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I used to work at a Fortune 50 company and found stack ranking...kinda fair. I used to be a high performer, made real ROI impacts, helped others and had a stron

I used to work at a Fortune 50 company and found stack ranking...kinda fair. I used to be a high performer, made real ROI impacts, helped others and had a strong sense of initiative. I'd come out with a better raise, stock options and had opportunities to take on more responsibility. It was more honest and straightforward than what silicon valley and Big Tech pretends to do. It is all ranking in some ways. Everything is. If you remove the facade, fundamentally you have a limited resource and you want to reward people that make the company successful. I don't see anything wrong with that. Doing anything else is wrong and unfair IMO.

DangitBobby 4y ago
I dunno, I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%") unless they aren't meeting the needs of the position and need to be let go. Someone has to be the worst, and it's really not okay to arbitrarily make 15% of people's lives hell. Again, if they need to go, they need to go, but I really fucking doubt at any given time 15% of an organization is actually bad enough to warrant firing or a PEP or any action at all.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  > I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%") I didn't say that and I didn't imply that. Anyways, rewarding (positive reinforcement) is mutually exclusive to punishment (negative reinforcement). Rewarding should be encouraged, otherwise, I have zero motivation to do better. There are many other companies that would value me more and I would not stay there. Extreme meritocracy is idealistic, and I understand that cannot be achieved easily and there is always politics/networking that plays a role. But it does exist and I've been a beneficiary of it.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I think when people bemoan stack ranking, they are talking about what it means for the bottom performers. I certainly don't have any issues with rewarding top performers. Did the company you worked for just rank the top?

DangitBobby 4y ago

I dunno, I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%") unless they aren't meeting the needs of the position and need to be let go. Someone has to be the worst, and it's really not okay to arbitrarily make 15% of people's lives hell. Again, if they need to go, they need to go, but I really fucking doubt at any given time 15% of an organization is actually bad enough to warrant firing or a PEP or any action at all.

systemvoltage 4y ago
> I don't think it's helpful to identify your worst performers (or label them as "bottom 15%") I didn't say that and I didn't imply that. Anyways, rewarding (positive reinforcement) is mutually exclusive to punishment (negative reinforcement). Rewarding should be encouraged, otherwise, I have zero motivation to do better. There are many other companies that would value me more and I would not stay there. Extreme meritocracy is idealistic, and I understand that cannot be achieved easily and there is always politics/networking that plays a role. But it does exist and I've been a beneficiary of it.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I think when people bemoan stack ranking, they are talking about what it means for the bottom performers. I certainly don't have any issues with rewarding top performers. Did the company you worked for just rank the top?