> In a large, Gaussian distributed population
Where do we get one of those?
The central limit theorem doesn't give us one of those. Not even the Lindeberg-Feller central limit theorem. Neither does the strong law of large numbers. Nor the weak law of large numbers. Nor the martingale convergence theorem.
There is some old material, from about 100 years ago, in schools of education that given a performance measure and a large population the measure will be Gaussian distributed on that population, and the larger the population the closer to a Gaussian distribution. An example is supposed to be the size of the largest eigenvalue in a principle components decomposition. Uh, that largest eigenvalue was long called IQ (intelligence quotient). Nothing intelligent about it. Nonsense. 100% total crackpot nonsense. Brain-dead, cult nonsense.
"Low performers" in need of a "performance improvement program" (PIP)? Start with the managers who believe in a Gaussian distribution. Then move to the managers who believe that the "bottom 20%" are always low performers.
A lot is known about how to be a good manager, and the Gaussian probability density distribution is not part of that.
I've seen a lot of bad managers. A pattern is that they are tyrants, have lots of rules and measures, are big on formality over reality, dot i's and cross t's with great reliability, and have everyone with their nose to the grindstone, ear to the ground, shoulder to the wheel and trying to work in that position. But the organization is stagnant, is not changing or keeping up with the market or technology. So, after a few years like that, it becomes obvious to everyone, customers, BoD, stockholders, employees, even nearly all of the managers that the organization is about ready to die, and often that's what happens, e.g., by firing 50% of the people and going downhill from there.
Once I saw a failing organization where nearly all the managers except at the lowest level were part of a tight clique, cult enforcing failure. Finally the BoD installed a new CEO and fairly soon 80+% of the clique, cult were given "PIPs" and demoted out of management or retired.
But there is also good evidence that even such a sick organization does not have to die and, instead, just needs some good management, starting at the CEO level. In particular, with a good CEO, suddenly, wonder of wonders, 90+% of the employees can be seen as great performers.
So, net, as bad as the situation can be, it is fair to say that Darwin is on the case with improvement on the way!
At one time Amazon was a small mail-order book and record shop run by Bezos from a small office. At least looking from 10,000 feet up, Bezos was a good manager, and, thus, I doubt that he was playing with the Gaussian distribution, firing his bottom 20%, stack ranking, etc. Instead he knew all the employees and the work of each. Sooooo, it sounds like now Bezos should leave outer space, return to Amazon, and fix the destructive nonsense that is ruining the company.