The story of the Olympics thus far, day two admittedly, is the drama surrounding the US women’s gymnastics team and ecstasy and agony that played out for the world to observe on Sunday. For those that may have missed it, here are the important pieces of the puzzle as I see them.
1) The US women’s team is loaded with talented individuals and may win only it’s second ever gold medal in the team competition.
2) The qualifying round determines which team’s advance to the medal round while simultaneously determining which gymnasts will compete for the all-around individual gold medal.
3) The Olympics only allow two people from each country to compete in the individual all-around competition.
4) Jordan Wieber, the reigning world champion in the all-around category made a couple of minor mistakes and was beaten out by two of her teammates Aly Raisman and Gabrielle Douglas for the two spots in the all-around competition.
5) All of this happened with the world watching as Raisman and Douglas celebrated and Wieber was crushed in absolute disbelief at what had happened and the end of her individual dream as she stood in tears directly behind the other two being interviewed.
6) The media, coaches, etc. are all asking why is the system set up this way when clearly 5 if not more of the world’s top female gymnasts are all on the same team and yet only two of them get to compete for the Olympic gold in the all-around.
7) The women’s combined competition starts on Tuesday and everyone is wondering whether Wieber will be able to shake her individual disappointment off and come back to lead the team to gold.
I’m struck by how much this reminds me of the classic review conundrum of a forced rank distribution curve philosophy of performance management in organizations. The same dynamic plays out all over the US and the world in large companies every six months to a year. Let me give you that story line because the pieces are exactly the same.
1) High performing teams with top talented individuals get the most work done on the most challenging projects typically.
2) The performance review cycle comes around and all of a sudden teammates become competitors and you start getting the kind of hugs you saw in the gym at the Olympics, stiff, forced and if I had a knife I just might stab you with it.
3) The HR team comes in and says we are going to have a calibration meeting to make sure everyone is clear on what 5 is on the scale, (5 top performer – 1 bottom performer) and that you can only have one 5 in your division because as it rolls up the org chart their can only be 10% top performers in the whole company to fit the forced rank distribution curve.
4) Then comes the fighting, positioning, selling and swapping to figure out who gets to award the 5 to someone on their team. The high performing team filled with individual rock stars is suddenly broken back down into parts where only one of the 5 or 6 high performers can actually be awarded that rating, because some far off underperforming business unit has to have their 5 too.
5) The damage is done, the review process is complete and yet somebody who is really a 5 has to be told they are a 3 or 4 because of the forced rank distribution curve approach to performance management. It sometimes works because there is a code of silence about it in organizations, which doesn’t really work but helps the managers sleep better at night hoping that no one will compare notes about their review scores.
The difference between the two stories is that with the Olympics, the score cards are publicized for everyone to see in real-time. The camera was following Wieber the entire time, just waiting for her to find out that she was a 4 instead of a 5. Raisman and Douglas were awarded the 5’s and the world is left to wonder why the system set up that way.
It seems so unfair doesn’t it? Well I say, welcome to the corporate world and a forced rank distribution curve performance management system for those of you who haven’t experienced it.
Now we all wait anxiously to see how the story unfolds. What will the 17 year old Wieber do in the team event? Will she shake off her individual disappointment and help the pull off history with the team or will she be so distraught that she will lose focus and be just mediocre like the qualifying system told her she was?
And so the audience suddenly can feel and appreciate the tension that any manager of a high performing team in a performance management system that doesn’t make any sense experiences immediately after going through the review process. Lucky for the viewers that the Olympics only happen every four years instead of every six to twelve months.