Diana Larsen pointed me to a recent issue of Fortune:
There are lots of interesting observations in the article about what have been unchallenged assumptions about business.
I’m particularly interested in the comments on the sort of forced ranking that Jack Welch helped to popularize.
Seems some executives are finally realizing that forced ranking doesn’t just cull the low performers….it pits people against each other, dis-incents collaboration, and drives disengagement. And you can’t get much done with unengaged people who don’t collaborate and work against each other.
[rant]Why the heck to we need a forced ranking system to cull low performers? If someone isn’t doing his job or isn’t in the right job, his manager should be managing him, encouraging him to find a more appropriate job within the company, or firing him. If forced ranking is the only way a company has to identify and move out people who aren’t doing their job, maybe the problem isn’t just with the identified “low performers”.[/rant]
