IF at first you don’t succeed, you’re probably not related to the boss. But seriously, what do successful people have in common? Read biographies and news items about certain personalities and see what makes them successful and happy. It’s usually some form of magical quality or events in the life of a person with a clear positive attitude.

More than this, the main difference between people who achieve and those who are less successful is not mysterious. Successful people are those who approach things with proper orientation to succeed and have lots of common-sense intelligence. They’re also consistent and persistent in winning.

In one short description, successful people are a bunch of hardworking individuals.

However, if you don’t work hard enough or you’re part of the problem, then don’t worry because “distributive justice” can take care of your basic, biological needs. Therefore, what is distributive justice? It is an allocation of goods and services to all members of the society who are in need, regardless of whether they pay their taxes or they’ve contributed to material progress of the whole or not. In essence, it treats people the same regardless of their personal characteristics and contribution to the society.

The concept, often attributed to American philosopher John Rawls (1921 to 2002) ensure the availability of resources, and the process by which goods and services are distributed to those who are in need. It is akin to the basic principle that “those who have less in life should have more in law” by former President Ramon Magsaysay.

This holiday season, it is easy to understand “distributive justice” within the context of employment. If one is employed, regardless of his/her work performance and employment status (whether regular or contractual), one is entitled to receive the 13th month pay. It is a statutory requirement for many employers. You can’t simply avoid paying this to employees.

Even outside of employment, “distributive justice” can be guaranteed by the government to its people who are victims of natural calamities, regardless of whether they’re part of the mining activities that aggravated the inundation or not. The list has become endless.

Going back to corporate life, over the past decades, I’ve experimented with different ways on how to balance employee meritocracy with seniority. More often than not, in case of employee promotion, when everything appears equal between two shortlisted candidates, seniority plays an important part in tie-breaking.

To do this, organizations seeking to break the sucking sound of bootlickers should doubly emphasize the significance of meritocracy than one’s length in corporate service. Deadwoods must learn from employee fast-trackers.

They must be trained to seek out and stamp out things that appear to be average performance. Anyway, you’re not in government service where lackluster performance of people can be tolerated until their retirement between the ages 65 to 70, unless charged earlier in court for misdemeanour that could range from sexual harassment to plunder.

If it is a hoax, the question is-why? I’m not a psychiatrist or a social scientist, but I think the answer is suggested by my office neighbor in Makati City, who said to me when I was about to back my car out of the garage: “I think I know what’s wrong with this country!”

Pete (not his real name) is about to retire, and I have to stop for a while and give respect for his unsolicited opinion: “And, what’s that, my good old friend?”

He replied with his multi-millionaire smile: “We’re trying to run it with only one vice-president.”

So that’s how he’s trying to busy himself within the last few months of his corporate life. Of course, Pete was joking. If he’s readying for his retirement with that type of a corny joke, how he is supposed to enjoy it as soon as he got his senior citizen’s ID card?

I expect, however, that I’ll hear from him again out there in Readerland. That’s why I’m changing my phone number soon. Don’t call me, OK? It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s that my life is already filled with bizarre, inexplicable phenomena, such as the way the speaker in my computer never works except when they play the music I hate.
 
Rey Elbo is a business consultant in human resources and total quality management as a fused interest. Send feedback to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or follow him on Facebook for his random management thoughts.