Your Career Isn't a Meritocracy. It's a Trustocracy.

Welcome to my newsletter! I'm Dave Anderson, an ex-Amazon Tech Director and GM. I write this newsletter I've called Scarlet Ink, which is a weekly newsletter on tech industry careers and tactical leadership advice.

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Salvatore stomped into my office for his one-on-one meeting. It can be difficult to convey to others that you're stomping while walking on a cement floor, but he did his best. He was clearly annoyed about something and didn't leave me in suspense for long.

Salvatore huffed. "They just sent out the promotion announcements. I saw that Lamar got his promotion. How is it possible? I'm a better engineer, but I'm still not promoted!"

"It is never a healthy idea to compare yourself to others," I replied, "but sure, we need to talk about this. Do you remember that your promotion was held back because we couldn't find any senior peers to sign off on your promotion? I'd convinced Rene to set aside time to work with you on that system design document. Rene said she still couldn't sign off on your promotion because you didn't work with her on it. What happened?"

He shrugged. "Rene is an idiot. I tried to review my plans with her, but she kept talking about things that don't matter."

The funny thing is that I didn't exaggerate this at all. I believe the word "idiot" was literally used. And this wasn't the only time I've seen someone have a meltdown because a co-worker was rewarded when they felt their skills were superior.

It is shockingly common for employees (particularly engineers) to believe that work is a meritocracy. More specifically, a meritocracy based on a specific skill or activity. For engineers, "I'm the best at building software." For a designer it might be "I'm the best at designing UIs."

While the job title of "software engineer" suggests that their job is to engineer software, that's not the whole story. Unless you have a solo startup, your job is to work with others to create value for a business. This certainly includes doing the work aligned to your specialized skills (engineering, managing, project running, designing), but it also assumes that you're working well with others to create value.

Companies are not meritocracies. Trying to implement a true meritocracy is impossible (which I'll get to later). But my point is that we are not valued exclusively for our specialty skills or accomplishments.

Some employees complain about this, saying that their company is political and that their superior skills are not properly rewarded. Instead, they say that they have to choose between "playing the game" or go find a new position at a company that operates as a real meritocracy.

I think this is a wrong position to take. There are certainly insider political games played at times in companies. However, the majority of the complaints I've heard are people railing against the need to build trust.

Is it Politics or Trust?

I think if you really understand how the system works, you recognize that you're building trust. If you dislike the need to build trust (or don't understand the system itself), you call it politics. It's really about how you look at the situation.

"I need some senior co-workers to sign off on my promotion. I hate needing to play politics."

Your more experienced and senior co-workers are asked if they trust you and think that a promotion is a good idea. That sounds like a good thing to me.

"The leaders of that group are all friends, and so they backed Erik's proposal over mine. Politics suck."

Alternatively, you could say that a leadership group of people who trust each other made a collaborative decision. It also sounds like Erik earned some trust.

Trust can't be objectively quantified. You can say that a person did or did not finish a task. And you might be able to explain exactly why they did or did not finish that task. You can't specifically state why one person is trusted more than another. The fact that trust is this nebulous human emotional thing (yet super important) can drive some people crazy.

Why a Meritocracy can't exist.

Many of us love the idea of being fairly and objectively measured.

"If I complete X tasks, I know I'll get a good rating at work."

Being objectively measured like that sounds good. It sounds like a reasonable wish to take the bias out of the system so that people's contributions can be properly measured. While this might be possible if you're connecting bolts in an assembly line, in knowledge work it's not possible. Below are ways that people might want to measure things objectively. And why they don't work.

Hitting dates

Meeting dates on tasks or projects is the most commonly used proxy for success. Except that unless you're in a boring job, every project is unique. They vary on the complexity, unknowns, risks, subject, systems involved, clarity of the requirements, and the people working on it. Among other things. It's not comparing apples and oranges; it's comparing apples and lawn mowers.

Worse, people who are nervous about missing dates will set more conservative dates to ensure they're successful. Some employees figure out quickly that they should always sandbag their estimates to give them a higher likelihood of hitting dates, while other co-workers will aggressively push for tight dates, trying to drive the most value for the company. This difference in behavior is not only challenging to measure, but which would you want to reward? Well, it depends on the situation.

You can also cut features or requirements to hit a date, even if the new project is less successful as a result. Or you can change resource allocation and prioritization by the teams involved to impact the dates (for better or worse).

So when you say that someone met their goals and are therefore a good employee, you're making a gross generalization that is unfair to everyone involved.

Hours

Come in early and stay late. Oh yeah, now you're a good employee.

It's horrible when people use hours as a proxy for hard work, claiming that it's a meritocracy. While few tech companies would use time sheets, there are unlimited anecdotes of managers complaining that an employee isn't at their desk or seems to leave early in the afternoon most days.

Some people are more efficient getting their work done. Others waste their time in the office, spending endless hours chatting in the kitchen or surfing the web. Some people do hours of low-value work while appearing to be busy. Others prefer to work odd hours, at a time most co-workers won't see them.

I have seen that a poorly performing co-worker is also surfing the web every time I walk past them. Or that a remote worker is missing their dates and also listed as idle on their IM a good portion of the day. However, my best employees also surf the web or go idle at 2pm because they have something else to do. It's interesting anecdotal information but not a measurement of anything.