Mediocrity drift: Difference between revisions

Here is [[systemantics]] in its natural state. How incoming [[Lateral hire|lateral hires]] perform will remain to be seen but, remember, performance is measured relative to cost. One firm’s incoming lateral hire is another firm’s lateral quitter. An outperforming [[lateral quitter]] marks herself to market, gets a pay-rise (why else leave?) and enters her new firm at the [[cost-value threshold]]. When she pitches up, she is no longer an outperformer. True, she may turn out that way, but it is not certain. She is just as likely — presuming a normal distribution again — to underperform.   

If so, then a system which favours one group (group A) over another (group B) has a counterintuitive effect on the remaining populations of both groups: on ''average'', the unfavoured group will ''increase'' in relative value, and the favoured group will ''decrease'' in relative value, ''even though no individual performance, in either group, changes at all''.  

On average, the group A is paid progressively less. It looks like group A members are being systematically discriminated against on pay, but this is not so (in this model, ''no-one’s'' pay changes) in fact group A members are being ''favoured for poor performance''.  

On a second glance, you can see why this should be so. The process systematically weeds out ''underperforming'' members of group B and ''overperforming'' members of group A. The “good” side of the distribution will progressively become group B-dominated — they are not being bid away as frequently — and the “below par” section will becomes progressively group A dominated, as poor performing group B members are selected for eradication.