But the idea is that managers will manage who gets into each of these grades. They want to put some top performers for sure in 1 – but they also want to put some of them in 2. Kind of in line with Anjali’s talk of move from A to B. Some of the criteria he mentioned include someone who needs a bit more experience, or those who are rather too old and so on. And also they want to forcefully move some of the 2s to 1 so that they get a push in their career. Now I don’t know how much of this is really practical – but I do know that they do spend lot of time discussing about this in our company :-)

In fact I need to get hold of this paper and show it to this colleague of mine.

Ah, about this article and the connection between my leaving finance – its pretty simple actually – I knew that one day we need to move from having shareholder value as the end to business activity to other forms. And since sooner than later I will be heading a business ……..(ok now stop laughing and continue reading!) I said I wanted to find out what those areas might be! If I wasnt convinced about finance being the key, I had to know what else it could be, so I switched out of finance.

You might find the discussion on my site on this topic interesting http://www.pramod.ch/?p=192

I wonder how one goes about finding companies that reward “B” performers…..wonder if there is a list somewhere. :-)

You are right, Europe is definitely better when it comes to work life balance. At least here I get to have a life that I can balance.

I think there is nothing wrong in tapping into the strengths of each employee. In fact, to be able to do that is the sign of a good manager. At the same time, it is also the manager’s responsibility to ensure that the employee is provided opportunities to develop other skills – skills that will help her/him move ahead in the organization. This might mean moving a person out of his comfort zone, which in turn means disruption at work. But, if the ultimate goal is to do what is good for the employee and for the company.

In most companies, diversity in people’s approaches to work is respected as long as the business goals are achieved. So, in your example, if Group C and Group I both achieve the same results using different approaches, then i think it’s totally fine. However, if either approach is actually harming their careers, then i think there is nothing wrong if the manager gradually coaches them out of that behaviour. In my experience, most organizations desire a combination of these two behaviours i.e., someone who is organized and planned but also willing to be flexible. So, the problem comes only when employees are not willing to move out of the comfort zones.

Now, switching to your comment about only rewarding top performers….we recently got this HBS paper at work called “Let’s Hear It for the B Players” (old article – published in June 2003, but relevant for our org right now), that talks about how companies need to pay attention to the Mid 70% performers as well, since they sometimes form the backbone of the company. The article talks about different kinds of “B” performers – those who are not super ambitious (but very smart/skilled), those who were previously A performers but have decided to take the back seat for some time, and others who are truly B players – just getting along types. The article explores the different ways to motivate these people and keep them going – recognize they are different, give them time, offer them other choices etc. So, if you are managing a team of A and B players, you first need to accept that they are different and have different potentials, and then provide them the opportunities that will make them realize their potential.

I agree with Pramod that top performers need to be rewarded and kept going, because after all, they are the ones keeping the company going. However, I also subscribe to the view that not everyone can be an A performer and hence you need to tap into whatever strength a B performer can offer.

The thing that I do worry about though is switching from being an A to a B performer. What if tomorrow I decide to become a B player? Does my company have a plan for me or do I suddenly become useless now that I am not willing to kill myself for the company (to clarify – i am not willing to kill myself even now). In my experience, most companies don’t have a well defined career plan for B players. Particularly in the US, where 70% of the company aims to be a top performer, the one who wants to slow down is seen as the slacker. In my compaby, I have seen some people being indirectly told they will not be able to move up unless they put in 80 hour weeks. I find that things are a bit more balanced in Europe. Companies do seem to respect people’s need to have a life. Unfortunately for me, US expats don’t have the same benefits!! I have to make up for my team’s slack after all!! :)

But on the other hand, if someone is taking personal interest in upskilling and updating – and of course is a performer, I don’t think any company will restrict him or her.

Last weekend there was an article in FT by John Kay. Was interesting – not directly realted to our discussion here – but in a sense part of the bigger picture as he tries to tell whats wrong with the Anglo-Saxon approach. And I agree with him (and that’s one of the reasons I decided not to pursue a career in Finance :-) ).

Its a pity that companies would manage the careers of only their top 1-2% of employees. Forgetting the employee perspective for a moment, even from the employers perspective, in terms of knowledge transfers and contingency plans, and possibly even employee moral – it is not sustainable in the long run. Not every employee needs to be nurtured like a star performer, but its sad when some people get pigeonholed – esp in roles such as data entry or other mundane jobs.

The job of managers is not an easy one – especially when it comes to managing talents. But before that – dont you think what you did while managing your team was precisely what Marcus was talking about? You played to the group’s strengths. In that particular situation you had two groups – for whatever reasons based on nationality! In a sense it would be lucky for any manager to find such easy grouping – how ever it works out. (You can see this happening very often in training sessions, where the trainers just let the naturally forming groups stay together – not necessarily getting the best results.)

I don’t think there is much doubt as to what is best from a team-performance perspective – play to people’s strengths.

But is that in the best interest of the employees? At one extreme this I think depends on the personality of each individual. Now I don’t want to get into the complexity of personalities, let me do it in a simpler way. (For now thinking as a manager, my own perspective – as to what is best for me – will come to that hopefully later)

We could divide employees of any corporation into three groups – high performers, average performers or the daily grinders and the lower quartile – irrespective of what function they do.

Depending upon the type of industry you are in – there could be different approaches to deal with each of these groups. In a service industry – highly HR intensive – like consulting – they normally weed out the last quartile (don’t take that literally as 25% – but something often close to that – much higher at McKinsey’s than say at Infosys. Heard of the famous McKinsey statement – up or out – you either get promoted or you move out – but they manage that beautifully though unlike most other consulting firms!)

In more traditional manufacturing company – this is not practical. In a plant making widgets – you need someone to keep hitting the liver every time to get a widget out. Unless salary is too rigidly linked to age, there is often not much reason to keep moving people up. So in fact for a smooth operation of plant – the need might be to weed out the so called high performers.

Now most companies as they exist today requires a combination of the above two extremes. For many corporate functions they will need to behave like a consulting firm, while for majority of their employees, they will have to have a rather un-sophisticated approach.

What I know is that most companies identify key talents early on and manage their careers very closely while letting open the career management of most others. This doesn’t often mean that those who are not key-talents are excluded from opportunities. But those who are key-talents get treated in line of what you were thinking – their career interests being looked into as much as the companies interests – very much being consistently groomed to move from being a smart pawn all the way to being a queen or a king. As you can imagine no company can afford to treat each and every employee this way – it will be too expensive and in a way not very meaningful for them. I think on an average every company looks after around 1 – 2% of their employees in this fashion. Incidentally if you read most biographies of successful managers – Lee Iacocca to Jack Welch, they all were identified as key talent early on in their career.

The key talent process is not widely publicized in most companies because of the implications and the debate it can start – which very often are not helpful.

Now looking at it from a different perspective – my own, I personally would like to move from being a pawn to being the king or the queen (queen and then the king perhaps – prior to retirement J.) Today each of us need to manage our career on our own – mainly because of two reasons – one, companies no longer have the long term view that is required for long term career management of their employees, and secondly because today there are so many opportunities that if one decides to manage ones own career then the breadth of opportunities are much wider – beyond the limits of ones current employer, industry or region.

The ideal situation would be to get into that 1% club and also keep self management of career option open if needed – simple things like keeping abreast of changes in the market place, concepts, technology etc. etc. But then this is not very helpful as often there isn’t much we can do to get into the 1% club. I think each of us need to work out what we need to keep moving – depends on priorities, objectives, purpose and so on.