In defence of 'belling the curve'...

Organisational leaders are a little like football fans - they like their teams to get results, while playing to a particular 'philosophy' or 'system'. Some of them give the team the short end of the stick after a bit of underperformance, and others tend to be more forgiving and believing 'next season is our season'.

Do. Or do not. There is no try. 

(Master Yoda) 

In their (i.e. the fans') shoes, would you want your players to play beautifully or would you want them to win (even if it means winning ugly at times)?

Assume that you have a football team to manage and some decisions to make, which could lead to either scaling new heights, being mired in mediocrity, or plunging into the depths of despairing results.

Would you want to:

1. Have an overall strategy and a 'way' of playing that you would prescribe, and expect your players to (largely) stick with it?

2. Differentiate between good players and those who aren't really pulling their weight in terms of salaries/contracts, recognition/praise and other benefits such as a few more rest-days in training?

3. Have a strong academy where you train young players to be world class one day, instead of acquiring expensive players from outside?

4. Provide feedback to players during and after the game, instead of ignoring them throughout the year and having a performance conversation at the end of the year?

5. Be accountable for results (financial and intangible) or just hide behind playing well (despite losing more often than winning)?

If you are a people manager, it is highly likely that most, if not all of your answers are a resounding YES. Then why do these fairly simple and obvious answers escape us when we are carving out organisational strategies and trying to make our people succeed?

There has been a huge amount of debate on how forced ranking prevents collaboration, increases stress among employees, and should be done away with. However, many of the proponents of doing so forget the overall context in doing so.

Some organisations succeeded immensely with the performance curve and so the curve was immediately adopted by a lot of other organisations as a best practice - without stopping to think if it made sense in their context or not. Did their other HR and people systems actually support the curve? Did they have strong linkages with promotions, rewards, recognition, training and other employee opportunities?

The biggest risk one faces in doing away with ranking employees is shifting the organisational culture to a socialist system. Everyone is (almost) equal - making life unrewarding for achievers and relaxed for under performers. Obviously, this would begin to manifest itself in organisational results as well.

This is not to say that it is a bad idea to move away from the curve. It might make sense to do so, if your context is right. Are you willing to invest that extra effort in defining objectives, reviewing them regularly, and providing ongoing feedback to improve performance? Would your other systems support this setup?

If not, it is best to leave such a mechanism to an organisation such as a football team and follow a performance curve.

Image source: www.hbr.org