Comments on: Let’s go vampire slaying

By: Maskedmusician-to add to alex's comment

Maskedmusician-to add to alex's comment — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 04:16:04 +0000

I’ve always been told “you don’t know the real world”….but honestly, I think every experience people go through is real no matter what case. We are living and breathing. We cry and we die. What difference does it make? What are people trying to prove when they say that? I am quitting my “impossible greedy moneymaking through required numbers” job and going for what is real inside my heart. Composing music. What you are inside is what makes up the so called “real world”. I said my peace.

By: Wie man Geeks NICHT führen sollte « Zahlenpeter’s Weblog

Wie man Geeks NICHT führen sollte « Zahlenpeter’s Weblog — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:43:16 +0000

[...] “Let’s go vampire slaying” – Mehr echt schlechte Managementideen, die man meiden sollte. [...]

By: 2 cents

2 cents — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:55:31 +0000

Companies simply cant afford to fire the bottom 10%. The training costs are way too high and the volitility in teams will only cause turbulence which reduces both productivity and creativity. Sure you need to have the right people in the right positions, but assuming that 10% or your people are wrong for the jobs they have indicates a VERY serious problem in your ability to hire resources. This course of action is a knee-jerk reaction to the symptom rather than a fix to the problem that lies in recruiting and leadership. Hire the right people in the first place an enable them to do a good job.

By: Count Ludwig

Count Ludwig — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:35:22 +0000

Fire the bottom 10% = fire 1% of bad ‘uns+ 9% of staff randomly. I’d leave even if I was in the top 10%. Welch & GE are dinosaurs.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:52:31 +0000

I think that the fallacy about the “fire the bottom 10%” story is that it didn’t necessarily contribute much to GE’s bottom line. I think that Welch’s ideas about how to diversify GE had much more to do with the success they had under his leadership than firing the bottom 10% did. Remember, there are costs for training the new 10% who come in to replace the ones that were fired. There’s also a startup lagtime while these people come up to speed, a management overhead to get people inducted into the organisation, and the like.

I note from the Economist that Welch’s successor has had a bit of difficulty, and the imperial style that Welch showed as head honcho (lots o’ perks) has also begun to sour in many companies.

Working with your bottom 10% and giving them the assistance they need to move themselves into a skilled position which they love and in which they shine is fulfilling both for the employee and for the company.

And remember, when you fire the bottom 10% there is always another bottom 10% to replace them.

By: Positive Sharing » Top 5 business maxims that need to go

Positive Sharing » Top 5 business maxims that need to go — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 08:27:19 +0000

[...] Let’s go vampire slaying [...]

By: Alexander Kjerulf

Alexander Kjerulf — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 06:27:23 +0000

Chris: You’re right, very few companies do get it right. I’m not sure it’s even possible in most kinds of business because individual employees’ contributions can be so difficult to quantify. I think t’s a better bet for a company to focus on other ways of making people happy at work and increasing performance than financial rewards.

Gekkobear: Great story, thanks.

By: Gekkobear

Gekkobear — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:28:01 +0000

Well, I recal a layoff losing 16% (financial issues, not “management being management idjits” as the reason) and the guy who sat next to me was gone.

Next day I’m called in to be asked about the work that guy did. Nobody (and I mean nobody) even knew the language he coded in (product specific) much less knew the code, installing, debugging, etc. He was the one man who ran the development, installation and final escalation support for the product. It was a “plus-one” product optionally sold by us… but we lost any ability to modify it unless someone trained for likely half a year to learn what he did.

So we outsorced it to a differnt company we had worked with. That other company hired him… any bets as to whether the company “saved money” on this layoff?

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:45:13 +0000

If you get your performance management schemes working right (clear performance objectives, reward linked to performance) you don’t need to fire your bottom 10% as they will naturally drift away to more profitable employment. Unfortunately, few companies seem able to get their performance management schemes working.

By: Robert Hopt

Robert Hopt — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 03:44:41 +0000

Enron fired the bottom percentage of their employees every year like clockwork. And their traders were basically a company of backstabbing two-faced sociopaths.