Some of this seems to be a problem intrinsic to meritocracies. The people who get to positions of real authority in a competitive, meritocratic system have been trained for decades to ignore the losers disappearing in the rearview mirror while using their current position of authority primarily as a platform to push for their next promotion. Those are terrible habits for a society to cultivate in its leaders.
I believe it was toonalfrink who once visited a buddhist monastery where “promotion” was based almost entirely on seniority – there are particular tests you had to pass, but basically there was no way to advance faster based on “merit”.
And this meant that a lot of squabbling that normally dominates large institutions wasn’t present – there was no way to game the system, just show up and put in the time. And this worked okay because the point of the system was not to innovate, but to keep doing the exact same things that had been done previously for hundreds of years.
I don’t think that actually works for many of the goals I think of as important, but it was eye opening to realize there were totally different ways you could orient an organizational culture.
Some of this seems to be a problem intrinsic to meritocracies. The people who get to positions of real authority in a competitive, meritocratic system have been trained for decades to ignore the losers disappearing in the rearview mirror while using their current position of authority primarily as a platform to push for their next promotion. Those are terrible habits for a society to cultivate in its leaders.
I believe it was toonalfrink who once visited a buddhist monastery where “promotion” was based almost entirely on seniority – there are particular tests you had to pass, but basically there was no way to advance faster based on “merit”.
And this meant that a lot of squabbling that normally dominates large institutions wasn’t present – there was no way to game the system, just show up and put in the time. And this worked okay because the point of the system was not to innovate, but to keep doing the exact same things that had been done previously for hundreds of years.
I don’t think that actually works for many of the goals I think of as important, but it was eye opening to realize there were totally different ways you could orient an organizational culture.