Tanks, Healers, and DPS - An Analogy

This post is a response to the Matticus post as well as the FORBEARANCE post on the subject of whether Tanks and Healers should get more gear than DPS.

First off, I will say this. Tanks have always received more gear from raid content, at least up until Wrath. Getting the MT geared up fast was always the strategy, and when tier pieces dropped, they had first dibs on it. In new content, this would even happen when using DKP. I'm bringing this up before hand, as it fits my analogy.

Raiding is a Manufacturing Business.

Tanks/Management
You don't get anywhere unless you have at least one. People look up to them, and while their job is normally not that hard, sometimes they have to pull something out of their ass to be successful. You will reach a critical mass of managers quickly, and additional managers after that add very little to the group. Each manager's output is very difficult to measure, bar visible errors.

Healers/Sales
Sure, you have a good product and decent management, but you don't get anywhere without sales to move your product. There are more sales people than managers, but not as many sales as laborers. If sales can sell every item you produce, the value of additional sales is minimal. If your sales is so good, you may need to trade one of them for a laborer to make more product. Each sales person's output is measurable, but if every unit is sold, it's not as important as to who sold what, as sales can no longer improve.

DPS/Laborers
These are the people that make the items you sell, thus you can't live without them. The skill of the laborers directly impacts the number of units you can make and then sell. As long as you can sell all the units, increasing the number or skill of your laborers increases your sales. Each laborer's output is measurable and can always be improved.

So who should be paid more? Well, we all know that the CEO (MT) gets paid a ton, as their the face of the company and have direct control on how far they can get. Sales who do their job well can cover the failings of other sales people and save the management if they end up making a wrong decision. Laborers are a dime a dozen, but if you can find a really good laborer, he will need to be paid well in order to maintain him as an employee.

All three (Management, Sales, and Laborers) are generally unaware of the amount of skill required for the other two to do their jobs well. They may even have a false sense of importance associated with their group, since each is required for success.

Ultimately, if you have three raises to hand out in a year, you give it to the people who employed the greatest skill compared to their current pay. This is what Loot council represents. Others could argue that it's based on how long people have been with the company. This is what DKP represents. Apparently, a few people argue that the sales and management deserve more than the laborers. Laborers will look for greener pastures (or attempt to become sales or management, despite high skill in laboring) and you will be stuck with unskilled laborers. Sales will go down, the company may not be able to make their shipments and may go bankrupt.

End result: The best way to encourage everyone to do their best is to dole out benefits based on performance or dedication, not how important they perceive themselves to be. It's not about how much each individual is paid. It's that they're provided with the ability to improve their current station by performing well. If they feel like they can no longer advance, they will either jump ship for another business or try their hand at one of the two other roles.