https://www.linkedin.com/posts/per-arne-solend-4a72662_motivation-leadership-performancemanagement-activity-7126558154343014400-bY0s
Forced Ranking
Back in the days, we used to grade our employees every year.
The scale went from 1 to 5.
Getting a 1 was not good news. A 5 meant you were the best thing since the dinosaurs invented oil.
I found this system slightly stressful.
I usually got a 4. That was kind of good, but why was I not a 5? One year I came pretty close, I think, but my boss told me that no one is perfect, so…
I once got a 3, which meant preforming as expected, or something of the sort. I took that as a signal the company did not love me anymore, so I started looking for a new job.
Then I became a manager myself, and now things got even worse. Suddenly I had to hand out grades.
The very occasional 5s were always easy to give. The 4s were usually not a problem either. Sometimes ambitious people on the team would ask why they were not a 5, but I would just tell them that no one is perfect, so…
The most difficult grade to give was a 3.
Since the system operated according to a certain distribution, this was supposed to be the grade most people got. It was a forced ranking, so if you happened to have many top performers on the team, well, tough luck.
I tried my best to explain that a 3 was actually a good grade. People had difficult jobs with high expectations, so meeting those was actually well done!
But what people heard, was that I thought they were completely average.
Luckily, a few years ago, we changed how we evaluate people.
We no longer use grades. We still set goals and measure progress. But the focus is now much more on how people are performing against their own development plan, not how they rank compared to others.
And if you force me to rank the two systems, I know where my Five Stars Review goes ⭐️