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When Jimmy Carter was president, he established a rule that his senior staff should leave the West Wing in time to be home for dinner with their family each evening. The rule broke down, simply because the environment was highly competitive. Other organizations have a Darwinian approach.
The New York law firm known as Cravath, Swaine & Moore invented the Cravath system when it hired a large class of graduates from the top law schools and then sifted them out over several years so that about one in 10 survived to become a partner. As long as there are a large number of new employees competing for the much smaller number of lucrative positions, imitations of the Cravath system will persist.
Business writer Marcus Buckingham observes that many overachievers welcome the breakneck pace. They just want to know that the system will be meritocratic. They don’t mind competition, but they will object to unfair competition.
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