Wednesday, September 28, 2005  Alternatives to Stack Ranking?
Alternatives to "Rank and Yank" stack ranking: rather than
playing around with Monad or writing some gadgets, I've
dedicated my free time to reading up on what to do after you get
rid of stack ranking and try to center on having everyone
actually work together to get the best results for the customers
vs. focusing on how to politically get ahead to get a good
review. I'm also taking some time to contemplate on Deming's
points and assess how Microsoft is doing against them. In some
ways, we're slipping backwards into the industrial-era muck.
What I would deeply appreciate is real-world experience from
people living with stack ranking alternatives. Now, I imagine
there's something worse than stack ranking. People have written
me saying how great it is to be with companies that reward all-
around performance vs. relative performance. They feel
appreciated, well compensated, and can focus on doing a great
job. Managers feel like they can actually tell