This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management. The inspector in the illustration on page 265 of the same book, to save the jobs of 300 people, held the proportion of defective items below 10 per cent. She was in fear for their jobs. A teacher, not wishing to penalize anyone unjustly, will pass a pupil that is barely below the requirement for a passing grade.
Fear invites wrong figures.
Bearers of bad news fare badly. To keep his job, anyone may present to his boss only good news. A committee appointed by the President of a company will report what the President wishes to hear. An individual may inadvertently seek to cast a halo about himself. He may report to an interviewer in a study of readership that he reads the New York Times, when actually this morning he bought and read a tabloid.