Managing the Bell Curve Mantra for Success

The HR professionals of multinational companies are implementing the bell curve to assess human performance, by assigning different ratings on a scale of 1 to 4, or on a band of A to D, to assess the performance at various levels in the organizational hierarchy.

The CEO of one of the world’s largest money management firm was puzzled, as he wanted to know why there was a Bell curve for performance assessment among his employees, with a few outstanding employees, most of them in the middle, and a few poor performers. That same puzzle was also explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller “David and Goliath”.

The Bell Curve represents what statisticians call as “normal distribution.” A normal distribution is a theoretical idea, not based on real data. The normal distribution is also called the Gaussian distribution, in honor of Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was among the first to use this distribution where the mean, median, and mode are all the same and coincide with the peak of the curve.

The application of normal distribution curve to human beings is relevant in the assessment of human performance. Malcolm was confused, because many of those in the mid to low achievement spectrum of Ivy League schools, did not turn out to be world leaders.This is in spite of their SAT scores which were higher than even the best students at the ordinary colleges who fared better.

Human beings are full of desires and want to lead a successful life. Here the bell shaped curve plays the significant role in obtaining the individual’s success. As normal distribution has two different sides, i.e. the right tail and the left tail of the curve. The success depends on the significance of these two tails. Balancing both the sides is essential to achieve success.

The individual’s desires, competencies, emotions, skills, attitudes, commitment and many other attributes will have an impact to achieve this success. The empirical research claims that in most of the cases,the individuals are reporting either positively,in skewed curves or in negative skewed curves. Success also can be achieved without normal distribution, which conveys that the individuals are winning on one side and at the same time losing on another side.

The life of a human being is a precious gift offered by the Lord to lead a successful life by managing the bell curve effectively. The humans start growing from childhood to adulthood and to old age, in the process, curve changes many times. These changes are also due to numerous reasons.

Sometimes the parents, friends, mentors, teachers and leaders bring this change since we are also apart of the social environment.At this point there is an ambiguity while managing the normal curve i.e. from schooling, college or from an employment. In most of the cases, the parents draw this curve during childhood and later it is the grown up individualwho takes the initiative to draw this curve which may be right or wrong.

In order to deliver, individuals must manage two factors: one internal factor and one external factor. We are completely responsible for handling internal factors to showcase our performance. On the other hand, there are external factors which influence while delivering. The internal factors like education, attitudes, emotions, language skills, commitment, motivation levels and time management practices, are self-driven and controllable.

The external factors are outside the environment: market forces, jobs, location, and peer groups where the individuals are connected and groomed, because of which performance is influenced. Finally it is the individual success which ensures the corporate success, then the success of the economy. Hence to conclude, managing the bell curve continuously leads to success.

By:M Chandra Shekar