I don’t think that Elliott Jaques was right about high moders’ distribution in society. They certainly seem much more prevalent than his published numbers. If I know a handful of mode 7s and 8s, then they can’t be all that rare: I don’t get around that much. I think the issue comes in where they work. High moders are prevalent in IT because the field is so poorly managed. High capacity people can continue to work as technical experts, even though they don’t get paid well. It’s odd how many times I’ve seen a Str4 or 5 person working for a Str2 manager.

[Read more →]