1 In management, there is an interesting law called the 'wine and sewage law'. What does it say? If you pour a spoonful of wine into a bucket of sewage, you get a bucket of sewage; conversely, if you pour a spoonful of sewage into a bucket of wine, you still get a bucket of sewage. That is to say, no matter how pure the wine or how large its proportion, it is that small spoonful of sewage that truly plays the decisive role. It sounds discouraging, but every enterprise cannot avoid the existence of 'sewage-type' employees. For example, in a team, there is always that one person who is particularly good at spreading negative energy. You finally ignite everyone's passion, and he easily destroys it with a few complaints; you finally build team cohesion, and he undermines it with a few divisive remarks... In short, such people are like black holes, gradually sucking away the energy of your team. Another example: in a team, there are always a few people who do not work hard, perform poorly, and seriously hold back the majority. The key is that they are unaware of it, neither improving nor leaving voluntarily. 2 Most enterprises, facing this situation, want to install a 'purifier' to filter out these 'sewage-type' employees. How to filter? Generally, they use a mechanism to eliminate the bottom-ranked employees to increase the 'good turnover rate'. Because allowing negative-energy employees to stay in the team loses not only enthusiasm but also morale; allowing poor-performing employees to stay loses not only wages but also the performance that should have been achieved. ▲The bottom-out elimination system, by focusing too much on the bottom-ranked employees, can lead to a tense relationship between employees, and the benefits may not necessarily be good. But a few days ago, when discussing this issue with several executives, they gave a new perspective that is quite interesting and subversive. Let me share it with you. Unlike many enterprises that implement the 'bottom-out elimination system', they place more emphasis on the 'front-runners'. What does that mean?

· On the one hand, no matter how an enterprise eliminates, there will always be bottom-ranked employees;

· On the other hand, the main performance of an enterprise is actually supported by a few front-runners; the contribution rate of the bottom-ranked employees has little impact on the enterprise's operation. Therefore, instead of spending most of your energy keeping a close eye on the bottom-ranked employees, pushing them to produce results, and preventing them from making mistakes, it is better to focus more on the high performers, cultivate them, and in turn, use the high performers to motivate the low performers. 3 Of course, this does not mean we should turn a blind eye to the bottom-ranked employees or neglect performance management. Because we need to prevent the overall quality of employees from declining and the emergence of the Dead Sea effect. So it is very important to use the catfish effect to activate the lifeless sardine group. How to do it? Let me introduce Alibaba's interesting incentive method—a unique assessment model called 'one over one plus HR'. For example, if you are a manager, your superior is the director, and the director's superior is the vice president. When the director assesses the manager, the vice president also participates, and the HR of the corresponding department is added, forming a three-on-one assessment. Similarly, if the director is assessed, the vice president participates, and the general manager and HR also participate. In addition, each superior is required to score their subordinates and force-rank employee quality according to the 361 principle. The purpose of this is to increase the superior's attention to subordinates through the supervision of the higher-level superior and HR, making the direct superior pay more attention to the assessment and do more detailed assessment work, so as to better train the assessed employees later. In fact, this is to improve the ability of each employee in a targeted manner, including the bottom-ranked ones. ▲The purpose of performance assessment is to continuously improve employee capabilities. 4 Furthermore, Alibaba especially encourages employee job rotation. This means that every time a position is changed, a supervisor will evaluate you. Simply put, an employee's ability is not determined by one supervisor alone, but by the joint evaluation of several supervisors. This ensures fairness in evaluation to a certain extent, making the selected excellent employees more convincing. What is more noteworthy is that Alibaba deliberately sets a large gap between the income of the top 20% excellent employees and the 80% ordinary employees, with the aim of using this gap to motivate ordinary employees to move forward bravely and become one of the 20%. This actually forms a countercurrent in the entire talent system. On the one hand, fairness prevents employees from cheating; on the other hand, it leaves no room for the bottom-ranked employees who do not strive for progress. 5 In the final analysis, it is about 'keeping a close eye' on the front-runners, 'letting go' of the bottom-ranked, and finally finding ways to 'average' abilities. I think many enterprises can easily do the first two steps, but it is difficult to control the last step. In addition to Alibaba's assessment model just mentioned, the performance assessment practices of many small and medium-sized enterprises are also worth learning from. For example, I once came into contact with an enterprise that conducts performance assessments every six months, divided into five grades, with clear requirements for the proportion of people in each grade. The two assessments each year are directly linked to the year-end bonus. At the end of the year, first-grade employees receive a big reward, while fifth-grade employees receive a small punishment. The gap is immediately apparent. Although it does not directly dismiss employees, the effect of motivating excellent employees and warning the bottom-ranked employees is indeed powerful. Have you learned it? The bottom-out elimination system is feasible, but it may be a single indicator and does not necessarily mean that those who should be eliminated can truly be eliminated. However, this is by no means the only management method. In business management, there is no absolute best method, only the most suitable management means. Source: Shan Ren Xing