Human performance, by this account, does not often fit the bell curve or what scientists call a normal distribution. Rather, it is more likely to fit what scientists call a power distribution.

Height follows the bell curve in its distribution. Wealth does not: It follows an asymmetric, L-shaped pattern known as a "power law," where most values are below average and a few far above.

But when I4CP asked respondents how many had a "forced distribution," a wonky H.R. term for a bell curve, it found similar numbers. Fifty-four percent used the practice in 2009, but two years ...

of 2013, Yahoo employees were up in arms about a new policy that forces managers to rank employees on a bell curve, then fire those at the low end. According to AllThingsD, Marissa Mayer ...

It's a long-held assumption that human performance fits a normal (or Gaussian) distribution — a bell curve in which only a very small number of people are outliers. Consequently human resource ...

I can only recognize the occurrence of the normal curve … as a very abnormal phenomenon. — Karl Pearson (1901) Widely believed and rarely questioned is the notion that human characteristics ...

Yes, that Charles Murray, who in 1994 co-authored “The Bell Curve,” with Richard J. Herrnstein, arguing in two notorious chapters that […] Skip to content All Sections ...