[soapboxrocket]

This. And if you pull if forward, stack ranking did a lot of damage to both GE and Microsoft after Ballmer implemented it.

The real failure of stack ranking is it never ends, so at some point you are firing good employees.

[abraxas]

Also the list of "good" employees is not consistent year to year. Even if you don't fire people most will have better and worse years. Sometimes the swings can be dramatic when people find their groove or conversely when they face burnout or have personal problems.

Stack ranking is stupid, heartless and unscientific. Just like the man who invented it.

[hylaride]

It in fact gets worse. During stack ranking's tenure at Microsoft, they would often pull the "best and brightest" in the entire company into teams to accomplish certain goals. The theoretical "best and brightest" were then stack-ranked against each other. Every manager had to pick the "worst" person to eventually get canned.

[smitty1110]

Not just that, but good employees get tired of dealing with the stress and sabotage from coworkers trying to stay ahead of the layoffs. In my experience, it speeds up the burnout process.