7 ms·

And if they were all ranked within one company-wide group, that might not be so bad. But in the organizations I've worked in that used stack ranking, that wasn'

And if they were all ranked within one company-wide group, that might not be so bad. But in the organizations I've worked in that used stack ranking, that wasn't the case. You were ranked within much smaller groups. So group A, which, company-wide, would have had all average to above employees now has to drop some person(s) down to below average, within the group. That "below average" person - who would have been average company-wide - now gets a "performance improvement plan" or worse - shown the door. And group B, which, company-wide, would have had all average and below-average employees, will now rank some person(s) above average. That above-average person - who would've been only average company-wide - now gets a bonus. Should it work like that? No. Does it work like that? More often that it should; I've seen it - in mid-size and large companies.

hkmurakami 13y ago
Now that I think about it, Princeton University now has this sort of problem (since 2004) with its Grade Inflation policy, where there are quotas for the number of A's and A-'s that can be given out.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Academia is one of the few places where the bell curve should be applied diligently...because you want the students to see some sort of top to aspire to.
  - hga 13y ago
    Not at top schools where most of a class may well deserve an A or B. Outside of a period in the '60s (the draft) MIT never suffered from serious grade inflation (I've looked at the numbers), and the general rule is that if you've picked a suitable major you'll make As and Bs unless you're having personal problems. It would be stark raving mad to grade its students on the curve ... and I've heard of serious pathology in schools that mechanically do, e.g. premeds sabotaging their peers taking organic chemistry (one tale had one deactivating many of his peers' alarm clocks). You just don't want to set up the wrong incentives, and I can attest that at least in the '80s MIT students were generally happy to help each other. On the other hand there are state schools that by law have to accept every applicant who meets a random external threshold ... they don't have much choice but to flunk out large fractions of their freshman. But after the courses that do that, and often do that for a major, they shouldn't obsess on the curve.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      MIT accepts only very smart people, to apply differentiation at that level wouldn't work very well: the motivation and aspiration has already been satisfied by the MIT selection process! But even a good hard-to-get-into department (computer science) at a good state school (UW) has a fairly diverse-ability student body, so curves are quite useful in creating some top to aspire to. Even here, since the students got into the department and the bell curve is fairly fat in the middle (hard to fail), it doesn't create for such a toxic environment as being at the top is nice but definitely not necessary (even if you want to go to grad school). The trouble starts where being at the top is necessary (pre-med).
      - hga 13y ago
        It also matters a bit more in the sciences, where an undergraduate degree is just a ticket to get a Ph.D. unless you want a career as a lab tech. Also, this is in the context of Princeton, one of the best of the Ivies, I'm told the most academically rigorous. I suppose ... ah, here's the key: the Ivies have to admit way too many "legacies", children of alums. Enough that it makes a massive difference in their student bodies compared to MIT, where being the child of an alum doesn't hurt, but is no help at all if MIT judges you can't do the required calculus and calculus based physics. So maybe it does make sense to grade on a curve ... still, MIT grades on mastery, and I know if I found myself in this situation: The undergraduate student body president, Connor Diemand-Yauman, a senior from Chesterland, Ohio, said: “I had complaints from students who said that their professors handed back exams and told them, ‘I wanted to give 10 of you A’s, but because of the policy, I could only give five A’s.’ When students hear that, an alarm goes off.” [ Followed by the dean of the undergraduate college admitting they've got a fixed quota system. ] (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html) I'd find another school to transfer to, or at the minimum work out an arrangement for a great grad school recommendation from the guilty faculty (would not be hard since I can/could do research).
        seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        I agree that the curve should really be at the discretion of the instructor, not administrators, who is best fit to apply it reasonably. One of my colleagues was actually told the opposite in a class he taught recently: that he was failing or not giving A's to enough students in the classes he was teaching! It definitely goes both ways, but instructors are reasonably fit to decide how to do their curves.
  - Jare 13y ago
    I disagree. I don't think grades are the kind of top that academia should motivate students to aspire to. There should be plenty of role models and amazing achievements for any student to look up to. I consider grades to be at best a necessary evil, and any attempt to shape them will only make them more evil and less necessary.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      There are plenty of other things to aspire to in universities, but really, why not master the material in your classes? What is so wrong with that? And why not have that material be hard enough that top mastery is unlikely? Are we so detached from competition that this is now an absurd concept?
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    All highly selective universities have student populations that come out of the cream of the crop. All the admitted applicants are bumping up against the highest percentiles in SATs. All have straight As. Why would you expect a bell curve from a sample like that?
dragonwriter 13y ago
The problem doesn't seem to be with stack ranking as with what the rankings are used for: If Group B is performing badly compared to the company as a whole and Group A is performing well, the results of being ranked "average" in Group B should not be the same as the results of being ranked average in Group A.
Jare 13y ago
All large companies have to accept that they will lose some great people and keep some bad people. If a company decided to perform an evaluation at a random point in time, I doubt stack ranking would, on average, perform much worse than any other technique. The problem with stack ranking is the dynamics it encourages. Any set of rules is going to be gamed, so a goal for an HR policy should be to ensure that the dynamics created while gaming the system are beneficial to the company. The real damage of stack ranking happens in between ranking periods.

hkmurakami 13y ago

Now that I think about it, Princeton University now has this sort of problem (since 2004) with its Grade Inflation policy, where there are quotas for the number of A's and A-'s that can be given out.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
Academia is one of the few places where the bell curve should be applied diligently...because you want the students to see some sort of top to aspire to.
- hga 13y ago
  Not at top schools where most of a class may well deserve an A or B. Outside of a period in the '60s (the draft) MIT never suffered from serious grade inflation (I've looked at the numbers), and the general rule is that if you've picked a suitable major you'll make As and Bs unless you're having personal problems. It would be stark raving mad to grade its students on the curve ... and I've heard of serious pathology in schools that mechanically do, e.g. premeds sabotaging their peers taking organic chemistry (one tale had one deactivating many of his peers' alarm clocks). You just don't want to set up the wrong incentives, and I can attest that at least in the '80s MIT students were generally happy to help each other. On the other hand there are state schools that by law have to accept every applicant who meets a random external threshold ... they don't have much choice but to flunk out large fractions of their freshman. But after the courses that do that, and often do that for a major, they shouldn't obsess on the curve.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    MIT accepts only very smart people, to apply differentiation at that level wouldn't work very well: the motivation and aspiration has already been satisfied by the MIT selection process! But even a good hard-to-get-into department (computer science) at a good state school (UW) has a fairly diverse-ability student body, so curves are quite useful in creating some top to aspire to. Even here, since the students got into the department and the bell curve is fairly fat in the middle (hard to fail), it doesn't create for such a toxic environment as being at the top is nice but definitely not necessary (even if you want to go to grad school). The trouble starts where being at the top is necessary (pre-med).
    - hga 13y ago
      It also matters a bit more in the sciences, where an undergraduate degree is just a ticket to get a Ph.D. unless you want a career as a lab tech. Also, this is in the context of Princeton, one of the best of the Ivies, I'm told the most academically rigorous. I suppose ... ah, here's the key: the Ivies have to admit way too many "legacies", children of alums. Enough that it makes a massive difference in their student bodies compared to MIT, where being the child of an alum doesn't hurt, but is no help at all if MIT judges you can't do the required calculus and calculus based physics. So maybe it does make sense to grade on a curve ... still, MIT grades on mastery, and I know if I found myself in this situation: The undergraduate student body president, Connor Diemand-Yauman, a senior from Chesterland, Ohio, said: “I had complaints from students who said that their professors handed back exams and told them, ‘I wanted to give 10 of you A’s, but because of the policy, I could only give five A’s.’ When students hear that, an alarm goes off.” [ Followed by the dean of the undergraduate college admitting they've got a fixed quota system. ] (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html) I'd find another school to transfer to, or at the minimum work out an arrangement for a great grad school recommendation from the guilty faculty (would not be hard since I can/could do research).
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        I agree that the curve should really be at the discretion of the instructor, not administrators, who is best fit to apply it reasonably. One of my colleagues was actually told the opposite in a class he taught recently: that he was failing or not giving A's to enough students in the classes he was teaching! It definitely goes both ways, but instructors are reasonably fit to decide how to do their curves.
- Jare 13y ago
  I disagree. I don't think grades are the kind of top that academia should motivate students to aspire to. There should be plenty of role models and amazing achievements for any student to look up to. I consider grades to be at best a necessary evil, and any attempt to shape them will only make them more evil and less necessary.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    There are plenty of other things to aspire to in universities, but really, why not master the material in your classes? What is so wrong with that? And why not have that material be hard enough that top mastery is unlikely? Are we so detached from competition that this is now an absurd concept?
- Zigurd 13y ago
  All highly selective universities have student populations that come out of the cream of the crop. All the admitted applicants are bumping up against the highest percentiles in SATs. All have straight As. Why would you expect a bell curve from a sample like that?

dragonwriter 13y ago

The problem doesn't seem to be with stack ranking as with what the rankings are used for: If Group B is performing badly compared to the company as a whole and Group A is performing well, the results of being ranked "average" in Group B should not be the same as the results of being ranked average in Group A.

Jare 13y ago

All large companies have to accept that they will lose some great people and keep some bad people. If a company decided to perform an evaluation at a random point in time, I doubt stack ranking would, on average, perform much worse than any other technique. The problem with stack ranking is the dynamics it encourages. Any set of rules is going to be gamed, so a goal for an HR policy should be to ensure that the dynamics created while gaming the system are beneficial to the company. The real damage of stack ranking happens in between ranking periods.