I was reading this article discussing the nuances of the illegal batted ball in the Seahawks-Lions game. When talking about referee performance, it calls out that a section of the refs will be graded as tier three. Two consecutive years in tier three makes a ref a candidate to be fired.
Companies routinely get flak for cycling out their poorest performers. However, wouldn't you, as a consumer of a product, want that company to strive for stronger and stronger employees? We accept (even demand!) this in sports. Poor players need to go. Bad refs need to go. Bad coaches need to go. Why? Because we feel the resulting product is diminished.
If I'm going to buy a car from GM or ride a plane made by Boeing or use software made by Microsoft, shouldn't I want them to use the best people they can find to make those things? Shouldn't I accept (even demand!) that they do so?
The counterargument is usually of the form "what if everyone is an all-star?" or at least "what if everyone is really good?". I counter that there's rarely an absolute definition of good. Being able to, say, assemble 10 cars in a day is objective, but meaningless. Can anyone do that? Can more people than I would ever hire do 20 cars in a day? Hiring guidelines such as these come about by observing relative skill levels. If we hire better and better people, maybe we don't need to make more cars but we can put more effort into other related aspects of assembly. Overall, better workers should create a better product.
Going back to the NFL example, these players, coaches and refs are amongst the absolutely very best in the world, but we still say they suck, they should be fired, etc. Why do we suddenly believe that these same rules don't or shouldn't apply in "real life"?
Companies routinely get flak for cycling out their poorest performers. However, wouldn't you, as a consumer of a product, want that company to strive for stronger and stronger employees? We accept (even demand!) this in sports. Poor players need to go. Bad refs need to go. Bad coaches need to go. Why? Because we feel the resulting product is diminished.
If I'm going to buy a car from GM or ride a plane made by Boeing or use software made by Microsoft, shouldn't I want them to use the best people they can find to make those things? Shouldn't I accept (even demand!) that they do so?
The counterargument is usually of the form "what if everyone is an all-star?" or at least "what if everyone is really good?". I counter that there's rarely an absolute definition of good. Being able to, say, assemble 10 cars in a day is objective, but meaningless. Can anyone do that? Can more people than I would ever hire do 20 cars in a day? Hiring guidelines such as these come about by observing relative skill levels. If we hire better and better people, maybe we don't need to make more cars but we can put more effort into other related aspects of assembly. Overall, better workers should create a better product.
Going back to the NFL example, these players, coaches and refs are amongst the absolutely very best in the world, but we still say they suck, they should be fired, etc. Why do we suddenly believe that these same rules don't or shouldn't apply in "real life"?
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