4 ms·
There was an interesting article about Microsoft's use of a similar mechanism written by one of their developers. He wrote that it encouraged people to seek out
by rmchugh 12y ago
There was an interesting article about Microsoft's use of a similar mechanism written by one of their developers. He wrote that it encouraged people to seek out incompetent teams to work with as within these teams they were guaranteed to shine. Thus, clever people did not want to work with clever people, as it would reflect poorly on their evaluations, regardless of the team's actual performance. As I understand it, Microsoft have dropped the use of these mechanisms, for this and other reasons.
- UweSchmidt 12y agoMore fundamentally, what led to such a system in the first place? "People are fundamentally lazy and we need to do X to make them work" vs. "People are fundamentally awesome and will work hard if we can remove obstacles and demotivators."
- xcntktn 12y agoYou just described this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y
- UweSchmidt 12y agoExactly, thanks!
- georgemcbay 12y agoOf course many middle-management types assume everyone is fundamentally intellectually lazy, just like a thief assumes everyone wants to steal his stuff.
- rhizome 12y agoThere was an entire blog more or less oriented around the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Microsoft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-Microsoft
- hga 12y agoIt could hardly avoid doing that, per at least a couple of Vanity Fair articles, the first one of which I know is very good: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-dow... "“Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” [Kurt] Eichenwald writes." http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mo... I don't believe I've read the second one, but it expands on the corporate culture that required someone's official failure for you to survive: "In those years [when it failed] Microsoft had stepped up its efforts to cripple competitors, but—because of a series of astonishingly foolish management decisions—the competitors being crippled were often co-workers at Microsoft, instead of other companies. Staffers were rewarded not just for doing well but for making sure that their colleagues failed. As a result, the company was consumed by an endless series of internal knife fights. Potential market-busting businesses—such as e-book and smartphone technology—were killed, derailed, or delayed amid bickering and power plays.
- rhizome 12y agoIt could hardly avoid doing that, per at least a couple of Vanity Fair articles The blog appeared 8 years before those articles.
- hga 12y agoMy point is that if the first Vanity Fair article is correct, that "Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft...", then Mini-Microsoft could not help but to discuss it a lot. As he and his commentators did, in chilling detail.