All about 'Double M Theory'
Friday, 8 January 2010
Sayed Javed Ahmad
“Double M" means meritocracy and morality. These are the two main factors leading to human splendours. Everyone loves a good human being having high morale, self-dignity and ability. It has been observed that a society performs a lot better when they value such qualities and encourages those people who possess the same.
Many different tools and techniques are applied to human resource management (HRM) practices to handle recruitment process, but none of them matters unless and until we agree with the basic theory of double M, in principle. This is the core agreement, no matter which route or process we follow.
For the sake of clarity, the meanings of the two Ms -- meritocracy and morality can be discussed in details so that we can make a unified approach, with a parallel understanding. Wikipedia (free online encyclopedia) sheds light on 'Double M'. For fairness in discussion and enabling the reader to verify it all by themselves at will. Let us recour what it suggests.
Meritocracy is a system of a government or an organisation wherein appointments are made and responsibilities, assigned to individuals, based upon demonstrated talent and ability (merit). In a meritocracy, society rewards (via wealth, position, and social status) those who show talent and competence as demonstrated by past actions or by competition. Evaluation systems, such as formal education, are closely linked to notions of meritocracy.
This is opposed to other value systems, where reward and legitimacy is based upon possession of wealth (plutocracy), origin (aristocracy), family connections (nepotism), property (oligarchy), friendship (cronyism), seniority (gerontocracy), popularity (democracy) or other historical determinants of social position and political power.
Technocracy is a form of meritocracy, whereby appointments for positions are made based on demonstrated technical expertise.
The term 'meritocracy' was first used in Michael Young's 1958 satirical book, "Rise of the Meritocracy." The term was intended to be pejorative, and his book set in a dystopian future in which one's social place is determined by intelligence quotient (IQ) plus effort. In the book, this social system ultimately leads to a social revolution in which the masses overthrow the elite, who have become arrogant and disconnected from public sentiment.
Despite the negative origin of the word, there are many who believe that a meritocratic system is a good thing. Proponents argue that a meritocratic system is more just and more productive than other systems, and that it allows for an end to distinctions based on arbitrary criteria such as sex, race, wealth and social connections.
Success of meritocratic recruitment could be realised by the ultimate performance of the individual in the job assigned. After all, there is a saying that goes like this, "it is harder to keep a job than getting one." Because, retention of job depends on the ability and performance of the person recruited. That is why we have a job trial period called the "probation period" when it comes to recruitment to ensure that a proper candidate is recruited that fits into the needed criteria.
The following governing principles comprise meritocracies: Job placement is not awarded due to experience or expertise, but instead it is awarded 1) on the basis of merit (although experience, expertise and seniority tend to result in greater merit), 2) on the conditions of the opportunity under the application of the job principle and 3) to one that specifies the rewards for job attainment.
Most evaluate the structure of job equalities and inequalities through human abilities and personalities that allow them to perform job tasks to the best of their abilities.
The other "M" -- morality (from the Latin moralitas conoiding "manner, character, proper behaviour") means a code of conduct or a set of beliefs distinguishing between right and wrong behaviours. In its descriptive use, morals are arbitrarily and subjectively created by philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience.
Morality is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain. It seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).
In applied ethics, for example, the prohibition against taking human life is controversial with respect to capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion and wars of invasion. In normative ethics, a typical question might be whether a lie told for the sake of protecting someone from harm is justified. In meta-ethics, a key issue is the meaning of the terms "moral" or "immoral". Moral realism would hold that there are true moral statements which report objective moral facts, whereas moral anti-realism would hold that morality is derived from any one of the norms prevalent in society (cultural relativism), the edicts of a god (divine command theory). It can connote is merely an expression of the speakers' sentiments (emotivism) and it may implied imperative (universal prescriptivism); or falsely presuppose that there are objective moral facts (error theory).
There are universal, eternal moral truths that are known as moral absolutism. Moral absolutists might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape moral decisions, but deny that cultural norms and customs define morally right behaviour. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people, depending on their membership of an "ingroup" (the individual and those they believe to be of the same culture or race) or an "outgroup" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules).
The major virtues that prevailed across cultures and millennia include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice; temperance; and transcendence. Each of these includes several divisions. For instance humanity includes love, kindness, and social intelligence.
Codified morality is generally distinguished from customs which are another way for a community to define appropriate activity, by the former's derivation from natural or universal principles. In certain religious communities, the Divine is said to provide these principles through revelation, sometimes in great details. Community morality may be defined through commentary on the texts of revelation, as in Islamic law. Such codes are distinguished from legal or judicial right, including civil rights, which are based on the accumulated traditions, decrees and legislation of a political authority, though the latter often invoke the authority of the moral law.
Morality can also be seen as the collection of beliefs as to what constitutes a good life. Since throughout most of human history, religions have provided both visions and regulations for an ideal life, morality is often confused with religious precepts. In secular communities, lifestyle choices, which represent an individual's conception of a good life, are often discussed in terms of "morality." Individuals sometimes feel that making an appropriate lifestyle choice invokes a true morality, and that accepted codes of conduct within their chosen community are fundamentally moral, even when such codes deviate from more general social principles.
All the good things, we could think of, fall into either of the two Ms. For instance, talent, ability (i.e., merit), efficiency, and IQ fall into the category of meritocracy while honesty, sincerity and politeness fall under the category of morality. Therefore, by applying the double M theory for recruitment purpose and career placements, we can reduce the chances of mismanagement and administrative failures of both government and private organisations.
Through implementation of the double M theory, quality and prosperity of a organisation would to promote as the people recruited through the process thereof, are expected to be the people of high moral and ethical values with total dedication to their goals and assignments. As a rule of thumb, they are mostly self-motivated people.
The "Double M theory" is applicable globally especially in those countries and organisations that are suffering from poor performance and corruption. However, it should be noted that success and effectiveness of this theory in practice do also largely depend on many other factors that exert direct or indirect influences. For instance, greed and personal financial crisis are the two main causes of corruption. Therefore, with the double M theory, "greed" may be checked but not the other one. Greed could be checked by not recruiting a greedy person. That can be determined through some psychological tests and measures.
Personally this writer has applied this theory in almost all the organisations he has joined and worked for and benefited greatly from it. The first thing one should do, after joining a company, is to reshuffle personnel in the organisation and place them in appropriate positions based on their educational background, experiences and personal interests. Although it takes a considerable amount of time, yet this planning effort pays of, immensely, once the proper 'placement' process is completed. Once the process is done and completed, performance of an individual increases greatly, resulting in higher output and overall improved performance of the company. It happens simply because they are now put to work in positions that they are really capable of serving and enjoys doing the same (i.e., job satisfaction).
The double M theory installs and enforces the positive forces for achieving one common goal and direction -- leading to a powerful thrust for materialising the vision and mission of the company. In any professional career, only two employees (in two different organisations) who were totally useless and unable to cope with the changes made in the organisational business process, had to fired so far. Normally, not much time is needed to be spent on an unproductive employee as it has a cost to it and keeping such employees long demoralises others. Instead, simply they should be let them go. There are however some employees when this writer succeeded in turning could turn into assets through some encouragement and training arrangements. In order to boost their confidence and abilities such employees are often sent out to attend short trainings, seminars and workshops organised by professional trainers. And often it works as positive strategy for this writer and the related organisation.
Why should anyone put up with an employee who is good for nothing in a situation where as there are a plenty of candidates out there in the job market who are much better. The government has an otherwise 'charitable' mindset and it tolerates poor performance. As a result, the concerned employees are unable to live up to the minimum public expectations. This results in wastage of public funds and resources (tax payer's money). The government talks about achieving "good governance"; how can this be achieved without good people?
In a private company, sustainability comes first and then comes charity. It is better to keep a small group of highly efficient employees with good compensation packages than keeping a house, full of inefficient people who are unable to produce, with poor pay. A small group is easier to manage and monitor.
Without having proper human resources (HR), it is almost impossible for an enterprise to achieve strategic goals and objectives as per its original business plan. It is advisable to stan the practice of recruiting friends and relatives without following the proper recruitment process. If the candidates qualify themselves in the tests relating to recruitment process, then only they be recruited. This should also give a clear message to all concerned that they have been given a fair chance to compete for the job and they are just not good enough to succeed, in case of their failure. Therefore, they need to improve and become competent and then retry.
Giving a blind eye to the double M principle would be a good enough reasons for a company or organisation to go sick and eventually fail. Not too long ago, we have seen a company fail for ignoring the double M rule and it had to close down ultimately its business, entailing a huge loss and incurring debt on its shoulder. Had it recruited qualified and competent employees, if could have avoided this.
A majority of the companies in Bangladesh suffer from poor management and administration, simply because they are not careful enough to employ the right candidates. Strong and effective HR recruitment policy and process are required by a company or organisation that wants to select candidates keeping the Double M Theory in mind.
The writer is Chief Operating Officer, Central Depository Bangladesh Limited (CDBL). He can be reached at
e-mail: www.cdbl.com.bd
“Double M" means meritocracy and morality. These are the two main factors leading to human splendours. Everyone loves a good human being having high morale, self-dignity and ability. It has been observed that a society performs a lot better when they value such qualities and encourages those people who possess the same.
Many different tools and techniques are applied to human resource management (HRM) practices to handle recruitment process, but none of them matters unless and until we agree with the basic theory of double M, in principle. This is the core agreement, no matter which route or process we follow.
For the sake of clarity, the meanings of the two Ms -- meritocracy and morality can be discussed in details so that we can make a unified approach, with a parallel understanding. Wikipedia (free online encyclopedia) sheds light on 'Double M'. For fairness in discussion and enabling the reader to verify it all by themselves at will. Let us recour what it suggests.
Meritocracy is a system of a government or an organisation wherein appointments are made and responsibilities, assigned to individuals, based upon demonstrated talent and ability (merit). In a meritocracy, society rewards (via wealth, position, and social status) those who show talent and competence as demonstrated by past actions or by competition. Evaluation systems, such as formal education, are closely linked to notions of meritocracy.
This is opposed to other value systems, where reward and legitimacy is based upon possession of wealth (plutocracy), origin (aristocracy), family connections (nepotism), property (oligarchy), friendship (cronyism), seniority (gerontocracy), popularity (democracy) or other historical determinants of social position and political power.
Technocracy is a form of meritocracy, whereby appointments for positions are made based on demonstrated technical expertise.
The term 'meritocracy' was first used in Michael Young's 1958 satirical book, "Rise of the Meritocracy." The term was intended to be pejorative, and his book set in a dystopian future in which one's social place is determined by intelligence quotient (IQ) plus effort. In the book, this social system ultimately leads to a social revolution in which the masses overthrow the elite, who have become arrogant and disconnected from public sentiment.
Despite the negative origin of the word, there are many who believe that a meritocratic system is a good thing. Proponents argue that a meritocratic system is more just and more productive than other systems, and that it allows for an end to distinctions based on arbitrary criteria such as sex, race, wealth and social connections.
Success of meritocratic recruitment could be realised by the ultimate performance of the individual in the job assigned. After all, there is a saying that goes like this, "it is harder to keep a job than getting one." Because, retention of job depends on the ability and performance of the person recruited. That is why we have a job trial period called the "probation period" when it comes to recruitment to ensure that a proper candidate is recruited that fits into the needed criteria.
The following governing principles comprise meritocracies: Job placement is not awarded due to experience or expertise, but instead it is awarded 1) on the basis of merit (although experience, expertise and seniority tend to result in greater merit), 2) on the conditions of the opportunity under the application of the job principle and 3) to one that specifies the rewards for job attainment.
Most evaluate the structure of job equalities and inequalities through human abilities and personalities that allow them to perform job tasks to the best of their abilities.
The other "M" -- morality (from the Latin moralitas conoiding "manner, character, proper behaviour") means a code of conduct or a set of beliefs distinguishing between right and wrong behaviours. In its descriptive use, morals are arbitrarily and subjectively created by philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience.
Morality is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the systematic philosophical study of the moral domain. It seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).
In applied ethics, for example, the prohibition against taking human life is controversial with respect to capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion and wars of invasion. In normative ethics, a typical question might be whether a lie told for the sake of protecting someone from harm is justified. In meta-ethics, a key issue is the meaning of the terms "moral" or "immoral". Moral realism would hold that there are true moral statements which report objective moral facts, whereas moral anti-realism would hold that morality is derived from any one of the norms prevalent in society (cultural relativism), the edicts of a god (divine command theory). It can connote is merely an expression of the speakers' sentiments (emotivism) and it may implied imperative (universal prescriptivism); or falsely presuppose that there are objective moral facts (error theory).
There are universal, eternal moral truths that are known as moral absolutism. Moral absolutists might concede that forces of social conformity significantly shape moral decisions, but deny that cultural norms and customs define morally right behaviour. Some observers hold that individuals apply distinct sets of moral rules to people, depending on their membership of an "ingroup" (the individual and those they believe to be of the same culture or race) or an "outgroup" (people not entitled to be treated according to the same rules).
The major virtues that prevailed across cultures and millennia include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice; temperance; and transcendence. Each of these includes several divisions. For instance humanity includes love, kindness, and social intelligence.
Codified morality is generally distinguished from customs which are another way for a community to define appropriate activity, by the former's derivation from natural or universal principles. In certain religious communities, the Divine is said to provide these principles through revelation, sometimes in great details. Community morality may be defined through commentary on the texts of revelation, as in Islamic law. Such codes are distinguished from legal or judicial right, including civil rights, which are based on the accumulated traditions, decrees and legislation of a political authority, though the latter often invoke the authority of the moral law.
Morality can also be seen as the collection of beliefs as to what constitutes a good life. Since throughout most of human history, religions have provided both visions and regulations for an ideal life, morality is often confused with religious precepts. In secular communities, lifestyle choices, which represent an individual's conception of a good life, are often discussed in terms of "morality." Individuals sometimes feel that making an appropriate lifestyle choice invokes a true morality, and that accepted codes of conduct within their chosen community are fundamentally moral, even when such codes deviate from more general social principles.
All the good things, we could think of, fall into either of the two Ms. For instance, talent, ability (i.e., merit), efficiency, and IQ fall into the category of meritocracy while honesty, sincerity and politeness fall under the category of morality. Therefore, by applying the double M theory for recruitment purpose and career placements, we can reduce the chances of mismanagement and administrative failures of both government and private organisations.
Through implementation of the double M theory, quality and prosperity of a organisation would to promote as the people recruited through the process thereof, are expected to be the people of high moral and ethical values with total dedication to their goals and assignments. As a rule of thumb, they are mostly self-motivated people.
The "Double M theory" is applicable globally especially in those countries and organisations that are suffering from poor performance and corruption. However, it should be noted that success and effectiveness of this theory in practice do also largely depend on many other factors that exert direct or indirect influences. For instance, greed and personal financial crisis are the two main causes of corruption. Therefore, with the double M theory, "greed" may be checked but not the other one. Greed could be checked by not recruiting a greedy person. That can be determined through some psychological tests and measures.
Personally this writer has applied this theory in almost all the organisations he has joined and worked for and benefited greatly from it. The first thing one should do, after joining a company, is to reshuffle personnel in the organisation and place them in appropriate positions based on their educational background, experiences and personal interests. Although it takes a considerable amount of time, yet this planning effort pays of, immensely, once the proper 'placement' process is completed. Once the process is done and completed, performance of an individual increases greatly, resulting in higher output and overall improved performance of the company. It happens simply because they are now put to work in positions that they are really capable of serving and enjoys doing the same (i.e., job satisfaction).
The double M theory installs and enforces the positive forces for achieving one common goal and direction -- leading to a powerful thrust for materialising the vision and mission of the company. In any professional career, only two employees (in two different organisations) who were totally useless and unable to cope with the changes made in the organisational business process, had to fired so far. Normally, not much time is needed to be spent on an unproductive employee as it has a cost to it and keeping such employees long demoralises others. Instead, simply they should be let them go. There are however some employees when this writer succeeded in turning could turn into assets through some encouragement and training arrangements. In order to boost their confidence and abilities such employees are often sent out to attend short trainings, seminars and workshops organised by professional trainers. And often it works as positive strategy for this writer and the related organisation.
Why should anyone put up with an employee who is good for nothing in a situation where as there are a plenty of candidates out there in the job market who are much better. The government has an otherwise 'charitable' mindset and it tolerates poor performance. As a result, the concerned employees are unable to live up to the minimum public expectations. This results in wastage of public funds and resources (tax payer's money). The government talks about achieving "good governance"; how can this be achieved without good people?
In a private company, sustainability comes first and then comes charity. It is better to keep a small group of highly efficient employees with good compensation packages than keeping a house, full of inefficient people who are unable to produce, with poor pay. A small group is easier to manage and monitor.
Without having proper human resources (HR), it is almost impossible for an enterprise to achieve strategic goals and objectives as per its original business plan. It is advisable to stan the practice of recruiting friends and relatives without following the proper recruitment process. If the candidates qualify themselves in the tests relating to recruitment process, then only they be recruited. This should also give a clear message to all concerned that they have been given a fair chance to compete for the job and they are just not good enough to succeed, in case of their failure. Therefore, they need to improve and become competent and then retry.
Giving a blind eye to the double M principle would be a good enough reasons for a company or organisation to go sick and eventually fail. Not too long ago, we have seen a company fail for ignoring the double M rule and it had to close down ultimately its business, entailing a huge loss and incurring debt on its shoulder. Had it recruited qualified and competent employees, if could have avoided this.
A majority of the companies in Bangladesh suffer from poor management and administration, simply because they are not careful enough to employ the right candidates. Strong and effective HR recruitment policy and process are required by a company or organisation that wants to select candidates keeping the Double M Theory in mind.
The writer is Chief Operating Officer, Central Depository Bangladesh Limited (CDBL). He can be reached at
e-mail: www.cdbl.com.bd