Corporations, at their root, are an arbitrage on the fact that other corporations follow the bell curve.
The entire goal of salaries and “teams” in my experience, is to ENSURE that high performers get diluted and averaged in with mediocre performers so the company can pretend the high performers don’t exist.
This was my experience in (large co).
I have seen situations where a single IC is dragging a division of 30 people yet still being compensated for doing the work of one IC.
Management of that group took the approach “it’s a team effort!” And get the credit for that output.
Their boss looks down and sees Director managing 30 people and getting amazing result X, where X is 90% the effort of the one super star.
Eventually super star gets fed up and leaves, and gets paid what everyone else gets somewhere else “hoping to be valued.”
Management still win. They get the credit for the super stars work. Frustrated super star leaves. Mediocre management is still there.
A decade later nothing but the WORST and LEAST talented garbage are left. No one remotely talented would ever join that company because it’s a trap - you just get averaged in with mediocrity.
The “averaging the great in with the spectacular” to reduce the relative power of the spectacular is the entire point of “management.”
You have a team of six, pretend the work of the super star is “everyone working together” and attempt to grow your headcount off that super star.
That has been my entire career. Never seen it go differently.
The entire goal of salaries and “teams” in my experience, is to ENSURE that high performers get diluted and averaged in with mediocre performers so the company can pretend the high performers don’t exist.
This was my experience in (large co).
I have seen situations where a single IC is dragging a division of 30 people yet still being compensated for doing the work of one IC.
Management of that group took the approach “it’s a team effort!” And get the credit for that output.
Their boss looks down and sees Director managing 30 people and getting amazing result X, where X is 90% the effort of the one super star.
Eventually super star gets fed up and leaves, and gets paid what everyone else gets somewhere else “hoping to be valued.”
Management still win. They get the credit for the super stars work. Frustrated super star leaves. Mediocre management is still there.
A decade later nothing but the WORST and LEAST talented garbage are left. No one remotely talented would ever join that company because it’s a trap - you just get averaged in with mediocrity.
The “averaging the great in with the spectacular” to reduce the relative power of the spectacular is the entire point of “management.”
You have a team of six, pretend the work of the super star is “everyone working together” and attempt to grow your headcount off that super star.
That has been my entire career. Never seen it go differently.