I would like to respond to the tete-a-tete between Tong Kong's ' Meritocracy can mean only one thing ' and Dr Syed Alwi's ' Meritocracy: Not all qualities can be quantified ' .

Having worked in the field of quality for almost 15 years dealing with performance measurement/incentive plans in corporate America, I feel compelled to point out a couple of fundamental points regarding the subject.

The success of any attempt to measure performance (in this case performance criteria is defined as merit criteria), really depends on agreement being reached between the measurer and the measured as to what constitutes merit criteria. There are many absolutes (and not-so-many absolutes) in merit criteria.

Agreement, in my experience, is almost always easily reached. There are always the readily obvious merit criteria handy and some not-so-obvious criteria. On this matter, Dr Syed Alwi is correct in thinking that a definition (and agreement) has to be made as to what constitutes merit.

Once agreement has been reached on the appropriate merit criteria, agreement has also to be reached on how these criteria will be measured. It is not my intention to go into the details on how the first and second steps can be achieved but suffice it to say that once you have consensus (not majority vote, but 'buying in') on these two steps you have a basis for merit measurement.

On Dr Syed Alwi's point of "...there are many qualities which cannot be materially quantified...", I have to disagree. For any position in any office, it is fairly easy to come up with a handful (about five but not more than seven, preferably) of qualifying criteria for merit.

Dr Alwi's point of "...being Muslim is one vital quality for the post of prime minister..." is invalid. From a practical perspective (this implies a 'level-playing field'), being Muslim is not a quality and certainly not a merit parameter.

You may define it as a criterion, in which case it is an exclusion criterion whose only objective would be to exclude certain individuals/groups that has absolutely no bearing on quality or merit. Also, any of the other so-called unmeasurable criteria such as 'teamwork', 'cooperativeness', 'knowledge', 'friendliness', etc, while being subjective criteria, can all be translated into objective (measurable) criteria on a peer or subject-matter-expert-evaluated basis. I do this all the time with absolutely no problem and with a very high degree of success.

One important point to bear in mind in all of these performance evaluations and criteria development for merit is that the criteria employed should be controllable by the individual being assessed. In other words, you should not evaluate an individual on a criterion (merit criterion, in this case) that he/she has no control over.

For example, if someone is deemed to be somewhat deficient in 'leadership', then that individual can work on his/her leadership skills until they are better. In other words, that specific criterion is something they have control over, unlike 'being Indian' or 'being of royal descent'. Hence, by this very qualification, the criterion of 'being a Muslim' cannot be tendered as a merit or quality parameter since, for all non-Muslims, this would be deemed out of their control.

Coming up with qualifying criteria for any position in any field under meritocracy rules is really very simple. In general though, the best performing outfit in any endeavour is the one that has the ablest leaders operating with the best teams and support as long as the outcome (success) is measured in traditional terms.

If, however, Dr Syed Alwi's contention is that merit definitions could be viewed differently depending on what religious glasses one views it with, I am no expert on religious views to comment on it. I have always believed that all religions teach good, shun evil ways, be fair and honest which, if practiced, always ensures that the best qualified will always make it to the

top!