Deming emphasized that forced rankings and other merit ratings that breed internal competition are bad management because they undermine motivation and breed contempt for management among people who, at least at first, were doing good work. He argued that these systems require leaders to label many people as poor performers even though their work is well within the range of high quality. Deming maintained that when people get these unfair negative evaluations, it can leave them “bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for
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