[fabianholzer]

> The fact that you have to stack rank and pick an under-performer every half is just broken.

I've sworn to myself, that the moment that this idiotic idea get introduced in the "performance management" process at the place I work, will be the day that I'll start to send out resumes. Even if it were handled lottery style ("the short straw") I would not cut slack to either manager or company for such an indignity.

[Infinitesimus]

It mostly masquerades as performance curves.

You're not being told to pick someone, you're being told that your org cannot really have 80% of people meeting/exceeding expectations and that because reasons (budget), you should review the cusp cases and adjust them down.

[zeroonetwothree]

IME in ~20 years I’ve never been on a team where there wasn’t someone underperforming (I acknowledge sometimes it was me!). So while I agree it’s stupid to force a curve, it also doesn’t seem realistic when every manager claims their entire team is great.

[fabianholzer]

Your personal experience notwithstanding, I don't think that it can be generalized that there is always an under-performer on every team.

If I may offer my anecdata, I've seen several teams that could be characterized by stability and depth of expertise in their respective areas. You could say they always performed on a very high level, but never over-perform, because the high level is what is expected. Stack ranking those teams equates to killing them.

I also agree that a scenario where all individuals over-perform all the time is also rather unrealistic. But individual evaluation of performance is not stack ranking.

[aquickbrownfox]

It depends how big a “team” you consider. At the 5-10 level maybe not. At the 30-50 level most likely yes. At the 100+ level there are certainly a few.

In the well run orgs at Amazon the bell curve is applied at the larger scales where it makes sense.

[fabianholzer]

I would use different terms for such organizational units (group, department, division), team, in my mind and use of language, would mean low two-digit (at most) number of people reporting to the same manager and collaborating on similar topics.

But sure, the larger the structures the more likely regression toward the mean will kick in.

[rusticpenn]

Yeah, I even asked my current employer if its there in the company. He said no. Its there under a different name. I realised why the team culture was so bad. I am sending resumes to other companies already.