{"text":[[{"start":12.53,"text":"When Bill Michael, the former chair of KPMG, told staff to “stop moaning” in a virtual meeting in February, one of the issues they were complaining about was the “forced distribution” model used to assess their performance. "},{"start":23.984,"text":"This way of appraising people is a zombie idea. "},{"start":26.877,"text":"No matter how many times it proves disastrous for a company’s culture or morale, it refuses to die. "}],[{"start":33.11,"text":"Generally speaking, “forced distribution”, or “stack ranking”, methods divide employees each year into a certain percentage of top performers, average performers and underperformers. "},{"start":43.727000000000004,"text":"In the UK’s senior civil service, for example, the proportions were fixed at 25, 65 and 10 per cent respectively, until the system was reformed in 2019. "}],[{"start":54.239999999999995,"text":"The idea is to avoid “grade inflation” and force managers to have honest conversations with people who are sub-par. "},{"start":60.443999999999996,"text":"Jack Welch, former chief executive of General Electric, said in 2013 he couldn’t understand why people thought this cruel. "},{"start":67.54899999999999,"text":"“We grade children in school, often as young as nine or 10, and no one calls that cruel. "},{"start":72.87899999999999,"text":"But somehow adults can’t take it? "},{"start":74.934,"text":"Explain that one to me. ”"}],[{"start":77.47999999999999,"text":"There are circumstances where it works. "},{"start":80.03399999999999,"text":"One former accountancy trainee said he had only been willing to tolerate the long hours and grinding work if he was likely to be promoted. "},{"start":86.73899999999999,"text":"“In that context you really need to know if you’re in the 25th percentile or 75th percentile,” he told me. "}],[{"start":93.35999999999999,"text":"But there are many more examples where the method fails, even on its own terms. "},{"start":97.87699999999998,"text":"The big problem is that it mixes up someone’s absolute performance with their relative performance against their peers. "},{"start":103.56899999999999,"text":"You might be meeting all your objectives, for example, yet still be ranked bottom and labelled “underperforming” in a strong team. "},{"start":110.17399999999998,"text":"Sarah Nickson, a researcher at the Institute of Government think-tank, said the UK government’s “deep dive” into the forced distribution system for civil servants found that “a lot of the people in the bottom 10 per cent were not underperforming”. "}],[{"start":122.83999999999999,"text":"This not only feels unfair for the employee, it is deeply uncomfortable for the line manager. "},{"start":128.15699999999998,"text":"“What was difficult was when you had people meeting expectations, graded 3, but because there were so many 1s, 2s and 3s, there was pressure to give them a 4 and put them on an improvement plan,” one former manager in a big accountancy firm told me. "}],[{"start":141.88,"text":"In many organisations, line managers assign provisional grades then thrash out the overall distribution in “moderation” meetings with other managers. "},{"start":150.059,"text":"But it is hard to objectively rank people in white-collar jobs doing different things. "},{"start":154.552,"text":"“You’d have people sat in a room who barely knew each other, comparing apples with pears,” said a second manager at a different firm. "}],[{"start":162.20999999999998,"text":"A number of line managers told me they gamed the system. "},{"start":165.63899999999998,"text":"They would put people who had just joined the team in the bottom bracket, because they were easier to sacrifice. "},{"start":170.88199999999998,"text":"Or, perversely, they tried to hang on to poor performers so they could put them at the bottom and protect everyone else. "}],[{"start":177.89,"text":"The system can also disincentivise teamwork. "},{"start":181.057,"text":"Microsoft’s forced distribution ranking system (since scrapped) was blamed for creating a toxic culture in the early 2000s that stifled innovation. "},{"start":189.54899999999998,"text":"Good performers reportedly avoided working together for fear of suffering in the rankings. "},{"start":194.09199999999998,"text":"People would quietly sabotage their colleagues. "}],[{"start":197.75,"text":"Finally, these systems are often corrosive for morale, which damages the very performance levels they aim to improve. "},{"start":204.667,"text":"Research shows that feedback has a moderately positive effect on performance on average, but in a third of cases it decreases performance. "},{"start":211.934,"text":"What is key is whether people feel the feedback is fair. "}],[{"start":215.85,"text":"Employees who express positive emotions after feedback tend to perform better in the future, while those who express negative feelings go on to perform worse. "},{"start":224.179,"text":"In a forced distribution, only those ranked better than average are likely to feel particularly pleased. "},{"start":229.547,"text":"As Nickson points out, that is by definition only a minority. "},{"start":233.264,"text":"“It’s nice for your ego when you’re told you’re a high performer, [but] I think the question is, does that benefit outweigh the downsides for potentially everyone else? ”"}],[{"start":242.09,"text":"Microsoft scrapped forced distribution in 2013. "},{"start":245.757,"text":"The UK’s senior civil service followed suit in 2019. "},{"start":249.424,"text":"KPMG told me it planned to “move away” from the system to “allow much greater flexibility” too. "}],[{"start":255.11,"text":"Human resources departments have had to rethink plenty of old notions since the pandemic hit. "},{"start":260.402,"text":"The counterproductive pseudoscience of forced distribution ought to be one idea that finally stays dead. "}],[{"start":265.61,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/001092078-1617865137.mp3"}