This nails how “fair‑looking” comp systems end up taxing your highest‑impact people. The power‑law reality is real in most knowledge‑work orgs.
The missing piece for me is governance: who decides what “impact” is, and how visible and challengeable that judgment is. Without strong calibration and transparency, “pay unfairly” can slide into “pay people who look like our current favorites,” while others are stuck at 1% raises.
Eh ... Isn't this the very definition of fair? That more value gets better rewarded? In most organisations where I worked (and US organisations were worse than European ones in this respect), people paid "performance tax" - the more efficient you are, the more work you get asked to do, for the same money. So that everyone looks busy for 10-12 hours a day and boss is happy because he can show to his boss that the team is working hard. Loyalty and compliance beats value every time.
Success comes from a full operating system: hire exceptionally, focus development on the extremes, separate feedback from compensation, pay by impact, and default to transparency
This nails how “fair‑looking” comp systems end up taxing your highest‑impact people. The power‑law reality is real in most knowledge‑work orgs.
The missing piece for me is governance: who decides what “impact” is, and how visible and challengeable that judgment is. Without strong calibration and transparency, “pay unfairly” can slide into “pay people who look like our current favorites,” while others are stuck at 1% raises.
Exactly, top performers deserve top rewards, not just “fair” pay.
Eh ... Isn't this the very definition of fair? That more value gets better rewarded? In most organisations where I worked (and US organisations were worse than European ones in this respect), people paid "performance tax" - the more efficient you are, the more work you get asked to do, for the same money. So that everyone looks busy for 10-12 hours a day and boss is happy because he can show to his boss that the team is working hard. Loyalty and compliance beats value every time.
Success comes from a full operating system: hire exceptionally, focus development on the extremes, separate feedback from compensation, pay by impact, and default to transparency
Fascinating… It feels like pricing water in a desert rather than in a city.
The value isn’t about virtue, it’s about scarcity and impact.
And this tension might show up differently across the voices:
Nurturers might feel the human cost of perceived unfairness.
Guardians might question sustainability and coherence.
Creatives might wrestle with how value is defined and rewarded.
Connectors might sense the relational strain pay signals create.
Pioneers might recognise how outsized leverage reshapes outcomes.
Naming these perspectives helps teams talk about pay without collapsing into blame.
Invest where it matters, be explicit, and treat people as the high-leverage assets they truly are