Page 230 - The extraordinary leader

A Case Study in Leadership Development–The U.S. Marine Corps • 207

waiting for people to fail and then gleefully seeing them depart, the Marines
work hard to keep anyone from failing and measure success by the high
portion of people making it successfully through their training process.
The contrast between this policy and that of many private-sector compa-
nies could not be more stark.
Continual Improvement in the Quality of the Workforce Occurs through
o
Development, Not Elimination. Many corporations proudly announce their
policy of evaluating everyone on a regular basis and then each year systemati-
cally eliminate the bottom 10 to 20 percent. That has been one of the favorite
human resource policies of some of the legendary “tough” executives.
This policy contains a number of serious drawbacks, terrible negative con-
sequences to the organization, and is inherently unfair. This “rank and spank”
philosophy deserves serious questioning.
First, it assumes that managers are accurate in their appraisal of subordi-
nates’ performance, despite a large body of evidence to the contrary. The con-
sistency of performance appraisals is notoriously low. In some situations good
data exist, but those are more the exception than the rule.
Second, it penalizes employees working for an executive who has recruited
an exceptionally talented group of people. The first person to be terminated
in Group A may be more productive and capable than the person in Group
B who is at the midpoint of that group, simply because Group A consisted of
an exceptionally talented group of people to start with.
Third, it assumes that people are static and incapable of development. Yet
most of us have seen people make significant changes in their performance
over time.
Fourth, it assumes that the nature of the job people have been given, the
influence of the group around them, and relationships with the immediate
manager are all of no consequence. It defines the individual as the only vari-
able in the equation.
Fifth, it pits people in the organization against each other, rather than
establishing a performance standard to be reached. It is management’s admis-
sion that they are not able to set up an accurate performance standard by
which to judge people, so the surrogate for doing that is to create a list and
arbitrarily cut off the bottom 10 percent.
Sixth, this “proving” orientation has been shown to diminish risk taking
and encourages people to be cautious and tentative in their work. People
working in such environments are more prone to do just what they are told
and not seek to learn from their work.