Dear Phillip
Thank you for your thoughtful post. Let me make a few comments.
You said:
> Re your last paragraph:
>
>> Finally, very good call on the observation that some who oppose
>> employee ranking, seem to want to justify their view by looking at
>> the practices of the "Top 100" companies--who said that Americans
>> don't do irony?
>It is not that some of us oppose ranking as such, my own position is more
>that we need to be quite clear on the underlying assumptions on which
>ranking systems are built, and that they should refect the explicit
>values and culture of the organisation.
I agree completely. The problem, in my experience, is that very few
organisations have a clear and effective understanding or articulation of
their values and culture and strategy. So, they build systems ("employee
ranking" and/or otherwise) on foundations of sand.
You continued:
>I am not sure what you refer to by your comment on the practices of
>the "Top 100" companies but anyone who appeals to such lists as
>rankings should also recognise the volatile nature of membership. Is
>it 30 or 40% turnover every 10 years in your Fortune 100 list?
>Perhaps someone can correct me.
I was only responding to a post on this list which challenged people to
identify any company on the list of the 100 "best" companies to work for
(a Fortune magazine annual article, I think) which also subscribed to
"employee ranking." The fact that that poster (I've forgotten whom--my
apologies, despite the googolflops of memory on my computer, I need to
purge my files--even the LO list!!--periodically) seemed to think that
organisations could be ranked but individuals could not, was, to me at
least, ironic.
You coninued:
>In addition, Arie de Guess in "Living Company" argues that
>organisational survival not rank is the primary performance
>factor...
With all due respect (WADR?) to Arie, I think this argument is not at all
supported by experience, or even gut feel. Au contraire, there are
numerous examples of organisations that began to prosper only after they
had lost their fight for independent survival (e.g. Jaguar, subsumed into
Ford; NBC, subsumed into GE; The Republic of Ireland, subsumed into the
EC, etc.). There are also many examples of organisations who have wasted
resources on "pure survival" when they might have better served their
stakeholders through some sort of collaborative effort (e.g. DEC--until
just recently; the South Korean economic establishment--as per below; WT
Grant--an oldie but goodie,; etc.). In my corporate strategy consulting
work, the very first question I pose to Boards is always the one of
"Independence?" The answers to that simple question have never been less
than completely fascinating.
You ended:
>Finally, I seem to remember that less than 12 months ago Korea was
>ranked as one of the world's leading economies. Surely whatever
>system produced this ranking was/is desperately flawed and obviously
>did not take account of that nation's doubtful capacity to service
>its huge (hidden?) borrowings.
>This is not an argument for doing away with rankings, but a salutary
>warning that any ranking system will only measure what it is designed to
>measure and no more. If the world changes rapidly or national/consumer
>behaviour shifts, the best ranking systems can find themselves measuring
>yesterday's success factors.
I agree completely, yet again. In fact, experience shows that any
organisational "ranking" system is ephemeral. The spotty history since
1980 of the Peters/Waterman "excellence" companies has been well
documneted. Slightly before then, the investment perormance of the "nifty
50, one decision" stocks of the early 70's should be sobering to those who
today sing the mantra of "Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Coke, Gilette, etc." It
was not very long ago that I was told, by someone who would have known,
that a major European country felt that there was a significant likelihood
that the US economy would be absorbed by the Japanese, due to the
interrelated effects of the "twin towers" deficits of trade and the US
economy. The Packers lost the Superbowl.
What is most interesting to me is that while organisations may come and
go, individuals, to paraphrase Faulkner's Nobel Prize speech, do not only
endure, they prevail. That's one of the reasons that employee ranking
systems are of value. They are one of many means that, properly
understood and leavened with the proper leadership, help us to try to
achieve our best.
Cheers
Richard
--Richard Goodale <fc45@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>