Many companies are trying to assess and differentiate their employees using two dimensions – Performance and Potential. On a graph, performance is measured on the vertical (Y) axis, and potential is measured on the horizontal (X) axis.
Each X,Y combination is assigned a value judgement, or score, from 1 to 9. Having high performance but poor potential gives you a score of 4. High potential but low performance is 6, a much better score. So potential is valued more highly than performance.
What is potential? It's really a measure of "promotability" or leadership skills, including such innate qualities as charisma, energy-level, and self-confidence.
Performance, on the other hand, is the skill you exhibit at your current job level, including such innate qualities as intelligence, diligence and analytical skill.
Both dimensions are inborn – since how would you train charisma or genius? – so "high potential" genes are more valued than "high performance" genes. Companies willingly pay large bonuses to charismatic leaders (6), and heap even greater rewards on the rare charismatic leader who's also smart (9), but a high performer with little potential (4) has his job outsourced to India, since those innate qualites are not valued as highly.
Choosing leaders this way is really a proxy for genetic screening. It's not like you can change yourself. Even Donald Trump says "I don’t think anybody changes, actually. They come out a certain way, and for the most part that’s what you get."
Comments