[goldcd]

What the article seems to miss is that for every delusional high-performer who's about to be short-changed on reward and recognition, there's an order-of-magnitude more potential high-performers who aware of the lack of reward and recognition, are having a nice relaxing life. Possibly knocking out their work in a couple of hours in the morning and spending the afternoon studying micro-biology to perfect their sourdough pizza crust.

i.e. retaining your 10x superstar is important, but are the rest of the team really only capable of 1x? Really? What's the benefit to them of giving 2x?

There seems to be some myth that everybody gives every ounce of their potential, out of the goodness of their heart as an employee. I think the reality is that most of us do whatever the role requires, plus anything we happen to enjoy/fixing frustrations.

[rightbyte]

This is a really good insight.

You also have the effect where the perception of being a 'high performer' might be gamed.

E.g. it might be rather trivial to churn out code and be perceived like a high performer, but you are essentially just creating alot more job for everyone else and drag them down.

Also, it is easy to do so much stuff that you will be blocked and waiting on other, who seem slow etc.

Unless the manager is working along side you he likely wont notice. And these points also happen automatically by itself. But I guess adversial collegues use the concept to game the workplace.