about “privilege,” those who control the “rewards” have the power to bestow privilege based on personal subjectivity not merit.

Management Subjectivity Stifles Merit

Unless an impersonal machine writes your job performance evaluation, you may have noticed some subjectivity when you meet with your manager for your annual review. Reviews used to focus on qualities like “competence,” “business acumen,” and “working with a sense of urgency.” Now they look like an old-time grammar school report card with an emphasis on deportment; does the employee work and play well with others and show proper deference to management?

Accepting people for who they are and getting along with them is not difficult. The difficulty is being good at your job and not complaining about having to do other people’s work while they ingratiate themselves with management. Even while a person in the twenty percent is working overtime to pick up the slack, their performance review is subject to their manager’s bias. If your manager doesn’t like you personally, you may not be as fortunate as I was. You may be a top performer in a department, but personal animosity allows managers to overlook real merit. The larger the department, the greater the probability of it happening, and they can lay you off because they do not like you. In most states in the United States, “at-will” employment is the standard.⁶ That means an employer can fire you for no reason at all.

Maybe meritocracies never really existed but the idea of a meritocracy offered a way of glossing over favoritism. We do know that favoritism has existed and will continue to exist in workplaces because egos and personal preferences are innate human characteristics. Trying to change human nature is a losing battle. When I worked on IBM mainframes, there was something personal between me and the machine. One wrong keystroke and I could put thousands of employees in front of a dead monitor while the company lost hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour in addition to damaged customer satisfaction. The mainframe tested me, and it evaluated my ability and talent. Its impersonal objectivity gave me immediate and uncompromising professional feedback.

True Meritocracies Can Exist, if We Allow Them

If you look at a company’s hiring page, and they emphasize anything other than professional ability, talent, and demeanor, then the company’s personnel policies are not conducive to a meritocracy. That holds true whether it is a public or private sector operation, and as we mentioned earlier in the case of a “lambiscón,” the meritocracy myth is not just a North American phenomenon. Small companies, which do not follow this trend, will gain market share by offering better products and services at a competitive price point. Those companies realize their employees must perform as a coordinated team of professionals with a single mission, company success.

The CEOs of corporations who do not enforce a true meritocracy based on professionalism find themselves strapped with department managers who are building their personal fiefdoms. If corporate CEOs and executives allow this behavior pattern, they have a fallback plan when their workforce swells with bloated headcount. Increasing headcount to get the same amount of work done is a major OpEx cost, so they pass that cost along to consumers in higher product prices and lower quality services.

Should we give up on creating a true meritocracy? If we do, there’s no turning back from a society that is already on the edge of self-indulgent apathy. That price is too high. The final thought should be, “do not let others judge your ability and talent.” Put yourself in a position where the stakes are high and see how you handle the pressure and competency demands. Strive to be in the few, the proud, the 20 percent.

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