The SquizLog

Forced Ranking is Unhealthy

Synchronicity.

Today, shortly after reading Johanna Rothman's opinion (via Esther Derby) about forced ranking, I had lunch with three former colleagues, all now IT managers in large corporates. They were bemoaning, to various degrees, the procedures they must follow during annual staff appraisals.

One described the perverse tendency to keep a low performer in his team so that he was not forced into giving a low ranking to someone who had done a good job but happened to be in a team of high performers. Indeed he had one such team member, which made his ranking job easier. Subsequently he managed to assist this employee to find a more suitable position elsewhere, for which he was congratulated. But when the time came for the next round of appraisals he was left with the unenviable task of giving a good performer the lowest rank in his team.

Hardly conducive to getting the best out of employees who aren't stellar performers but are capable of improving. And not the sort of management that I would imagine promoting good teamwork. In short, an unhealthy practice leading to an unhealthy culture.

As Johanna says:

Managers need to provide effective feedback weekly to their employees. If you give feedback, coaching where appropriate, and use a reasonable evaluation system, you don't need to use forced ranking. Forced ranking delivers precisely what you don't want: people working for their own betterment. Forced ranking is the coward's way to manage people.

Posted to Peopleware, Software Development by Keith Pitty