Like there isn’t enough politics in the workplace! Command and control managers love to rank employees; there needs to be forced ranking by assessment of performance to be considered a good manager and have a well-run company.

Some rank to give bonuses or incentives, and others rank to RIF employees (have to get rid of the bad ones). I never have found a good reason to rank and always advise against it. It is a bad practice that leads to waste and suboptimization.

I won’t dispute that in any entity, there is always someone at the top and someone at the bottom in terms of performance. However, the waste of performance appraisals, competition, back-stabbing, and manipulation far outweighs any conceivable benefit. Money and morale is lost with these activities.

The distribution of people and their performance is typically bell-shaped:

 …