I think Rick hit on the element of employee ranking that has inspired in
me such passion. He said,
"We could state some additional truths... For example, for most of us,
it's pretty difficult to fire people (that was the part I always hated!).
It's easier to shuffle them off to some other department. As a result,
when the decision is keep or fire based on performance evaluation,
businesses would probably be healthier if more people were fired. (I think
that downsizing, staff cuts to reach imposed numbers... that's a different
story.) "
When I read this there was a lot that became clear in a hurry. Since this
thread began in January I have gone over my professional life and tried to
trace back the events, and my response to those events, that resulted in
my present opinions. And this is the one thing I kept missing. . .
When we choose not to fire someone who is incompetent (in the fullest
sense of the word: Someone who refuses to learn, to develop the skills
required to do the job) then we send a very strong message to those who
work with that person that incompetence is acceptable. If another person
proves to be incompetent, then it's tough to fire them because there is a
precedent set that says "incompetence is acceptable." Unless you happen to
really dislike the person who is demonstrating incompetent behavior,
you'll have to keep them around, even if that means moving them out of
your department. This scenario can snowball in a hurry, producing an
environment where there is a significant difference between those who are
competent and those who are not. The competent people will come to resent
the incompetent and vice versa, and that'll break out into a terf war. The
incompetent people will want the competent people to pull back on their
performance, while the competent people will want the incompetents to
increase their performance. Those sitting in the middle will find a
comfortable performance level that doesn't really bother anyone. . .
And soon you have a big, nasty bell-curve, and a lot of really harsh
feelings between employees. The result is that it will be difficult for
people to cooperate, there will be incessant name-calling, labeling, and
back-biting; managers may even get involved, fighting among themselves.
This is the scenario I saw at Novell. I lived through it. And I was
horrified by it. There are a lot of really great people working at Novell,
but there has been so much fighting between people at opposite ends of the
bell-curve that huge amounts of energy have been wasted that could have
gone into furthering the success of the company.
>From a personal view, I think firing people really sucks. I was involved
in three terminations in my career, and I hated every one of them. On two
occasions I had to leave my office and go to the bathroom to cry. But had
they not happened there would have been a very bad signal sent to everyone
else.
I see employee ranking as a way of checking and balancing this trend. It
forces management to make important distinctions, which can have profound
and long-term effects on the performance of the organization. I'm not
going to deny the fact that it is difficult, and even painful at times,
but I still think there is great virtue in it.
I can think of an example where I was ranked, and which proved to be a
very enjoyable event. I had a manager early in my career who was a number
junky. He measured everything. I'm surprised he didn't measure how long it
took us to go to the bathroom <g>. Every morning he posted the numbers
from the previous days work. Everyone was ranked by the number of
incidents you had closed for the month. The posted statistics showed:
- The number of incidents closed the day before
- The total number of incidents closed for the month
- The average number of incidents closed per day
- The number of incidents re-opened by the customer for the month
Everyone could see where they were at, and how well they were doing
relative to everyone else. That spreadsheet was 90% of your evaluation.
THe other 10% was based on the accuracy of the answers you gave customers,
determined by management through reviewing a sampling of your incidents.
That team started with 15 of us. After three years it had grown to include
100 people, and was by far the most united, focused, and best-performing
team in the division. We competed with each other, and we cooperated with
each other. There was this sense we each had that said, "Geez, Bob's
having a slow month. It could happen to me next month. So I'd better see
if I can help Bob." In the three years I worked there, we only had two
people fired for incompetence. And no one was laid off. That's a pretty
damn good record. And the amount of learning that took place during that
time period was phenomenal.
-- Benjamin Compton DWS -- "The GroupWise Integration Experts" (617) 267-0044 ext. 16 E-Mail: bcompton@emailsolutions.com http://www.emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>