This is an embarrassment to civilization and modernity…
It has to do with how we organize our hierarchies, give individuals authority and power, and put people on the path to success.
We do this in two ways.
Or more explicitly: There are two paths to world class success in the modern world of careers.
And when I say world class success, I don’t just mean joining the top 5% of professionals or having a lauded career. Yes, I mean those things, but I also mean getting your employer to compensate you to such an extent that your grand-kids can retire.
For that type of success, there are only two paths. These are the paths of “class based status” and the path of “competence based status”.
What Most People Don’t Want To Hear
Before I can show you how these paths work, as you might imagine, I have to first teach you about status…
Status is defined as “the relative social, professional, or other standing of someone or something.” (Oxford).
Status is the representation of your total social value.
Another way to think of it is: Status is the hidden variable that determines how others treat you, at every aspect of your life. It is the guiding principle behind your social outcomes.
Status determines life outcomes, not only because of social or cultural reasons, but also because human beings, just like all other primates, are hardwired to respond to status.
In fact, this behavior so ingrained, we call this concept the “status response”. (Incidentally, we’ve engineered a considerable number of our techniques to leverage this status response in order to speed up promotions, especially for leadership positions)
When you learn how to properly harness the status response, you basically get the “VIP treatment”. But even this is a bit of a misnomer, because the VIP treatment itself is part of the status response! It’s not the effect, it’s part of the cause!
Rather than nitpicking definitions; The important point here is that “status” as a concept, and your status specifically, must be treated as a precious commodity, understood, harnessed and used.
Remember: beneath the thin veneer of civilization and professionalism, status interactions determine how we develop and strengthen our careers, opening otherwise sealed doors, and expanding our access to new opportunities.
Status is the key.
Status Is The Key… What Then?
So… With that understanding… Let’s unpack the two types of status, and see how we can use them.
First, we have “class based status”. It is the kind of status you get from the social class you are born into, or the social class you somehow managed to align yourself with. This is the aristocracy of the old days, and the neo-aristocracy of today. It’s primarily concerned with the genetic impetus, or the social mechanism which allows power to flow from parents to children.
In the modern day – since we consider aristocracy despotic and unpalatable – class based status has morphed into credentialism and network reach. We call this neo-aristocracy.
The second kind of status is “competence based status“. This is the kind of recognition you get from being really, REALLY good at something. From great athletes to top scientists, from high-power executives to prominent government bureaucrats (yes there are some good ones); some talented individuals get to where they are through competence based status.
In the modern day – just like in the old days – competence based status makes the world go around.
Now… Here’s something interesting to note…
While the world – and the majority of its population – bends to the will of anyone with status, people don’t usually differentiate between the two types of status.
And because the modern world is hopelessly dependent on the abilities, actions and leadership of competent people, most people end up assuming that everyone with status, including those who have it purely due to their last class association, must be important too.
They are not.
At least, they are not important regarding the functional operations of the modern world. Of course, they are important as human beings. But they don’t actually make the world go around.
In fact, and quite ironically, the world keeps going around, and continues to function, despite the ignorant actions of some with class based status who really have no idea what they are doing…
What is crucial for you to understand is that the human response to status (both class based and competence based) is a nasty biological and cultural meme. It’s not just a bug in the system. It’s a feature of evolution…
Aristocracy Is The Backbone of Human Social Structures
This is why, with its roots in genealogy, and it’s various manifestations in the social norms of business, including norms like nepotism and favoritism, class based status is not going to go away.
At least, it is not going to go away in any reasonable timeline where it makes any practical difference in your lifetime.
This is because, biological ingroup preference to one’s lineage is a hardwired primate trait and one that has provided tremendous evolutionary and social advantages throughout mammal history.
(Sidenote: If you’re interested in this, I urge you to explore the concept of “founder effect” in the fields of behavioral and evolutionary biology. It will teach you, in no uncertain terms, how genes have been in charge of the way status hierarchies form.)
Due to this evolutionary baggage, we get reports of nepotism prevalence in the corporate world that range anywhere between 40% to 80%, depending on how a particular study defines nepotism. But one need not look that far. Just take a look at the White House Administrations of the past 30 years, and count the number of blood relatives holding positions of prominence…
It’s not rocket science. Nepotism is a thing.
Of course, for our purposes, the important discussion isn’t the existence or the morality of class based status. The important discussion is: What do we do about it?
What can you do, especially if you do not have class based authority (i.e. you’re not a trust fund kid), to empower your career development?
And how can you mitigate and overcome the overwhelming advantage of class based status your competitors have over you in the corporate world?
Well… To that end, I do have some good news!
Competence Wins Over Class, But Class Still Persists
Since the Western Enlightenment, and the expansions of democracies, our culture has taken a stance. And in that stance, we recognize that class based status, when it’s devoid of competence, is detrimental to society.
In other words, at least at a philosophical level, we don’t want aristocrats any longer. We want a meritocracy. We’ve done the whole aristocracy thing before. We saw it doesn’t work. And we’re over it (kind of).
Modern corporations (and modern law) knows and understands this. They recognize that an organization which gives power solely based on class ends up losing in the long run, and sometimes, even in the short run. In fact, many top corporations have policies and frameworks around preventing class based hires.
At least in theory, we can all agree that no one should be hiring their nephew because they are related…
Of course, practice doesn’t always match theory… And corruption, nepotism and favoritism still trouble us. And while society is capable of preventing too many blood relatives snatching high power jobs for each other, we are still quite incapable of controlling our subconscious responses in class based interactions.
THIS IS THE KEY: People still respond to class (because it’s hard wired) even though it is unfashionable (because… enlightenment).
And as a result of this dissonance, people of the modern day tell a very interesting and pacifying story: We respond to class, but pretend it’s because of competence or merit.
Or, in other words, people still hire their niece or a fraternity brother, but claim it’s because she graduated magna cum laude or because he has a deserving track record.
And it’s not just about preferring to hire relatives or related people. It’s also about the amount of respect and power we give individuals due to their class based associations.
For instance, it is often enough to tell someone that you’ve attended Yale, or that you happened to run a big department at Google, or sometimes, that you simply live in a certain part of Silicon Valley… For them to suspend any rational analysis of your capabilities, and immediately jump to the conclusion that you are competent.
In people’s minds, merit appears contagious – even though it is perhaps the least contagious of all human characteristics!
Proxies For Merit Have Become Merit
In fact, in some organizations and subcultures, it is considered “rude” to analyze your abilities and put you through the ringer of an inquisitive or technical interview, especially when you happen to belong to a certain class. For instance, it is taboo to question if your CEO can do the math or understand basic economic theory, if they are a Princeton grad. And this taboo persists, even when they make egregious errors, and later run the company to the ground at inhuman speeds! (True story – and no, they couldn’t do the math)
The point is: All of this is actually a class based status response, that is pretending to be a competence based status response.
All the credentialism, favoritism, awe of the Ivy leagues or big brands… All of it. It’s a class based status response, and the cornerstone of the neo-aristocracy.
It is the social assumption that some people – those who happen to belong to a certain class – have somehow already proven themselves and “earned their badges”, and because of this, we need to take their competence at face value, despite any evidence to the contrary beyond their proxy credentials.
It would work, if the credentials were legitimate and could not be gamed.
It does not work, because almost all these credentials have been thoroughly gamed for nearly a century.
But it gets worse…
This social folly of class based status response, becomes exasperated with the notion that past performance dictates future outcomes. This notion is also incorrect, in fact, a fallacy. While historical performance data can be a useful signal, it is only valid given a number of dangerous assumptions, such as equivalence between the environments of operation or interchangeable externalities.
Another interesting fallacy compounding the matter is that people are, somehow, magically, responsible for all the good around them. If a president is in charge during an economic boom, it becomes his doing. If an executive oversees record profits, she gets congratulated for it. This hideous assumption is so integral to our employment process that, people are expected to conflate their accomplishments with the business events surrounding them when writing their resumes!
When all of these issues are combined: That your class proves your competence, the successes you are associated with are your successes, and that the age you accrued while employed at a particular job makes you better at that job – we get a truly deplorable situation where all an elite aspirant needs to do is to be near and associated with branded success for some time, and their status will only keep on going up.
That’s why the elite always keep failing up.
It is, in other words, the illusion of competence some people buy, by putting themselves in the same room with other actually competent people. That is the gist of it…
“Don’t look. Don’t question. Don’t scrutinize. We know this guy is smart and successful… Look at his credentials! Look at what company he worked for! Did you know that company’s stock went up 7000%! He’s been doing it for 20 years, he’s practically THE expert… What’s the matter with you? Why are you questioning them?”
People operate this way, because people have brains and brains are hard wired to operate this way. What matters and what we have to live with, however, is that ultimately, class based status has become a make-believe version of competence based status in the modern day.
But.. Wait, There’s More!
This primitive primate response to status isn’t limited to credentials or pedigree.
In fact, it is equivalently effective, and perhaps even more effective, when you don’t flaunt your credentials and just “look the part”. When you dress a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way, and behave a certain way – you immediately get classified into the class of people who are treated as if they were competent.
Make no mistake: No one who knows what they are doing actually thinks the neo-aristocracts are competent. It’s all pretend, invented to placate the masses and keep people in their place. It’s a fairy tale, told to keep the kids from misbehaving, or peaking under the tree when they are supposed to be sleeping.
But, it still influences and controls the human mind. It still determines who HR calls in for an interview. It still decides who gets a seat at the boardroom table, and who gets stuck in the cubical farm.
In this context, one of the most “revolutionary” things we teach is how to harness the power of this class based status response, and turn the phony logic onto itself, to get our way in the corporate world. It’s part of our high-value communication series, and a key element of The Language of Value.
If you’d like to learn how we turn the tables with the corporate world, start there.
And remember: If you want the successful career of a high-value professional, you have to understand status, learn it’s rules, and put it to work for you.
You either make it work for you, or you work for it. There’s no other way about it…