In praise of merit

... an appreciation of true excellence and true diversity

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The latest edition of the London Sunday Times carried a lovely article about a chap you’ve probably never heard of. His name is Ulrich Gerhartz and he is a piano tuner. Actually, that doesn’t tell the half of it. He is the piano tuner par excellence.

From the article I learn that not only does Mr Gerhartz tune Steinway pianos, but also, many of the crème de la crème of the world’s pianists trust him to actually select which specific piano they should play on specific occasions.

The article begins …

Ulrich Gerhartz is not normal. He is obsessive. He has an attention to detail that would make a Swiss watch technician look sloppy. OK is not OK in his mind. Perfection s just about acceptable.¹

You get the idea?

We’re talking about the high performance thin end of the bell curve - the sliver of the scale where the ultra high performers live.

In his book, The Aristocracy of Talent, Adrian Wooldridge² uses the phrase ‘The Thin End of the Bell Curve’ at the head of a section that discusses some points about IQ. That’s where the bell curve of normal distribution is most often applied, to the topic of the intelligence quotient. But if you think about it, the distribution curve applies to everything. Quite literally.

Where, for example, do you figure on the bell curve of cooking expertise? The Magnificent Seven of chefs in the world, as measured by the number of Michelin stars that they have, is topped by Joel Robuchon, Alain Ducasse, Gordon Ramsay, Pierre Gagnaire, Martin Berasategui, Yannick Aleno and Anne Sophie Pic.

What about football? There, the Magnificent Seven honours go to Kylian Mbappe (PSG), Harry Kane (Bayern Munich), Erling Haaland (Man City), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Jude Bellingham (Real Madrid), Kevin De Bruyne (Man City), Lionel Messi (Inter Miami).

In whatever specialism you choose, there are the ultra high performers at one end of the scale, the ultra low (or just plain contrary or disinterested) at the other end, and the great majority of us somewhere in between. But it surely stands to reason that all of us would fare less well than we do if the high performers went missing. And yet, we are now told by many opinion leaders and businesses that the target is equity, a.k.a. Equality of Outcome or Equality of Result.

But you don’t have to be a genius to work out that, if the goal is Equality of Result, everything has to be dumbed down. Equality of Result is self-evidently incompatible with Meritocracy for the simple reason that not everybody can perform at the highest levels. No, presumably the more likely outcome when aiming for Equality of Result is something much closer to the mean … or, even, the real underperforming segment of the curve.

Consider, for example, the fate of Kulaks in early 20th century Russia. The Kulaks were the highest performing group of peasant farmers - higher performing than the Bednyak (poor peasants) and Serednyak (middle-income peasants). But, post-1917, the Bolsheviks regarded the Bednyak and Serednyak as allies (although they were suspicious of the Serednyak) … but the Kulak were literally classified as class enemies. So, in August 1918, Lenin sent out an order, "Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers …”

Hmm, that’s the way to do it! That’s the way to assure Equality of Result!

The much-prized Diversity that we are (to my mind) irritatingly told is ‘our strength’ is as much a function of the bell curve as it is of the tiny subset of criteria that the right-on brigade suggest is what it is all and only about - i.e. race and skin colour, sex and gender, age and physical ability/neurodiversity.

In my opinion, for what it’s worth, it’s better to forget about the immutable characteristics and concentrate on the ability and/or ambition of people to do whatever is required in a particular task or situation.

Admittedly, diversity-by-immutable-characteristics doesn’t always end in terror for those who are excluded (although the Russian, Chinese and Cambodian communist ‘experiments’ slaughtered millions) but, at a minimum, they inevitably result in forms of apartheid - groups trapped in their subsets, viewing other subsets quite literally as The Other.

By all means give everyone equality of opportunity right across the board. But also provide a unifying narrative. And let the best people thrive, whoever they are.

It’s interesting to note, for example, that, so concerned was Ulrich Gerhartz about the future of his craft because of a lack of training opportunities that he has built up his own team of seven ‘concert technicians’, in Steinway, who now their rare skills out to concert venues. So, in this case, the meritocratic principle is assuring the future of a stream of work that might well otherwise fade away.

Thanks for reading.

1. Will Gompertz. Secrets of the piano tuner to the stars. The Sunday Times (12 May 2024)

2. Wooldridge, Adrian. The Aristocracy of Talent (2021)