I was told by my former VP that the MRR process is fair reflection of the work force. He went on to give an analogy of that even the US Olympic basketball team, which would have the best of best, would have individuals that would need to improve and would be on a PIP (performance improvement plan). so i guess even if they win gold two of the team members would not be getting a medal.
and then there is cross functional manager rankings for your staff. yes that really turns into a knife fight. i have peer managers just come come out of the shadows with personal attacks against my team. base on zero interaction with that person, rather it is based on rummer and hear say.
I have never had a problem with putting people in the elbow for reason, and it was easy to rank people when you have a large sample size like twenty people or more. but with globalization and reduced team sizes, it become more difficult differentiate to the same allocation (quota) of outer elbows. i actually had my HR rep tell me that if people were meeting there goals, i was not giving them difficult enough work. or that I need to look at other points of individual performance. like how many extra hours free OT did they give up during the year, or a classic from the manager cross function team ranking.
The manager was defending his person for an upper block, his justification was that this person listens to rumors at the water fountain and squashes the rumors, as well as reporting the rummer and the person to leadership and HR. In other words he would be rewarded not for work product but for being a snitch?
it about as F'd up as it can get, can't make this stuff up.