Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

by Patty McCord

An interesting study done by Bain and described in a Harvard Business Review article provides strong support for the value of this strategy. The study analyzed the distribution of talent in twenty-five global companies and found that on average, only 15 percent of employees were performance “stars.” But a big difference between the most successful companies and the rest was the nature of the roles their stars were in. The authors wrote, “The best companies used intentional non-egalitarianism,” meaning that “they focus their stars on areas where these individuals can have the biggest impact on company performance. As a result, the vast majority of business-critical roles—upward of 95%—are filled by A-quality talent.” At the other companies, stars were distributed broadly across the departments.