Re: Boring firms `are killing creativity' in the workplace

Keith Cowan (cowan@pci.on.ca)
Sat, 10 Dec 1994 17:24:02 -0500 (EST)

>
> I think there is evidnece to support Roland's assertion that mediocre
> managers hire mediocre employees. Lacking any inspiration on their
> part it would be difficult to expect more.
> Charles Barclay 2404 Maile Way
In fact, there is a statistical proof that the company hires median
people in their performance range, or Bell Curve. I will try to depict
this in ASCII:
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
Selection
Process
..
. .
. .
. .
. .
. .
. .
--------------------------------------
Poor Median Good

--------Performance -------------->
So the Funnel which "weeds out" people from the company in fact
leads to the most numerous or average performers around the median
of the curve. If the selection process was perfect, there would be NO
poor nor good performers, only average ones! This is a statistical
argument for why it is bad to let the existing people hire without any
objective testing because they will hire "in their own image" which will
be close to the median just by getting three separate people to all
interview and approve a new hire candidate.

I have a whole paper to be written on this subject which is "Why firm let
the mediocre people hire their future performers. The top performers are
too busy to do it!"...Keith

-- 
Keith Cowan       Phone: (416)565-6253           FAX: (905)764-9604
Toronto        Internet: cowan@pci.on.ca  Compuserve: 72212,51