Meritocracy and Better Talent Decisions

Why Meritocracy Keeps Reappearing – Meritocracy tends to resurface during periods of uncertainty:

• economic disruption
• technological change (including AI)
• labour market volatility
• pressure on leadership pipelines

At its core, meritocracy is the idea that:

• people should advance based on ability and merit
• opportunity should be earned rather than inherited
• decisions should be defensible rather than arbitrary

The Merrill Webster dictionary describes meritocracy as: ‘ a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit.’

The appeal is straightforward:

• it promises better decisions
• it implies equal opportunity
• it offers justification for outcomes

The problem is not the idea — it’s how merit is interpreted and applied in practice.

The word merit is doing too much work.

Common definitions include:

• superior quality or worth
• a quality deserving praise or approval
• demonstrated ability or achievement

In organizations, these meanings are often blended together:

• performance
• capability
• effort
• potential
• perceived value

When one word stands in for many concepts:

• clarity disappears
• assumptions increase
• judgement fills the gaps

The term meritocracy entered modern discourse through Michael Young’s 1958 book The Rise of the Meritocracy, written in post-war Britain against a backdrop of hereditary privilege and class stratification. Young’s work was;

• written as satire, not endorsement
• warned of new elites formed through narrow definitions of merit
• highlighted how disadvantage can be obscured rather than removed

Later reinterpretations, for example the 2018 publication Meritocracy in Perspective with his son, Toby as one of the authors, reframed meritocracy as:

• a positive driver of effort and ambition
• a justification for market-based outcomes
• a mechanism for securing acceptance of inequality

Critics have since pointed out that meritocracy can:

• obscure structural advantage
• conflate education with capability
• legitimize unequal outcomes without examining inputs

This unresolved tension carries directly into organizational decision-making.

Despite its contested history, meritocracy attractive in organizations because

• it promises better outcomes
• it feels practical, not ideological

Most organizations describe their people decisions as merit-based.  Meritocracy is rarely a philosophical position. It functions as a decision model for answering practical questions:

• Who should be promoted?
• Who is ready for more responsibility?
• Who should be invested in?
• Who should be part of the succession pipeline?

The risk is that meritocracy morphs into a form of cultural shorthand:

• “We reward performance.”
• “We promote the best people.”
• “Opportunities are earned.”

What is often lost is measurement discipline. Merit is something felt rather than demonstrated.

• inferred rather than defined
• assumed rather than evidenced

Organizations rarely distinguish clearly between:

• competence and performance
• capability and outcomes
• potential and readiness

As a result:

• people use the same words differently
• alignment is assumed where it doesn’t exist

In most organizations, talent decisions are not driven by clear, comparable evidence. They rely instead on proxies.  Common proxies include:

• job title or level
• overall performance ratings
• tenure
• track record
• manager confidence
• visibility or reputation

These signals feel efficient because they are readily available. They also feel reasonable — until decisions need to be compared, defended, or scaled. At that point, their limitations become visible.

Importantly, these are not wrong inputs. They are incomplete inputs. The result is not intentional unfairness, but inconsistent decision quality.

Two managers reviewing the same individual often reach different conclusions, not because of bad intent, but because the evidence base is thin

This variability:

• undermines consistency
• makes decisions harder to scale
• weakens defensibility

In fact research shows that manager assessments often are more reflective of  their relationship with the staff member, than actual performance or competence.

Research by Emilio Castilla  highlights a critical risk.

Findings show that:

• emphasizing meritocratic values does not eliminate bias
• it can increase reliance on subjective judgement
• decision-makers assume the system itself ensures fairness

This finding does not argue against merit as a basis for decisions. It underscores a more practical point: aspirational meritocracy without strong decision inputs can reduce scrutiny, not improve outcomes.

The real question is not whether merit should matter.  It is how merit is evidenced. Higher-quality decisions follow a sequence:

• Role expectations
• Capability evidence
• Performance outcomes
• Readiness signals
• Decision

Where many organizations fail:

• jumping from role → decision
• or performance → decision

Where better organizations differ:

• they insert evidence layers
• they reduce reliance on inference

Merit is not treated as a single attribute.

Decisions separate:

• role requirements
• demonstrated competence
• performance outcomes
• readiness signals (e.g. progression, stretch performance, assessed gaps)

Capabilities are:

• defined at role level
• have evidence requirements
• observable in context
• assessable independently of title or tenure

This reduces guesswork.

Better decisions draw from:

• competency assessments
• performance history
• feedback and observation
• development activity and progression
• validated capability records

No single data source carries the full burden.

If a promotion or succession decision cannot be explained later:

• the evidence was insufficient at the time

Auditability is:

• a decision-quality signal
• not a compliance exercise

Organizations that make better talent decisions do not rely on different values. They rely on better inputs. Across sectors, stronger decision quality shows up in consistent ways:

What better looks like in practice

• Organizations with higher decision confidence typically:
• define capability at the role level rather than inferring it from titles
• distinguish clearly between competence, performance, and readiness
• gather evidence over time rather than at decision points only
• reduce reliance on proxies such as tenure, visibility, or confidence
• can explain promotion and succession decisions calmly and consistently

These organizations are not more bureaucratic.  They are more explicit.

How leaders can move toward better decisions

Improving decision quality does not require wholesale change. It starts with tightening inputs around the decisions that already matter most. Practical first steps include:

• Clarify decision criteria for one critical role family
  (What actually constitutes readiness for advancement in this role?)
• Identify proxy reliance
  (Where are titles, tenure, or ratings standing in for evidence?)
• Separate outcomes from capability assumptions
  (Strong results are one input — not proof of readiness.)
• Introduce at least one explicit competence assessment
  (Something observable, role-specific, and repeatable.)
• Require decisions to be explainable in plain language
  (If it can’t be explained later, the evidence wasn’t sufficient.)

None of this requires culture change. It requires clearer inputs into existing decisions.