The problem — or one of the problems rather — is that these kinds of models assume the thing you're measuring is a static thing, and a property of, say, an indi

The problem — or one of the problems rather — is that these kinds of models assume the thing you're measuring is a static thing, and a property of, say, an individual, rather than something that's changeable, or that the thing to be measured is a potential, and the property of a system. So for example, there's a fundamental, basic assumption that if you rank people, you are establishing measurements of those persons, that they are objects with fixed properties. Another possibility, though, is that your rankings are measurements of your own perception, individually or collectively as some group, and to the extent they are not, they are reflective of the effects of the organizational system. The truth on average is probably somewhere in between, or more precisely, it probably varies from individual to individual and organization to organization. But the paradigm that is being described assumes that the evaluators are omniscient, unbiased entities measuring properties of some fixed, unchanging objects. There's still more issues about the power dynamic that enables this assumption. The problem is that everyone pretends as if it's the first case, when in fact it might very well be the second. Or rather, the problem is that we always pretend it's the first case, except in situations where we feel compelled to be honest about the situation due to friends being involved, or some leverage that's hanging over the situation, or something similar. The erroneous assumptions are held because they maintain the power dynamic — it's a model of how organizational elements are measured precisely because that model, however flawed, forms the basis for accrual of resources and control to those doing the evaluating. I guess I mention this because I think the premise of the piece is a little off. It's not just that "operationally rigorous companies are hellish places to work" because they're unfriendly, it's that their models of the world are wrong, and they're often not as operationally rigorous as they could be.