Thursday, November 11, 2004

You're Fired

A must read for all with intranet access at Microsoft:

You're Fired by I. M. Wright off of our (yah!) Engineering Excellence web site.

(Forwarded to me by a colleague who seems to know more than they should...)

This helps to re-enforce an important mindset for all managers to have about their low performers. It's your responsibility to get them back on track or out of the company. But no one likes going down that hard, muddy path of kicking someone out of the company. An article like this, at this time, is important for building the foundation of getting folks out of the company.

The mid-point is coming up at the beginning of the year. You don't have to wait until the major review to deliver a 2.5. Do you have someone how needs to hit the road? They just swung strike #3? At any moment you can talk to HR and and say "Hey, I want this person out of here. Now. What's my responsibility to ensure this is done right?"

Perhaps your group does an informal stack rank anyway for mid-point. Those folks who have been around for a while that are at the bottom of the ranking? How much are they costing your group? What if you could have a fired-up talented college-hire instead? Move 'em out!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

that's an internal link. Sure you want it to be there?

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the sad era of massive layoffs at Boeing, ca. '94-'96. People with 20-year careers were "managed out" using arbitrary rankings. You'll know MS is finished when it starts bringing in "management consultants" to define how to "right-size" and "streamline workflow."

Anonymous said...

It's survival of the fittest. That's the way it is played out in nature and we are not immune. And in a world where it's survival of the fittest, we as workers of the information age have to evolve to keep up with the ever changing market demand; otherwise say bye bye.

Anonymous said...

Um, the link doesn't work?

Anonymous said...

I read the article and didn't really take away the comments you posted that were forwarded from a friend of yours. As with most issues, there are several ways of viewing it, but in this case it appears you distorted it quite a bit to fit your blog mission.

Anonymous said...

>Um, the link doesn't work?

Classic