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Because "easing out less competent people" a fool's errand. There will always be high performers and low performers on a team, both in a relative and absolute

Because "easing out less competent people" a fool's errand. There will always be high performers and low performers on a team, both in a relative and absolute sense. Good managers don't make it their responsibility to close that gap; they just make it clear what the goals are, fill the team with self-motivated people, and provide the tools and environment to get the work done. And yes, you fire people if they don't meet a clear minimum level of performance, but don't make that an expectation out of the gate. Even if you cut all the "low performers" and double the "high performers'" pay, those people can burn out or get sick and suddenly turn into low performers. "First, Break All the Rules" is a great book on this topic.

JohnBooty 8y ago
There will always be high performers and low performers on a team, both in a relative and absolute sense. Yeah, although the more heterogeneous the tasks, the trickier it even is to define these terms. Many years ago I was on a small (2-3 people) team with a truly genius-level coder. He was close to what you'd call a savant. He was (despite being a sweet guy at heart) incredibly difficult to work with - he was unfiltered and abrasive, and would write reams of code to solve pet problems that didn't really need solving in the context of whatever the hell it was that we were trying to do at the moment, because they were "fun" coding challenges that captured his imagination. The end result was that while he could do the work of several engineers, you also... needed an engineer or two to work with him nearly full-time just to keep him on the rails and actually working towards the project goals, and to act as a buffer between him and people outside the team. So who was the high performer on our team, and who was the low performer? Well, I didn't suck, but he was certainly the better engineer! But was I really a "low performer" when I did some of the equally crucial work of keeping him on the rails? Was he really the "high performer" when he required lots of people-hours from others just to keep him on task? Those terms really lose all meaning when you're all engineers but are contributing different things to a team... the high/low performer stuff really only works when people are working in true isolation under identical circumstances. Like maybe for ditch-digging or weightlifting competitions or whatever.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Ah, rockstars. If you get one without the craziness they're amazing. But the situation you've described is basically Stakhanovism with code rather than coal.
- halbritt 8y ago
  I've worked with folks like that. They usually do more harm than good and generally need to be managed out or into roles more suitable for how they like to work.
  - JohnBooty 8y ago
    Yeah, we were able to do it with this guy. Things worked with this guy because at his core, he was actually a very sweet person! (And we were very patient and interested in making it work, if I may say so. Not that we did everything right, not by a longshot) He was just kind of socially clueless, as opposed to actually malignant...
- prepend 8y ago
  It’s incredibily difficult and why managing is so difficult. Your comparison of who is the best performer is more important maybe for bonuses. This article is about firing the worst performers. So unless the process was “keep the very best single performer, fire the rest” the question of who is a better engineer is moot and doesn’t need to be solved. It’s very difficult to evaluate articles like this without knowing the process. I could see it working if you had a simple process that relied on strong training and judgement with some governance to limit the impact of errors. But if people get ranked based on some stupid ML algorithm and just sliced out of the company, that’s unpleasant for the fired staff, and for remaining staff. Fortunately, I think companies that do a dumb version of bottom 5% will fail or get corrected by their board and directors.
- tboyd47 8y ago
  I should have added "for any given metric of performance." You have to use SOME kind of objective metric, to check your own personal biases if nothing else. But you're absolutely right in that performance metrics will never do your employees' various talents justice.

JohnBooty 8y ago

There will always be high performers and low performers on a team, both in a relative and absolute sense. Yeah, although the more heterogeneous the tasks, the trickier it even is to define these terms. Many years ago I was on a small (2-3 people) team with a truly genius-level coder. He was close to what you'd call a savant. He was (despite being a sweet guy at heart) incredibly difficult to work with - he was unfiltered and abrasive, and would write reams of code to solve pet problems that didn't really need solving in the context of whatever the hell it was that we were trying to do at the moment, because they were "fun" coding challenges that captured his imagination. The end result was that while he could do the work of several engineers, you also... needed an engineer or two to work with him nearly full-time just to keep him on the rails and actually working towards the project goals, and to act as a buffer between him and people outside the team. So who was the high performer on our team, and who was the low performer? Well, I didn't suck, but he was certainly the better engineer! But was I really a "low performer" when I did some of the equally crucial work of keeping him on the rails? Was he really the "high performer" when he required lots of people-hours from others just to keep him on task? Those terms really lose all meaning when you're all engineers but are contributing different things to a team... the high/low performer stuff really only works when people are working in true isolation under identical circumstances. Like maybe for ditch-digging or weightlifting competitions or whatever.

pjc50 8y ago
Ah, rockstars. If you get one without the craziness they're amazing. But the situation you've described is basically Stakhanovism with code rather than coal.
halbritt 8y ago
I've worked with folks like that. They usually do more harm than good and generally need to be managed out or into roles more suitable for how they like to work.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Yeah, we were able to do it with this guy. Things worked with this guy because at his core, he was actually a very sweet person! (And we were very patient and interested in making it work, if I may say so. Not that we did everything right, not by a longshot) He was just kind of socially clueless, as opposed to actually malignant...
prepend 8y ago
It’s incredibily difficult and why managing is so difficult. Your comparison of who is the best performer is more important maybe for bonuses. This article is about firing the worst performers. So unless the process was “keep the very best single performer, fire the rest” the question of who is a better engineer is moot and doesn’t need to be solved. It’s very difficult to evaluate articles like this without knowing the process. I could see it working if you had a simple process that relied on strong training and judgement with some governance to limit the impact of errors. But if people get ranked based on some stupid ML algorithm and just sliced out of the company, that’s unpleasant for the fired staff, and for remaining staff. Fortunately, I think companies that do a dumb version of bottom 5% will fail or get corrected by their board and directors.
tboyd47 8y ago
I should have added "for any given metric of performance." You have to use SOME kind of objective metric, to check your own personal biases if nothing else. But you're absolutely right in that performance metrics will never do your employees' various talents justice.