Doing the work is one thing, assigning credit is another. The phenomenon that some people are 10x at doing the work exists but is rare. It is much more common that people are 10x at getting the credit.
From a self interest standpoint, if "credit" is how people are rewarded, then getting credit is the work. Also, if the mechanism for assigning credit ensures that only sqrt(n) are rewarded, then it's self-fulfilling.
The guy recommending the bonus was bit generous (really good at attributing bonus to the person who put in the hard work barring other bias) and the guy handing out the bonus was the one who battled hard to reduce every bonus as the company had hired him to limit the unnecessary bonus to employees.
Every employee thought that he is the one fighting management to get them their bonus and got lots of love/respect and the generous guy got nothing.
