Ever heard of rank and yank? Stack ranking? Forced rating?
If you’ve been in the corporate dance, chances are you’ve waltzed along the bell curve during annual performance reviews. The irony? The “top” (of the curve) is smack in the middle – the realm of the average performers. If that’s where you ended up, your manager may have sheepishly shrugged “Only x% got the top rating. But I fought hard for you.” Landing a sucker punch after you busted your gut all year.
Following widespread backlash from employees, many organizations distanced themselves from force fitting people into a rigid distribution. Yet, most still have traces of this practice. According to various estimates, as many as a third of Fortune 500 companies continue to use forced ranking as a basis for determining performance.
The problem? It is deeply flawed!
Ratings and rankings demotivate rather than inspire the vast majority of people. Performance is a team sport. Yet, this practice only incentivizes, rewards, and penalizes individuals. Importantly, as Josh Bersin’s research showed, the bell curve is an incorrect indicator of organizational performance.
