Rank and Yank Performance Reviews

GE's forced ranking system that fired the bottom 10% annually was copied by Microsoft and Amazon, destroying collaboration and breeding a cutthroat culture where employees sabotaged peers to avoid the chopping block. Outperforming even the typical punitive incentive system for harm, this approach caused a 35% increase in employee turnover among top performers, making it 50% more damaging to team cohesion than the average appraisal method.