[kamaal]

As per Welch, stack ranking works because managers are themselves stack ranked. All the way up to the CEO.

Therefore if a manager plays politics and promotes his inefficient pets, sooner or later he comes ranked last among his peers. So if though he wants, he can't.

He also says that the stack ranking system makes it very difficult for the managers in the 3-4 year after it was implemented, because now they may have to let go some good people to retain the very best.

However it did work to a large extent in GE. Jack Welch's immediate reportees all went on to become CEO's of top companies.

But things like this blind copied and applied don't fly much. You need to implement them in spirit and that's difficult.

[jasomill]

Letting go of good people to retain the very best doesn't sound like a problem. Letting go of the very best to retain the most difficult to replace, on the other hand...

[kamaal]

Stank ranking is not ideal for everyone.

Also stack ranking requires a great leader with courage in the top who actually has the vision to take things down to the last employee. For this you need to cut bureaucracy, bring in meritocracy. And do nearly every thing your traditional exec can't.

The reason this fails is some clueless MBA's in the name of case studies take it up and blindly without knowing the spirit behind it apply to anything and everything under the sun.

Each leader has his style you can take some lessons from it. But you can't be that leader copy cloned and template act everything he did. When you do, you only do it ritually and not in spirit.

Which is what cause things like Stack Ranking to no be viable else where. Because you are not thinking as Jack Welch did, you are trying to imitate his action and hope to get the same results.