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by jbm 1658 days ago
Your 10% example was used by Jack Welsh GE and Enron right? Do you consider them innovative / forward looking?
1 comments

So because Enron is bad, everything they did is bad? I’m not arguing in favor of firing the bottom 10% each year, but your logic here is ridiculous.
It is commonly speculated that the Darwinian "10% off the bottom" layoffs were one of the reasons why Enron had so many failings as a company (fear of getting laid off led to dishonest dealing and creative accounting) and that is supposedly one reason why it fell apart.

By arguing that effective, innovative companies get rid of dead weight, anyone making the argument needs to confront that there are obvious cases where this isn't true, and that it creates perverse incentives.

As for the topic in general, I'm of a mixed opinion about similar government services. The mail service in Canada is overpriced and feels poorly run (like most everything that is Federally run in Canada), but Japan Post was excellent the whole time I lived in Tokyo. Finding what works and reproducing them makes a lot of sense to me.