Stack Ranking

Many company’s, particularly US owned, staff evaluation schemes are based on ranking their staff, and additionally rewarding the top 20% and firing the bottom 10%. (This idea comes from the US, probably from GE; firing people because they are not as good as someone else is illegal in the UK and much of Europe.) Basically it is not about continuous improvement, it’s based on a world view that thinks people are lazy and need fear to make them work hard. Fear of not getting a bonus, or fear of dismissal. This cynicism and hate will never build a successful firm. …

Beyond Concalls

I have been looking at ways of making virtual meetings easier, more effective and fun. As part of that I have looked again at secondlife, and one of my new correspondents pointed me at “The future is virtually here”. This, despite being published last August, and while containing two fun stories about EVE Online, tries too hard in my mind to use language which proves the author’s Yoof credentials. Also quoting IBM and World of Warcraft as the exemplar’s of using virtual worlds is, to my mind lazy. Many (or was it several) companies use secondlife as a virtual store front, although I admit that IBM’s virtual data centre, (see also my blog report on the IBM virtual data center) is a quite a cute toy, but a number of people are on the trail of WoW, and its monthly subscription is high for school students. The killer app. for virtual worlds seems to be training.  …