HBR Production - Latest Comments in Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Can't say — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:51:01 -0000

Ambiga,

BINGO! Seeing this item makes my day. This works so well on several levels and I'm thrilled that you posted it - and even more delighted that your firm has actually done this. HURRAY!

It's a lesson for business and for schools everywhere - except one school here in Chicago - Drummond Montessori Magnet School, where such wisdom already abounds...to the lasting benefit of the lucky kids who attend it daily.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Jmd2518 — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:52:39 -0000

Great article. As a Montessori teacher, I do want to say that public praise of someone's work is not a Montessori tenet....as that tend to be an extrinsic reward. However, in this day and age, at least if you are not having to give instant promotions and throw confetti for every little success, that is progress

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Aaron — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:48:50 -0000

This is an excellent article. Regardless of the corporation or work environment there are always 'main' jobs which allow for rather rapid career advancement, and 'support' jobs which are critical to running the business intelligently but often lack profit/loss responsibility. I think this article applies perfectly to the support aspect of the business. You probably won't have a large enough IT or R&D organization to offer rapid promotions like you might be able to in sales or even marketing, so you'll have to reward people in other ways. But perhaps more importantly, scientific evidence indicates that carrot-style promotions and financial incentives actually make people less productive. Read "Redirect" to see why - people begin to see money and promotion as the reason for their existence because that is the only way they are rewarded. A look at the recent problems at big banks is the sort of end-game scenario this leads to.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Jennifer Herron — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:08:05 -0000

This explains so much about why I (Montessori kid) could not function in a corporation with traditional values of ranking and paying employees. I love what I do (build spacecraft), but can't stand the competitive nature of the associated engineering business. I just want to the best I can at every moment.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Meghan Ennes — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:30:07 -0000

As the editor of this post, this was my mistake! The video link has been replaced by link to a page that explain the 10/80/10 rule in the context of employee performance. Thank you!

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

PL — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:11:48 -0000

Please review the video carefully, you are speaking of Top Ranking which is a Jack Welsh issue. Being a principle that created the video, the interpretation of the 10/80/10 is incorrect. The video is designed to understand the performance breakdown inside any and every organization. Not as an elimination or promotion processes but as an understanding of the performance dynamics inside any organization. For those who equated the video with Top Grading you have been led astray by the article, again please watch the video.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Sai Dattathrani — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:46:16 -0000

I agree. The corporates term it as "Healthy competition". But I don't see anything healthy in it. I have also been thinking about absolute performance rather than relative. Personally I have begun to stop competing for lesser things in life. More @ http://spritualitynmanagement..... Would be interested in researching and experimenting on absolute ranking (If you meet your targets, you are ok. If you exceed them, you're a high
performer. If you don't meet them, you are under-performing). Any thoughts?

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Joe R — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:40:24 -0000

Well written and explained. In the military, this is also a constant problem that we are now evaluating and re-tooling for the future. In the past, this was done formally with our evaluation system, but there are many instances where the leader-leader model is implemented by our best senior leaders.

Thanks.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Engineer — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:15:08 -0000

A further problem with the ranking system is that in some companies there are employees from very different functions and job types (say engineers and managers) assigned to the same ranking category. This is particularly unfair to top-level engineers, as they are many times included in ranking cohorts predominantly composed of management personnel. And since management personnel --who are not engineers or who worked in that function only briefly before entering the management ranks-- perform the rankings, guess which contributions they believe are most valuable.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Yves Baggi — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:58:24 -0000

Good to read you here Trevor...!

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

m berger — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:41:26 -0000

Nicely written! I'd be curious to know where you got the Montessori info from and who had the vision and courage to try this at Mu Sigma. Daniel Pink understands and explains intrinsic motivation for business AND he knows that Montessori gets his point (p.182 of his book Drive)

More info about what works in education, and probably in business, at www.ultimateprep.wordpress.com

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

David Marquet — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:09:26 -0000

Great formulation.
This alings well with a movement called leader-leader.
The outcome is that everyone in the organization acts as a leader. No one acts as a follower.
It's based on distributing control (decision making) which is enabled by technical knowledge and organizational clarity.
Here's an implementation story on a nuclear submarine readers may find helpful.
http://leader-leader.com/blog/...

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Trevor Eissler — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:36:08 -0000

If your readers are interested in a fun, short video about Montessori education and how it compares to conventional schooling, they may enjoy this: http://youtu.be/GcgN0lEh5IA

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Bobby George — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:01:15 -0000

Love it.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Paul Copcutt — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:28:45 -0000

No reason why this cannot be extended throughout a company, but it takes a brave organization to make that happen. There are some great examples of the influence on Montessori leaders in business in my personal brand legacy video such as Google, Wikipedia, Amazon etc all led by Montessori influenced leaders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Just my toonies worth

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Karl Jones — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:18:25 -0000

I concur with the points made in the article. I see them gathered together under the heading - respect for the individual. Addressing the personal need to grow and self-actualize provides the impetus for huge returns on productivity.

Re: Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Motmaitre — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:29:48 -0000

Your company discovered the downside of the heinous forced ranking system, but alas failed to display the courage of its convictions. If it did, it would eliminate forced ranking for all employees, not just the lower-level ones.

Forced ranking (ranking employees on a curve, or as you call it 10/80/10) is the single most harmful development in people management of the past 50 years. The only reason this heinous and counterproductive system still exists is strategic fashion and bandwagon jumping (Jack Welch did it at GE, so let us all do it, like the sheep we are), and inertia. If a 'leading' company suddenly announced that they were eliminating it, everyone like sheep would also eliminate it.

Forced ranking has the following disadvantages:
1. By ranking employees against each other, it destroys team spirit and creates a sense of rivalry. The people you work with become rivals for a high-ranking. If one person goes up, another must go down. The result is politicking, sabotage, jealousy and tension. Is this what companies that claim to want teamwork should be doing?

2. It punishes the many at the expense of the few. Your company discovered this. The 10% who are ranked high and promoted love the system. The other 90% hate it. This is why people from your middle cohort were leaving. Who likes being told they are not as good as their peers? So you have a few happy 'stars' and many unhappy workers. Is it smart to demotivate the majority of your workforce so a small percentage can feel superior? Psychologists have shown that comparing people unfavorably to their peers is particularly painful.

3. It is inherently unfair, and this may be the biggest weakness of the system. By forcing people to be ranked on a curve, you ensure that some people will be low-ranked, IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW THEY PERFORM. In an extreme case, even if everybody in the team worked their butts off and got excellent results, some people will still be ranked at the bottom, simply because the system forces this. The result again is a deep sense of unfairness in those ranked lower.

The logical thing to do if employee performance is to be measured (some have suggested eliminating appraisals entirely, but that's a discussion for another day) is to measure people AGAINST THEIR OWN TASKS AND TARGETS- the way things were done before GE spread their evil system through the corporate world like a cancer. If you meet your targets, you are ok. If you exceed them, you're a high performer. If you don't meet them, you are under-performing. It is simple, logical, fair and makes sense.

If you really want to eliminate this problem, then drop forced ranking entirely, pay everyone on the same grade the same basic salary (to eliminate envy) and reward exceptional performance (measured against targets, not against peers) with tiered bonuses.