. . . a management system known as "stack ranking"—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft's ability to innovate. "Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees," Eichenwald writes. "If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review," says a former software developer. "It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies."

I'm sorry, I must be ignorant. Why is forcing good and bad review quotas a good idea?

What if everyone is special in their own way?

It looks to me as if Microsoft wants to shame employees that aren't cool enough or popular with management. I've seen this at my own jobs before, though I am such a PITA that they give up on that pretty quickly with me.

Isn't a job at a software company about writing code?

I have worked with various people from movie studios so I know the worst 1% of managers all too well, but at some point, don't people ever understand that people are there to go and do their job writing code and to go home and have a life?

I have said many times I would not like to work for Microsoft, because I know how much pressure they put people under, and for little to no reason. Let's put this guy who makes 90k under extreme and undue pressure then lets lose 6.2 billion on aQuantative, but then lets blame the 90k employee.

Not for me.

45 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

@PaoloM: Was that ever an issue for you, durring your stint?

Not really an issue. You go in knowing all this very well and you either accept it or, if you have problems with the system, you just don't take the offer.

I don't recall having guns pointed at my head to sign the job offer (but I do remember a delicious feast at the Celtic Bayou shortly thereafter ). My philosophy has always been of the type "if you don't like it, you don't have to do it". Plenty of fish and all that

So basically you're confirming it.

I'm not against being into your work.

That probably doesn't last though because eventually you get used to anything, and eventually it wears off. When it wears off you have to accept the job as just a normal boring job and at that time it really doesn't help to make everything a contest.

Are quota motivations really going to help the bottom line when most of the money at MSFT is actually lost at the strategic level?

The employees/programmers end up knowing this in the end, and resentment builds and it leads to the article above.

Make a quota on making stupid acquisitions and bad decisions for executives at the company. That should be more than a successful initiative.

Not sure who Chris is, but I've worked for a global fortune 500 firm

22 seconds ago, 01001001 wrote

@PaoloM:

Not sure who Chris is, but I've worked for a global fortune 500 firm

Chris Rondot, aka Beer28, aka you.

And you will forgive me if I don't believe you

I'm sorry, you're mistaken. You can believe whatever you want. I'm not concerned about it.

Herbie

Even with Win8 Blog about how the start screen is designed, it just screams how much "research" you have to put into it. It just screams how much psychological study you have to analyze on "art". But, art is all about randomness and creativity. It is all about explore and be brave, like Picasso. But, just look at the Win8 Blog, you know how much they want to play safe, which is understandable. But, if you keep playing safe, you loss that adventurous attitude. You wouldn't be able to venture out and explore new world.

And another simple thing, without thin IE (aka IE9 Tech Preview or IE10 Tech Preview ), FF and Chrome will continue to take away web away from Microsoft. There is no technical limitation to it, as I already point out the tech preview, NOT BETA. It is only a business decision to promote FF/Chrome for XP home/business users. And I still don't think that's a good decision.

Like I said, it is hard to say, because I do value the power of those business politics and all. But, it also leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because I, as a creative technical person, is not well equipped with strong expressive persuasive engaging presentation.

Sometimes, you can't really explain art. It just works. It is exactly like cooking a tasty rice, trying to run a Turing machine to describe taste, human biology, human psychology, temperature, material science, and etc. is just way too complex for me. I just want to say, hey, this is how I cook and it tastes better. As to why it taste better, I don't know, it just taste better.

I thought that was the whole idea behind these 360 degree feedback structures.

What the guys at the top of the pyramid have to start releasing is that they don't add any value. Value is created at the bottom of the pyramid. So, the steeper the angle of your pyramid is, the more profits you get

1 hour ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Bass: There are similar problems in any hierarchy where employees are given reviews by their immediate manager. I've always felt that reviews should include a third party, a manager from another team or department, to ensure that personal relationships aren't skewing the review.

Herbie

In a lot of companies I've worked for, you can request someone to be present at the meeting if you feel that there's a problem between you and the manager. The trouble is that making the request often leads to trouble for the employee about a day after the review.

2 hours ago, 01001001 wrote

@PaoloM:

Not sure who Chris is, but I've worked for a global fortune 500 firm

Could the C9 devs rig up a 'facepalm' icon or something?

Herbie

You guys seem to forget that your manager's success is dependent on your success as individuals and as a team.

I've seen plenty of middle management get replaced because of the lack of performance by the team. They didnt fire anybody from the team, they can't afford to, they are the ones adding the value.

There are always jobs for those who can create value, so your manager needs you, not the other way around.

Herbie

3 hours ago, Dr Herbie wrote

@Maddus Mattus: so that those who do create value will be rewarded and not penalised because, for example, they disagree with their manager on climate change

Herbie

Now, you've done it!

If there are personality clashes between the manager and a certain team members, it's the team's job to either get a new manager or part with the team member. This is what happens all the time in soccer. A neutral unbaised third party will not help you there. And where are you going to find these angels? They are most likely going to be HRM managers and they have other motives aswell.

If it wasnt for the straight jacket that our (yours and mine) government put us in, being fired from a job is actually a positive thing. It means that you are on the limit of your capabilities. Being stuck in a job for 40 years, means you could have done better. Ultimately the goal is to end up in a job that you are not qualified enough for. It's also a very good learning expierence. I've hit many brick walls. It hurts, but keeps me on my toes.

And you don't have to have a view on climate change, it's pseudo science;

http://www.mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org/#/Video?id=1410

8 hours ago, PaoloM wrote

Chris, considering that you've never worked for any company big enough to have this kind of "problem", your opinion is - frankly - worthless.

Love the pointy stick you used there, but unfortunately, this time I have to side with Beer. I worked for a company as big as Microsoft that did stack ranking. They carried it to the extreme. At least once a year, often twice, they had mandatory layoffs. The "bottom 10%" in every team were let go. This often meant that an employee that was really probably in the top 10% in the company overall got layed off because he was in the bottom 10% on his team. What this did to morale and the quality of the work produced was quite obvious and very detrimental to the health of the company. This is a business practice that really doesn't make any sense and shouldn't be followed by anyone.

34 minutes ago, Maddus Mattus wrote

... Ultimately the goal is to end up in a job that you are not qualified enough for.

Yuk! The Peter Principle.

It's where all politicians originate...

In my case, I was the "poor" who got no raise (out of a team of 5) because I happened to enter and fix more bugs than my co-workers.

In my opinion, a poor review should go to workers who aren't holding up their end and/or causing issues in the team. If no one is doing that, there should be no poor reviews.

And can we get a variant of Godwin's Law for climate change?

That's not the Peter Principle: that's what keeps the world interesting for the rest of us.

How many of us would absolutely crush everyone, Bill Gates included, if we had a time capsule to go back to 1975 and compete with those people in a stack rank?

It's like there's a Moore's law for retarded business practices and we got the tail end.

Seriously, I don't think many of us would succeed against these guys (and gals), in 1975, using their weapons of choice. We had the benefit of decades of training on computing they couldn't possibly get, but we were also spoiled rotten in the process.

The most advanced workstation back then was an 80x24 terminal, a crappy editor, and some 8-bit assembler. Manuals (the dead tree version) you had to contend with your coworkers, no internet to find information or ask questions, compile times that ran for hours. And all this to produce code that had to fit in a handful of KiB.

We could relearn, but I doubt we would stomach it.

If I post a picture of you and your team 50 years from now and ask the same question, you will get the same answer.

Problem solved.

1 day ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

 

Could the C9 devs rig up a 'facepalm' icon or something?