One of the best tools for peer review is forced rankings. Asking questions about a peer's performance will typically get you either a bland non-answer or a heavily biased opinion that has little to do with the specific performance you're actually asking about - it's just the nature of interpersonal relationships, we don't view Bob's communication skills as a separate thing to be analyzed independently of our opinion of Bob as a person. Forced rankings where a person's performance at one specific task must be compared to multiple other peoples', and ties are not permitted, gives us the freedom to disassociate the skill from the person and treat it more objectively. It's also more easy to compare responses from multiple sources. Bob may be a nice guy who is always happy to lend a hand, but if he is still the last person anyone on the team would go to for an explanation of a tough technical concept, you know what he needs to work on.
harimau777•6mo ago
Doesn't that have the drawbacks of stack rank? E.g. it encourages sabotaging (or just not helping) rivals and discourages working on anything that won't be evaluated by the rank.
jjk166•6mo ago
That sounds like a really good way to get ranked low by your peers on helpfulness and contribution to the team. The entire point is to not rank people, you are only looking at a single narrow metric at any given time, and those metrics are directly tied to employee's behavior rather than results. If you for example have your employees rank who they would ideally like to go to for peer mentorship, those who consistently land towards the top of the list must have both strong technical skills and good communication skills, whereas people on the low end of the ranking are likely deficient in at least one. There isn't really a way to sabotage that. Sure you can purposefully rate a rival low, but if everyone else rates them appropriately it doesn't really matter. There is really no way to come out ahead on that ranking without convincing a large fraction of the office that you are legitimately the better peer mentor.
I would also argue that if your organization is struggling with its employees intentionally sabotaging eachother to get ahead, you probably aren't dealing with a mutually assured mediocrity situation, and are more likely facing the exact opposite.
Nasrudith•6mo ago
I would have to disagree about the worst state. MAM certainly isn't ideal, but a hostile, toxic and collectively sabotaging of all rivals (and everyone is a rival) culture would manage to be even worse. A mediocre culture lasts until disrupted by competitors. A toxic company tears itself apart.
jjk166•6mo ago
harimau777•6mo ago
jjk166•6mo ago
I would also argue that if your organization is struggling with its employees intentionally sabotaging eachother to get ahead, you probably aren't dealing with a mutually assured mediocrity situation, and are more likely facing the exact opposite.