[mytailorisrich]

I have never liked or understood the popularity (at least for a time) of the 'vitality curve'.

Indeed, if you think that 10% of your employees must be fired every year then, to me, it is a sign that something is horribly wrong and you should really focus on that, not to mention the horrible effect this practice has on company culture and atmosphere.

[bena]

I think the core idea makes sense, at least intuitively. Remove the worst performers. Make room for better people.

The issue is that you will always have "worst performers". There needs to be a minimally acceptable performance level. And you also need enough slack so that the churn isn't affecting overall performance.

[DrScientist]

And the constant fear of being in the bottom 10% doesn't create destructive behaviours like credit stealing, passing on failures dressed up as successes, and actively sabotaging competing projects or people.

ie you risk ending up with an internal hunger games when in reality you should all be working together against the external opposition.

If you want to get rid of the 'dead wood' then there are much better ways that don't create such negative effects on both the company and the people.

A smarter way to do this, is to have a probationary period on initial recruitment to check either of you haven't made a mistake, and the occasional reorg to which gives the opportunity for managers to remove consistently poor performers over a longer time period - ideally into a better suited role in the same org.

Finally, if his method worked, you'd expect the distribution of performance to narrow over time to the point where you reach steady state where who is in the bottom 10% is essentially random noise on a tight distribution.

Assuming he wasn't that dim, then he could of only intentionally created it to create a climate of fear because he believed that was the best way to motivate people.

It's certainly the easiest.

[mytailorisrich]

Removing the worst performers is the issue, as you somewhat suggest.

You don't want to remove the worst performers. You want to remove those don't do their jobs or don't fit in the company. This is very different.

[bena]

It is, but I was offering a suggestion as to why the concept is popular.

It passes the "gut check". It "feels right".

And that's because it's vaguely in the right direction of a good idea.