4 ms·

Yep, the warped logic of stack ranking still infects HR thought to this day, in some quarters anyway. It's one of those notions that sounds brilliant at first,

Yep, the warped logic of stack ranking still infects HR thought to this day, in some quarters anyway. It's one of those notions that sounds brilliant at first, but then when you think it all the way through, it reveals itself as patently bizarre and misguided. As noted, it creates a really unhealthy intra-team sabotage mindset as everybody competes to avoid being at the bottom of the stack. It puts managers in a horrible spot, having to rank 'n' purge when maybe their team was humming along wonderfully all year. It creates an atmosphere of awful fear and dread that distracts from the work. As one of my buddies said back when MS was still using this accursed system -- "If they'd used stack-ranking at Los Alamos, hell, Oppenheimer would probably have had to fire Feynman!" {obviously not reflective of the historical reality, but I think pithy nonetheless}

whatshisface 8y ago
>"If they'd used stack-ranking at Los Alamos, hell, Oppenheimer would probably have had to fire Feynman!" This seems pretty accurate to me, just imagine what would have happened if the top 10 people in the organization were put on the most important team, and then stack day rolled around...
hermitdev 8y ago
I worked at a company that did this, then eventually phased it out. We were also required to do a self eval on a variety of categories, one a three point scale: exceeds expectations, meets or does not meet. My managing director point blank told me: no one exceeds expectations and if you dont meet, you're gone. So, the self eval was "meets" all the way down. After 2 years of that bullshit, I stopped filling it out. Figured, if theyre not going to take the opportunity for honest self reflection, why bother? I lasted there another 7 years before I left on my own volition. Never in the 7 years that I did not so the self eval did a manager mention it to me. Fuck that shit.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
Sounds like all of the issues could be solved by just not being committed to 10%, moving to 5% or 2.5% as your workforce gets stronger. And spread the responsibility of choosing who to fire beyond single individuals, so a team of people is responsible for figuring out who is not contributing.
- cryptonector 8y ago
  That would help, but even so, stack ranking is social and cultural poison. You can do it one random year, but do it every year and watch cooperation within and between teams die out because it's a dog eat dog world you've built. At what point will business schools please start teaching that stack ranking is a bad idea?

whatshisface 8y ago

>"If they'd used stack-ranking at Los Alamos, hell, Oppenheimer would probably have had to fire Feynman!" This seems pretty accurate to me, just imagine what would have happened if the top 10 people in the organization were put on the most important team, and then stack day rolled around...

hermitdev 8y ago

I worked at a company that did this, then eventually phased it out. We were also required to do a self eval on a variety of categories, one a three point scale: exceeds expectations, meets or does not meet. My managing director point blank told me: no one exceeds expectations and if you dont meet, you're gone. So, the self eval was "meets" all the way down. After 2 years of that bullshit, I stopped filling it out. Figured, if theyre not going to take the opportunity for honest self reflection, why bother? I lasted there another 7 years before I left on my own volition. Never in the 7 years that I did not so the self eval did a manager mention it to me. Fuck that shit.

erikpukinskis 8y ago

Sounds like all of the issues could be solved by just not being committed to 10%, moving to 5% or 2.5% as your workforce gets stronger. And spread the responsibility of choosing who to fire beyond single individuals, so a team of people is responsible for figuring out who is not contributing.

cryptonector 8y ago
That would help, but even so, stack ranking is social and cultural poison. You can do it one random year, but do it every year and watch cooperation within and between teams die out because it's a dog eat dog world you've built. At what point will business schools please start teaching that stack ranking is a bad idea?