Making Forced Ranking Work
by Dick GroteCategories : Performance Management, Books by Dick Grote, Forced Ranking , add a comment
Dick Grote’s new book, Forced Ranking: Making Performance Management Work, argues that forced ranking doesn’t have to be a dog-eat-dog Darwinian exercise.
Here, from Appendix A to the book, is a CEO’s memo to participants in the ranking process. The memo was sent to all employees who were to be assessed in the company’s initial forced ranking process. The objective was to build understanding and acceptance of the new procedure. Grote notes that this memo and other tools he shares in the book’s appendices “resulted from my work in developing and implementing a major forced ranking system with several large organizations. Only the names of the companies and other identifying details have been changed to preserve their anonymity.”
To: All Acme Employees in Salary Groups 14 and above
From: [name of CEO]Date: February 19, 2002
Subject: Acme Leadership Assessment Program
Next month, we will initiate a new forced ranking procedure that is designed to help us better identify Acme talent. In this Leadership Assessment Program, Acme’s senior managers will use a forced ranking process to identify:
- the top 20 percent of all Acme managers so that their career development can be accelerated;
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the vital 70 percent — the great majority whose strong performance is essential to keep Acme competitive;
- the bottom 10 percent whose talents and skills will be best used in other jobs or in other organizations
This program will benefit everyone who is involved. For those 90 percent of Acme managers who will end up being ranked in the top two groups, the ranking process will confirm the importance of their contributions. For those ranked in the top 20 percent, this program will highlight the talent they bring to Acme and accelerate their development. And for the 10 percent who are ranked in the bottom category, this process will allow the person to move to a job that better matches his or her skills, whether inside or outside the company. (more…)
