Greetings...

[9:03 pm]

"So why exactly do you want to start a blog?" my boss asked me the other day...

To be clear, it's not so much that I wanted to start a blog.  In all honesty, I have had my hands full making sure Starbucks has enough talent and taking care of my two year old daughter and 5 month old son.  Mostly it was that I was dragged into the blogosphere repeatedly by some different folks and even given a nickname (thankfully I've been called worse) by this crazy Canuck and so before that got out of hand I figured it was high time for me to take matters into my hands.  The best defense, as they say, is a good offense.

Which leads me to meritocracy.net.  "Why the name?" I've been asked repeatedly.  Dictionary.com defines it as:

mer·i·toc·ra·cy    Pronunciation Key  (mr-tkr-s)  n. pl. mer·i·toc·ra·cies A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement. A group of leaders or officeholders selected on the basis of individual ability or achievement. Leadership by such a group. It's some serious philosophical waxing, but it's kind of like this:  As we think about the world, and its never-ending march towards more efficient distribution of capital (including talent), I believe that increasingly, more of the currently widespread inefficiency will be driven out of capitalist organizations, and therefore 'the overall model' will increasingly become more meritocratic.  If you believe (as I do) that the only enduring competitive advantage that organizations are able to maintain are brand and talent capital then it will be a requirement that more meritocratic mechanisms be implemented to support the evolving efficiencies.  One of the current 'problems' is that most organizations do not have clearly articulated and deeply supported meritocracy ingrained in their talent management systems.  Based on my admittedly limited observations, I suspect it's systemic in all current organizations and a result of things like 'organizational inertia', impure data and data management, organizational politics, outdated HR thinking, and a host of other real issues.  All of this creates inefficiency.  In the end, as it relates to human capital, talent and (more importantly) the value that talent can generate on behalf of an organization, is one of the only thing that really matters.  So when I consider the idea of a pure meritocracy, for me it becomes a bit of a Holy Grail... a highly efficient, economically authentic system of managing one of the only components of sustainable competitive advantage in business.  So, because of all that, it seemed fitting that the idea provide the foundation for this blog.

Comments

[Canadian Headhunter]

Hey, Cuppa-J, welcome aboard. You ought to have an ongoing spot so people can tell you about their experiences at Starbucks. I was impressed with the staff there before I knew you. Long before. (And I don't know you).

PS: Did you know there's a Starbucks Gossip blog. It would be good in your blogroll.

[Leah]

Your blog is great man! I have to say, I didn't think there was anyone else out there who thought the way I did about meritocracy.It has become my goal to implement this mindset into every employee of a growing company.

To give you some background, I am a Senior Recruiter for a growing IT services company based out of Detroit, MI. Our company was founded as a spinoff of THE staffing firm that dominates the Big 3 Automotive firms (and most of the market thereof) here in Detroit, with the intention that we could change the business ethics, add customer service and all around swagger that the staffing giant had lost throughout the years. The owners also aspire to form a sort of "fraternal brother" atmosphere throughout each office to build the whole team mentality morale.

Recently, one of the office managers from Corporate HQ asked what motivated me to produce more than every other recruiter and what he could take from me to bring back to his team in Corporate.

Much like what you stand for in this blog post, I discuss the Theory of Meritocracy in an email:

"I thought about the problem we discussed yesterday with recruiting. Motivation is the main issue. The question is, how do we go about motivating people that have become complacent? There is simply one solution that I could come up with, and that is, feeding off of the capitalist spirit. This is not a solutions business model by any means, this is merely one opinion and an idea or concept to work off of.

You need to make people more motivated. The only way to do so is with money. Drop base pay, raise commissions. The competitive and ambitious with flourish while the "dead weight" will fall off. This can be done by allocating a portion of recruiter base pay into a general pool. From there, those who fill reqs (essentially work) will make a larger commission than they would under the current model. Additionally, those who choose to not put forth as much effort and work, will make considerably less than they currently do and will ultimately fail as employees. If they are dead weight anyways, would you really want that person working for you?

This will help us as a company because the competitve nature of this proposition will raise productvity and thus profit immensely.

In a rational capitalist economic world, people need incentives in order to produce. In the end, everyone will make more of the bottom line, which always is money. People will invest, be rewarded and reinvest.

This really comes down to corporate philosophy. Would you sacrifice the more relaxed, laid back, fraternal, mediocre in producing environment for a more competitive and efficient type atmosphere? Under this model, the incentive for Joe Recruiter to stay in recruiting is that he now has the chance to make more money than a salesperson. These are just my thoughts and opinions, for what it's worth."

I am only 22 years old and it is extremely refreshing to see that there are true capitalists out there in the "real world" that think like me.

So, thank you for your blog, it's great!

[Canadian Headhunter]

Here's that "gossip" URL

http://www.starbucksgossip.com/

[Michael Homula]

Well, well well! I am so excited to see this come to fruition. I won't wax poetic about how happy I am to see you launching meritocracy.net but I will just say I am very happy to see a good friend, great guy and really astute recruiting leader such as yourself getting into this medium.

Many happy days ahead with lots and lots of challenges.

Oh, Leah, since you are in metro Detroit we should connect and network. Feel free to email me at michaelhomula@quickenloans.com.

Great to see you getting your great thoughts an ideas out there Jason!

mgh