There was one VP I knew who found it too difficult to identify actual low performers, so he assigned the lowest ratings Russian-roulette style. He was transparent with his team about it, and thought he was being very clever—he never had to have hard conversations with employees on his team about why they were getting low ratings or with his boss about why he didn’t hit the curve. He was a lazy, unfair leader. These kinds of stories convinced me a forced curve is a bad idea.
