Regina points us to a post by Robert Scoble – Microsoft’s unofficial but omnipresent blogger – on MS’s ditching if it’s forced ranking process.
“One big thing that’s gone? Stack ranking. No longer am I judged against Charles and Adam and Tina and Jeff. Now, either I’m doing a good job for Microsoft or I’m not and my review will now reflect that.”
I know Dick Grote think that forced ranking is great (I just saw him discuss the topic at World at Work in Anaheim) – at least for a period of time – so perhaps Microsoft’s forced ranking simply outlived it’s usefulness. Perhaps they culled enough low performers to start demotivating the people that were left.
Thoughts?
August 17th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
A number of companies have abandoned forced ranking, or rank and yank. Some have done so as a result of successful legal challenges, and others because it has unpleasant side-effects. With all due respect to my colleague, Dick Grote, forced ranking, even statistically speaking, and when it is done optimally, cannot possibly work over the long term.
It works if a) you have a low talent workplace, b) have a tool of replacement talent that can replace your poor talent, and c) have a selection process that has improved since you hired the poor talent.
As your talent improves your chances of hiring better replacements drops.
Aside from that, the side effects of yanking a certain percentage of people competitively are so severe that any improvements, even in the early stages, will be only transient. It’s also unfair.