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The old saying....Some variation of.... If you fire your bottom 10%, your top 10% will also leave.

by ramshanker 2y ago

skyyler 2y ago
No one told Jack Welch
- elzbardico 2y ago
  He fired the one who told him that. It didn't matter, as long as the books looked great on the next quarter and the bonuses kept flowing, Mr Welch didn't give a fuck.
  - DaoVeles 2y ago
    Welch was an addict (addicted to growth for himself) that made his problems everyone else's problems.
bee_rider 2y ago
Double the savings! (This quarter).
Rinzler89 2y ago
That so called "old saying" you mention makes no sense in the real world. From my experience top % engineers hate working with bottom % engineers since they massively drag things down for everyone, so firing the bottom % ones actually makes life better for the top % and convinces them to stay, and vice versa, keeping bottom % engineers around for long actually convinces top % engineers to leave since they want to work with equally competent people who can get shit done and not be around incompetent people who coast and watch the clock, or worse, drag everyone down.
- yvdriess 2y ago
  Over here in the real world of bottom 10% firing company cultures: those top engineers are leaving the company because they are tired of the culture of infighting and backstabbing, because setting up to others to fail and blaming them is just as effective as doing good work. Also, your super helpful generalist collaborator just got fired because everyone on your small team is highly performing and top down ruling was to fire 1/10 of each team. I cannot think of a successful tech company that is still applying the GE 10% management style. It has consistently been shown to fail.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Where do you see me promoting the GE style? I was talking about getting rid of the incompetent people that skilled people don't like to work with (if you disagree you were probably never paired with one) since then your own performance suffers and makes you want to leave ASAP. Not about firing the bottom ranked 10% according to some random stack ranking that can be gamed.
    - majewsky 2y ago
      How would you actually pull that off at corp scale, if not via stack ranking?
- _a_a_a_ 2y ago
  It makes perfect sense in context. You're assuming that the bottom % of engineers drag things down because they're bad. That's not what it's about. Some companies imposed rather brutal policies of "we do an annual review and sack the bottom x% of employees". This is done irrespective of whether they are bad, or simply the lowest strata (by your, possibly flawed, estimation) but still good. Because workers often don't know which group they will fall into, it produces enormous stress throughout. Few people like working under those conditions so those that can, leave. Who will that be? Those most able to leave. Who were they? Your best workers. Goodbye top tier... Be aware that some people who contribute least to the bottom line are actually still very useful. This kind of management brutality I believe is mostly died out now, for good reason.
  - wffurr 2y ago
    >> This kind of management brutality I believe is mostly died out now, for good reason. Bad news, after all the layoffs over the last two years, stack ranking and quotas are coming back.
- epolanski 2y ago
  > From my experience top % engineers hate working with bottom % engineers since they massively drag things down for everyone You live in a different world than I do then, because the overwhelming majority of people don't care at all, let alone they would "hate".
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    They care when those people impacts their own performance.
    - inopinatus 2y ago
      That is not supporting evidence for a policy of "fire the worst X%" being anything other than a recipe for internecine warfare.
- zerreh50 2y ago
  In the real world companies have no idea who the top and bottom 10% are because they use extremely low quality productivity metrics
  - washadjeffmad 2y ago
    Obviously it excludes all of the connections, institutional knowledge, and other duties as assigned that typically make up the brunt of the magic that keeps things functional but that managers are generally too afraid to acknowledge or ask for resources for, if they're even aware.

The old saying....Some variation of.... If you fire your bottom 10%, your top 10% will also leave.

skyyler 2y ago

No one told Jack Welch

elzbardico 2y ago
He fired the one who told him that. It didn't matter, as long as the books looked great on the next quarter and the bonuses kept flowing, Mr Welch didn't give a fuck.
- DaoVeles 2y ago
  Welch was an addict (addicted to growth for himself) that made his problems everyone else's problems.

bee_rider 2y ago

Double the savings! (This quarter).

Rinzler89 2y ago

That so called "old saying" you mention makes no sense in the real world. From my experience top % engineers hate working with bottom % engineers since they massively drag things down for everyone, so firing the bottom % ones actually makes life better for the top % and convinces them to stay, and vice versa, keeping bottom % engineers around for long actually convinces top % engineers to leave since they want to work with equally competent people who can get shit done and not be around incompetent people who coast and watch the clock, or worse, drag everyone down.

yvdriess 2y ago
Over here in the real world of bottom 10% firing company cultures: those top engineers are leaving the company because they are tired of the culture of infighting and backstabbing, because setting up to others to fail and blaming them is just as effective as doing good work. Also, your super helpful generalist collaborator just got fired because everyone on your small team is highly performing and top down ruling was to fire 1/10 of each team. I cannot think of a successful tech company that is still applying the GE 10% management style. It has consistently been shown to fail.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Where do you see me promoting the GE style? I was talking about getting rid of the incompetent people that skilled people don't like to work with (if you disagree you were probably never paired with one) since then your own performance suffers and makes you want to leave ASAP. Not about firing the bottom ranked 10% according to some random stack ranking that can be gamed.
  - majewsky 2y ago
    How would you actually pull that off at corp scale, if not via stack ranking?
_a_a_a_ 2y ago
It makes perfect sense in context. You're assuming that the bottom % of engineers drag things down because they're bad. That's not what it's about. Some companies imposed rather brutal policies of "we do an annual review and sack the bottom x% of employees". This is done irrespective of whether they are bad, or simply the lowest strata (by your, possibly flawed, estimation) but still good. Because workers often don't know which group they will fall into, it produces enormous stress throughout. Few people like working under those conditions so those that can, leave. Who will that be? Those most able to leave. Who were they? Your best workers. Goodbye top tier... Be aware that some people who contribute least to the bottom line are actually still very useful. This kind of management brutality I believe is mostly died out now, for good reason.
- wffurr 2y ago
  >> This kind of management brutality I believe is mostly died out now, for good reason. Bad news, after all the layoffs over the last two years, stack ranking and quotas are coming back.
epolanski 2y ago
> From my experience top % engineers hate working with bottom % engineers since they massively drag things down for everyone You live in a different world than I do then, because the overwhelming majority of people don't care at all, let alone they would "hate".
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  They care when those people impacts their own performance.
  - inopinatus 2y ago
    That is not supporting evidence for a policy of "fire the worst X%" being anything other than a recipe for internecine warfare.
zerreh50 2y ago
In the real world companies have no idea who the top and bottom 10% are because they use extremely low quality productivity metrics
- washadjeffmad 2y ago
  Obviously it excludes all of the connections, institutional knowledge, and other duties as assigned that typically make up the brunt of the magic that keeps things functional but that managers are generally too afraid to acknowledge or ask for resources for, if they're even aware.