The fundamental issue in meritocracies is that we only measure a small part of the merit that needs measuring. I once got in an argument with a manager that we

The fundamental issue in meritocracies is that we only measure a small part of the merit that needs measuring. I once got in an argument with a manager that we should measure best coders on the team by lines of code generated - is that merit? To extend the analogy in the piece, if the only way a football team measured “best” was for “yards passed” that’d be a pretty bad team on the field. They measure by position to figure out what’s right - and techniques like those made famous by SaberMetrics/Moneyball show even THAT is not all - you REALLY need to measure by team performance and team goals. Teams that are diverse deliver materially better returns[1]; if that’s “merit” then that’s a way to optimize for that. The problem with this article and meritocracies is not diving deeper in what you should measure. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2020/01/15/diversity-confirmed-to-boost-innovation-and-financial-results/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2020/01/15/diver...