Thread regarding Intel Corp. layoffs

Hey the Cut / Paste from Google on Jack Welch's famous Vitality Curve (from which Rank and Rate come), is educational for some, but fundamentally, an entity whether Intel, Google, HP, or a Pro Sports organization has to bring in youth and cut the wood. Imagine a corporation that all turned retirement age at the same time, or a Basketball team made up 45 year olds competing for a Gold Medal.

Again, answer the question, even if both sound evil and wrong. No third option exists.

According to Ryan Smith, the CEO of Qualtrics, stack-ranking (or similar systems) are suitable for ranking sales personnel among whom the management wishes to foster a spirit of competition, but less suitable for engineers, among whom management may want to encourage closer collaboration.[15]

According to a 2006 MIT study cited by Bloomberg Businessweek, forced ranking can be particularly detrimental for company undergoing layoffs: “As the company shrinks, the rigid distribution of the bell curve forces managers to label a high performer as a mediocre. A high performer, unmotivated by such artificial demotion, behaves like a mediocre.”[16]

MIT Research Fellow Michael Schrage has argued that the forced ranking policy has perverse effects even in organizations that are successful: "Organizations intent on rigorous self-improvement and its measurement inevitably confront an evaluation paradox: The more successful they are in developing excellent employees, the more trivial and inconsequential the reasons become for rewarding one over the other. Perversely, truly effective objective employee-evaluation criteria ultimately lead to personnel decisions that are fundamentally rooted in arbitrary and subjective criteria. [...] The coup de grace occurs when the top employees are all told that they must collaborate better with one another even as they compete in this rigged game of managerial musical chairs."[17]

This is a competitive model of organization. The criticisms of both the morality and actual effectiveness of such a dog-eat-dog method of social cohesion apply. Challenges to the model include: "C" player selection methods; the effect of office politics and lowered morale on productivity, communication, interoffice relations; and cheating. Rank-based performance evaluations (in education and employment) are said to foster cut-throat and unethical behavior.[11] University of Virginia business professor Bruner wrote: As Enron internally realized it was entering troubled times, rank-and-yank turned into a more political and crony-based system.[12] Forced ranking systems are said to undermine employee morale by creating a zero-sum game that discourages cooperation and teamwork.[13] They also tend to change norms of reciprocity that characterise the interactions among employees. In terms of Adam Grant's notion of "giver", "taker" and "matcher cultures", forced ranking systems are found to make it less likely for a "giver culture" to be present among employees, as individuals shift to "matcher" or "taker" behaviour.[14]

rank and yank, no package required.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve