OCTOBER 24 — I recall, in one of my previous organisations, the HR Director was trying to convince everyone that the rewards and bonuses given out were more or less equal.
As an illustration, she said: If all of you removed your shoes, measured their sizes and obtained the average, the addition of the CEO’s shoe would not change the average very much.
Ergo, even though there are differences among us, in general the average remains substantially the same.
To my quasi-shock, everybody nodded, smiled and voiced their agreement like she just said that hot dogs are really nothing but sausages and bread.
Being the greasy wheel that I was/am, I asked: Why use shoes? Why not, I suggested, compare something similar to bonuses i.e.salaries? Take 20 employees from any department, get their salaries, compute their average… then add the CEO’s salary. What do we think will happen to the average? Is it just gonna relax, build a snowman and stay steady? Or will it soar to the moon, high-five it and say I’ve reached the limit and no it ain't the sky?
Behold, a power law.
What’s a power law?
It’s the kind of law which rubbishes the notion of an "average", the "normal" and the expected. It’s the type of law which favours the (very lucky or very powerful) few.
These laws are the reason why our education which tries to produce millions of professors will only produce a handful of scholarship winners, and the rest wondering why they bothered studying so hard in the first place.
Power laws are the reason why, despite there being so many dim-sum restaurants in Ipoh, only two places ever get talked about by tourists; why out of thousands of cendol-sellers in Penang, only one stall gets mobbed like they’re giving away free gold every minute.
Or take best-selling authors. All over the world there are thousands of writers and novelists trying to make it big. Out of this number, only about two per cent will ever sell more than a few thousand copies of their book and only about 0.0001 per cent will become a JK Rowling or Stephen King.
Like what Mark Wahlberg’s character in The Gambler said, if you’re not a genius don’t bother.
Do power laws apply to everything? Thankfully, no. They don’t matter to the number of goals scored in football matches, to human physical achievement, or to casino odds. Again, the laws don’t play in situations where it is logically or physically impossible to go beyond a given range.
Unfortunately for us, the set of these things is relatively small. Power laws apply to everything from how many football teams succeed to the number of Olympic medals won per country to the number of bankrupt cases resulting from a market crash.
Believe in yourself?
Which brings us, of course, to our careers. For every success story, there are a million failures. For each cock-proud face on the cover of Forbes, there are two million more holding back the creditors and contemplating a return to salaried work (or the soup kitchen).
Bottom line: Always be wary of "success porn" BS topping the book best-sellers’.
Such snake-oil consistently teach us that all it takes is hard work, smart tactics and OMG you’ll be rocking’ and rollin’ all the way to the bank and inside it, too. Even now we naturally attribute the success of Ronaldo, Jobs and certain amazing donation fund-raisers almost 100 per cent to them and them alone.
They're amazing, they’re beyond fantastic, they’re super – so just find out what they’re doing, how they’re thinking (by buy this new bad-ass book for only RM89.99!) and dammit you’ll fly!
The ideology is: It’s not about external factors, not about politics and nepotism, not about luck, not about an unjust and oppressive system i.e. ignore everything that’s not you and just "believe in yourself."
Whatever "believe in yourself" looks like – seriously I have trouble even recognizing when any of us do, don’t you? – I doubt that McDonald’s is doing better than Burger King because the Clown’s founders believe in themselves more than the Crown’s.
I’m sure that Schooling didn’t beat Phelps because, at the halfway mark, the American suddenly stopped "believing" in his capacity as multiple-Olympic gold winner. Of course, watching a show like American Idol (or the World Wrestling Federation?) convinces me that "believing in myself" is an attribute especially distinctive of arrogant basket cases who are one criticism away from a meltdown.
Some would even suggest that Louis van Gaal believed in himself too much, thus creating so much misery for Man U fans. And who here doesn’t wish that folks like Donald Trump would believe in himself less? (see Note 1)
The point, in the context of power laws, is that the self is NOT the key factor in future outcomes. It’s a factor, for sure, but hardly the centre of the universe it’s often proclaimed to be.
What do we do in the face of these laws?
Honestly, nothing.
Don’t take risks which leave you open to such a law ripping you a new hole or two.
Don’t believe you’re so special you will "certainly" make it out on top (see Note 2). Don’t assume you have some magic or exceptional know-how which exempts you from the two career-destroyers out there: time and assholes (including yourself).
Don’t — especially if you’ve “struck it rich” — assume that you’ll never lose it all i.e. what a power law can give, it can damn well take away.
Read up (and, heck, maybe even talk to) the failures, the "losers", those who lost everything trying to win everything.
Be kind. Don’t envy. Don’t keep a record of wrongs. Don’t brag. Care and forgive. Against these things, there is no law. Not even power law.
Note 1: Which is not to say that, “You’re such a damn loser!” is the preferred form of encouragement. Quips like "Believe in yourself", for all my criticism, at the very least assures the listener that the speaker cares. This helpfully provides added motivation but, really, is just another way of saying, “I believe in you.”
Note 2: Check out the "hot hand" fallacy. Or, better yet, watch The Big Short where you have behaviourial economist Richard Thaler explaining the fallacy with Selena Gomez sitting next to him.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
