02.05 – Rich Sheridan on Forced Distributions

I think the rank and yank system produces fear. I think it sets everybody at odds with one another in the company. And now it isn’t I have to run faster, I just have to run faster than you. And I think it could perturb in an interviewing process and a hiring process because why would I want to interview anybody who’s gonna run faster than me? Why would I want to entertain bringing anybody on the team that’s gonna outperform me, because that’ll push me lower in the rank and yank system. So I think that is a journey to the bottom, that’s a downward spiral of morale, it’s a downward spiral of talent, retention and attraction. At Menlo it’s just the opposite.

If we’re bringing you in and you are a higher performer than I am, you’re more talented in a particular area, you have deeper experience, in our system I’m going to learn from you. I am going to get a chance to start to transfer your knowledge to me because of the way we work, because of the way we recruit that your job is to be my teacher in those moments, and my job is to be as good a student as possible so by the end of the week I’ve gotten a little bit better.

Because we work so closely together, but quite frankly, so have you, because as anybody knows who’s ever been in a teaching position, the teacher always learns something from their students.