The Elephant in the Org
The "Elephant in the Org" podcast is a daring dive into the unspoken challenges and opportunities in organizational development, particularly in the realm of employee experience. Hosted by the team at The Fearless PX, we tackle the "elephants" in the room—those taboo or ignored topics—that are critical for creating psychologically safe and highly effective workplaces.
The Elephant in the Org
Shortcut Culture: When Stack Ranking Replaces Real Leadership with Greer Procich
Stack ranking is back, y'all — and we’re not clapping. In our Season 2 finale, we’re calling out the lazy leadership, performative culture, and warped sense of “objectivity” fueling the comeback of rank-and-yank reviews.
HR strategist Greer Procich joins Marion, Danny, and Cacha to unpack why stack ranking never really went away — it just got rebranded. From AI-driven “calibration” to the gaslighting of good employees, we’re naming the elephant in the org (again).
We dig into:
• Why stack ranking is a shortcut, not a strategy
• The toll on collaboration, inclusion, and psychological safety
• How managers are set up to fail — and who benefits
• The weaponization of performance tools under the guise of “efficiency”
• What HR pros can actually do when stuck between values and a VP with a spreadsheet
💥 Plus: neurodivergence bias, TikTok therapy critiques, and a few too-real stories from inside the HR trenches.
It’s bold. It’s unfiltered. It’s the end of Season 2.
We’re taking a break for summer, but don’t worry — we’ll be back this fall with Season 3, louder and spicier than ever.
🔗 Connect with Greer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greerprocich
Let’s make work suck less. 🐘
🐘 Connect with Us:
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📩 Got a hot take or a workplace horror story? Email Marion, Cacha, and Danny at elephant@thefearlesspx.com
🎧 Catch every episode of The Elephant in the Org: All Episodes Here
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💬 Like what you hear?
Subscribe, leave a ★★★★★ review, and help us bring more elephants into the light.
🎙️ About the Show
The Elephant in the Org drops new episodes every two weeks starting April 2024.
Get ready for even more fearless conversations about leadership, psychological safety, and the future of work.
🎵 Music & Production Credits
🎶 Opening and closing theme music by The Toros
🎙️ Produced by The Fearless PX
✂️ Edited by Marion Anderson
⚠️ Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations' official policy or position.
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Danny Gluch: Welcome back to the elephant in the org, everyone. I'm Danny Gluch, and I'm joined by my co-host, Cacha Dora
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Cacha Dora: Hello!
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Danny Gluch: And Marion Anderson.
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Marion: Hello!
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Danny Gluch: And we are joined by second time. Guest Greer Procich.
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Cacha Dora: Woo.
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Greer Procich: Hello! Hi! Thanks for having me.
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Marion: You're the first person we've had back twice.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Marion: That must mean you like us.
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Greer Procich: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: God, what an absolute honor! Tell everybody I'm gonna tell everybody this is the best.
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Cacha Dora: We love it.
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Danny Gluch: Well.
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Danny Gluch: welcome back, and we've got an absolutely awesome episode for everyone. We are talking about the resurgence of the rank and yank there.
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Danny Gluch: love that there was.
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Cacha Dora: I mean, we don't love that you love.
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Cacha Dora: No, we don't. You don't live words. Okay.
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Danny Gluch: You're right. I love saying rank and yank. It's just very funny. But there was. There was another article that the stacked ranking
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Danny Gluch: is on the upswing, where, you know, it was really popular in the early what mid 2,000 s.
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Danny Gluch: Anywhere above 40% of organizations still used it. And then it was like, Oh, no, this is horrifying for so many reasons, and like yay, but now it's it's on the upswing again, and we just had to bring Greer back to talk us through like, why are organizations doing this again? Did they think they fixed something like what? What's going on here.
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Greer Procich: I have so many thoughts.
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Greer Procich: and most of them have to relate with laziness and power. I don't really have any other way to say it right. It's I think, when you go back, when you when you
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Greer Procich: go backwards on progress, because that's what we're doing with this.
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Greer Procich: I think you really have to think about why you're doing that. And so for me, it's definitely laziness. It's definitely an element of well, this is what we used to do, or Oh, it's easier, or we don't have to do as much training, or it doesn't take as much time, or we can use it to go to the power element of
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Greer Procich: layoffs, and we can use this inadvertently, secretly, for things in the background that we're not saying that we're using it for. And so I think that there's a couple ulterior motives to this rank and Yank being back. And I definitely think one of them is unfortunately setting companies up to be able to quickly do layoffs, and so
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Greer Procich: I am not surprised to see it back. If I'm being honest with you, I think it's a kind of a scapegoat mechanism of laziness that we see with.
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Greer Procich: You know, Hr. Is not making this decision. It's the executive team.
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Marion: I I think, maybe like, you know, for those who aren't familiar with the term, because it's pretty historic, and then it's kind of come back and forward over the last, you know, I guess, couple of decades, but started off with the former CEO of General Electric, a guy called Jack Welsh, and he developed this concept. He doesn't call it rank and yank. He finds that very offensive, but also.
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Cacha Dora: Of course He created it.
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Marion: Exactly. Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: It is a pejorative.
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Cacha Dora: It's not self serving, you know, to create something with that kind of name.
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Marion: Yeah, he liked to call it employee differentiation.
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Cacha Dora: What a lovely way to say employee comparative, which sounds equally awful.
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Greer Procich: Yeah, what a Hi just say, stack rank. Just say stack rank, because that's what he means.
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Marion: I know vitality curve all of that. But but yeah, that's that's how it started. And you know it came into fashion. I guess when he you know, they were able to see the results.
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Marion: Positive elements to. I mean, there are pros and cons right. But ultimately, you know, it fell out of fashion for a while, because I think Microsoft were probably one of the ones that had it for about 10 years, and then about maybe 10 years again ago they were like, Oh, no, we shouldn't do this. This isn't good for people, and they got rid of it
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Marion: and then, all of a sudden, it seems to have just had a resurgence recently and again. Going back to your point, Gree, I think a lot of it is laziness. I I also think a lot of it's to do with the fact that we really haven't figured out anything better.
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Cacha Dora: Performance, management.
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Greer Procich: And it will forever be the nut that people can't crack because God forbid you just invest in humans
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Greer Procich: until we effectively define performance management. I don't think we can solve it, and I think that's just a huge problem of it.
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Danny Gluch: A philosopher, and I love it.
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Greer Procich: Rubbed off on me. Dan.
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Danny Gluch: I mean
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Danny Gluch: one of the things, and and I do think that this is as much laziness as it is what you were saying. Like difficulty solving the problem of
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Danny Gluch: seeing the need for for layoffs, and seeing the need for dismissing underperformers, or those who are who are not your your stars.
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Danny Gluch: Is this just a way for like organizations to be like? Hey, you know, whenever I read or hear articles supporting this, I always see the word objective, a lot like, Oh, this is objective. We're just. This is objectively what we're doing. We're just laying off the worst performers in our organization objectively. Is this a way for them to not take ownership of
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Danny Gluch: like our people would like, as if they stumbled into the world and found these low performers that they are now.
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Marion: Now let me just call out the big fucking elephant. Here, let's just cut to the chase right?
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Marion: Can we? Hand on heart? Say for sure that we're a million percent convinced and committed to believing that our our managers, at any level, but particularly our God, bless the middle managers, are underserved, undersported, undertrained?
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Marion: Are they fully competent to manage performance? Yes or no?
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Cacha Dora: No.
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Danny Gluch: So.
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Marion: Exactly.
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Greer Procich: I would say absolutely no, just to put a period on that.
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Cacha Dora: Sure. Well, absolutely. I'll add one more cause I love you. I'm gonna say unequivocally now.
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Greer Procich: Yeah, well, and to like, just go off, Mary, and I'd say, absolutely, unequivocally, equivocally fucking. No.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, that's it.
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Marion: You know, like, and and this is the bit that really baffles me like you know, cause I I mean, I've done this job for decades. Greer, you've done this. You've sat in calibrations right?
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Marion: And and they they're comical at points, because.
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Greer Procich: Is it.
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Marion: You know you're you're you're trying to compare. Apples and bananas and apples and bananas are non-compatible, because whilst they're all fruit, they don't taste the same. They don't have the same effect on your body. They don't give you the same nutrition right like. So so it's a very weird thing to do, although again, it does have some element of rationale. But going back to the capability the managers manage junior managers, underserved, undertrained under supported.
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Marion: thrown into performance review season with very little training. Someone might have given them a deck. Someone might have walked them through some 10 min. You know. Here's how you give feedback Bs right? And then
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Marion: go get on with it. So you've got that on one side. You've got finance on the other, who have given. You know you have your your budget for performance, which, of course, you're gonna have. Right? It's business. You gotta manage your gotta manage your money
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Marion: and and we've still not figured out how to do this in a way which is fair and transparent. And you know it has has equity at least and not I don't mean at issue equity, I mean, as in across the people.
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Marion: And we still can't quite figure out how to make the math not hurt.
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Marion: And so when you put all that together, you put, you know your your tight budget. You put finance, you know, wanting you to have a bell curve. You put the lack of creativity about solving anything, coming up with any other way to do it and lead into the fact that you've got managers who really don't have a clue. What they're doing. God bless them! It's not their fault.
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Marion: It's not their fault. It's just a shit show. And and yet, as soon as it's such a pantomime, it's such a performance. When you go through performance review season.
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Marion: and all the way through it as an Hr. Leader. You're going. Oh, my God, we need to do better next next year. This sucks this. This is not good, this is not good, and then you're so exhausted and depleted by the time you've got to the end of the 4 months of absolute torture you're like, oh, fuck that I'm not thinking about that again until next year, you know. And and then the same thing happens again, right?
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Marion: So I don't know how we get off of this hamster wheel.
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Danny Gluch: Of.
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Marion: Nonsense, because it's so beyond broken.
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Greer Procich: I mean, I think you called out specifically, middle managers of not being able to do performance. Well, I'm I'm gonna challenge that. Just a teeny, tiny baby bit. And I'm gonna say, I don't think I've
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Greer Procich: truly in my entire life met a manager
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Greer Procich: who is good at performance management like who, I would say, this is the gold star, somebody who I would recommend you emulate and learn from, I think, no matter where you're at in seniority, in an organization. You're probably pretty shitty at performance management. Because let's think about it right? Like
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Greer Procich: you do what you see from the top. That's what success is.
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Greer Procich: And so oh, you see the CEO giving their direct reports, feedback the fuck! You don't right.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: 19.
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Marion: You see.
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Greer Procich: Because they're so senior. They don't need it. They should be able to do this already. They don't need my support. That's why they're so senior. So then, you see, those senior people not giving their direct reports feedback, and it just trickles down.
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Greer Procich: Critical mass comes at the middle Manager level. So that's why we focus on it so much. But I don't think that we do feedback anywhere. Well, and it comes from the top. And so until we see leadership, senior leadership and executives take performance management seriously. How the fuck am I going to do it?
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Greer Procich: Why am I gonna take it
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Greer Procich: seriously? I'm not held accountable. You're not held accountable. Why am I? You're right.
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Danny Gluch: Am I going to take it seriously?
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Marion: Yeah, like, they're.
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Danny Gluch: There's no example for them to follow. Right? That's.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Times we learn like what you said by mimicking, by mirroring what we've seen done to us, and and especially if it's worked well, people are gonna do it again. They're gonna repeat it.
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Danny Gluch: If anything, it's the opposite right? They're they're not giving feedback. They're not managing performance.
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Danny Gluch: but they're getting promoted, based on other metrics, and then they just.
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Cacha Dora: And then you add on like organizational culture, where it's like, here's a training. Go and do it, and then you don't see it lived out through the rest of the year. So if there's not some way for that feedback culture to take root which
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Cacha Dora: we can all agree that that's the pro. That's a huge component of the problem. Then like, then there's no there's no inertia
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Cacha Dora: to. By the time you hit performance review season, which, depending on some companies is like all year, cause they have all these different phases. And then some companies is like, we ignore it all year. And then for this month. We're gonna talk about it again. If you don't have the inertia, you don't have the backing then, and you don't have that behavior modeling. If you don't have you. You need like this perfect combination that feels a little
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Cacha Dora: It shouldn't feel Utopian, but somehow it does.
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Greer Procich: Well, I I wanna like double click into that just for a second, because.
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Danny Gluch: God.
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Greer Procich: Of.
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Marion: She said.
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Greer Procich: Right.
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Marion: Oh, click!
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Greer Procich: We need a sounder when people use those.
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Greer Procich: And so I'm
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Greer Procich: so I'm not gonna double click. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna drill the fuck down into that. How about that? Okay.
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Greer Procich: that's perfect.
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Cacha Dora: But there's some more Greary.
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Greer Procich: You got it? Yes, yes, yes.
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Cacha Dora: It's rare.
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Marion: You guys, I used to call myself Hr. Fake. Hr.
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Greer Procich: We know exactly
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Greer Procich: I could use like the the double down double click. I could use it, but it feels so weird. But anyways, I wanna go into this because, Kasha, you and I, with our L. And D backgrounds, feel this probably pretty pretty all the time pretty much all the time. It's like, okay. So even if a company trains somebody on performance management.
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Greer Procich: what does that mean? Because all it is is like, here's how you do the feedback sandwich.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, like.
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Greer Procich: Really, really? What is it? What is training? What does success look like? How are we setting people up to succeed with performance management? We are not because we are not giving them what they need to be successful. We're just saying, Oh, do this X number of times a year, and by doing it, you should just be better at it. And it's like, we know that adults don't learn like that. We know
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Greer Procich: the mail
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Greer Procich: by just like flailing through bullshit like. They need specifics. They need practice. They need feedback in the moment they need.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: Feedback, and so like.
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Cacha Dora: I do, but.
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Greer Procich: What are you doing? Why are we surprised? People don't know what they're doing? Because.
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Marion: You know.
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Greer Procich: What to do.
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Cacha Dora: And at the rate of business, the way that business flows like being able to be like, well, I'm gonna need to practice giving this feedback. That's hypersensitive, hypercritical and and they're gonna be like, I just have to get it done. I have to fly by the seat of my pants are they gonna do it? Well.
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Cacha Dora: 50, 50, not even 50 50. But I'm an optimist. So I'm gonna say, 50 50.
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Cacha Dora: you know, like it, it just that the rate that business goes and the deadlines that people have and the pressure that people are feeling. You know, Mary mentioned that earlier, right? Just kind of like that. That pressure cooker kind of vibe that we get, especially as you start going more north in an organization.
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Cacha Dora: People are just gonna keep going forward.
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Cacha Dora: I mean, in in an optimal world. Yes, let's do experiential learning. Danny knows I'm a huge proponent of experiential learning cause I know that people will learn that way.
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Greer Procich: Hmm!
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Greer Procich: That's.
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Danny Gluch: But we don't have time or or mechanism to do effectively. And I think that's part of the problem where
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Danny Gluch: you know, people take shortcuts right like. And and I think Stack ranking like you were talking about. Greer is is a bit of a hey? We're going to try to cheat our way to doing this right? We're going to find a way. That is, it's not optimal. We know it's suboptimal, but at least it does this.
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Greer Procich: And.
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Danny Gluch: Then. And then we can say, because it's based on data. And you know the the new tech people, I'm sure they're using some AI, and they're going to be like, our data is even better now. And that's why this is okay to use. And you know, AI told us that you're a low performer. It's not me. It was AI. It was, you know, our overlord. And then it allows them to shortcut that ownership and accountability again, of why are you?
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Danny Gluch: Why are you not a top performer? It's not my, it's it's just you. And it's just AI identifying it. And.
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Marion: Thank you.
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Danny Gluch: And then they're saying like, we can be objective. And one of the things that is so funny to me is the idea that we can be objective when we know that stereotypes and biases and stuff all exist, and those are just our brains taking shortcuts. So we don't have to do the work of analyzing all the information in front of us. So it's like shortcuts on shortcuts, on shortcuts, and that always goes well right.
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Marion: And also I there's something that just really occurred to me now, going back to something Greer said a minute ago.
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Marion: you know. Yes, this is a systemic issue, and it's crossed pretty much. All leaders, right?
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Marion: Have ever I have a unicorn in my orbit who.
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Greer Procich: Hello!
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Marion: Like absolutely incredible leader. You know, really does get this stuff really understands it. Role models beautifully. People learn from them. It's a joy to see.
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Marion: But you can only be as good as the the system or the the parameters that you're working within. And so you can be the best giver of feedback. You can be the best coach. You can be the best of of all of that stuff, but if the parameters that you work in are still stuck in, you know, 1930,
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Marion: you know. Call out to Kim minnick, and giving us a history lesson on performance management.
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Marion: We love Kim. But yeah, like, yeah, like, you're only as good as the tools that you've got right. And the tools are broken as well. So it's a compounded issue.
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Marion: I, you know.
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Marion: And again we keep coming back to this debate. Should performance and salary pay be linked, or should they be separate? And and it's not clear like I swing often where a lot of the time, I think. No, they shouldn't be separate. But then, when you work in certain organizational designs, there's no way to separate them. Your business model doesn't allow you to do that right.
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Marion: So unless you're very much about. You know, employee profit sharing and all of that stuff.
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Marion: You're gonna default back, because again, we haven't found anything better. So.
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Greer Procich: Well, and and I don't know about you all, but like I'm here to get paid like I'm incentivized to be here to get paid, and so like. If I were to do a motivation exercise and tell you what motivates me in my job.
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Greer Procich: Y'all, I'm not going to tell you. It's because it makes me feel good inside, or because I want to do good for the world. I want to do all of those things. But that's my passion project outside of work. I am at work to get paid to pay my bills, to do all of those things, and so for me, I'm performing well, because I want to be rewarded for it. And I think that that's how a lot of people think. And, to be very frank, I think that's going to become an even
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Greer Procich: like more prevalent trend as Gen. Z. Gets into the workforce right? And so it's like we're trying to do all this philosophical bullshit of like, should we do merit raises? Should we pay for performance? Should we do all of these things? Well.
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Greer Procich: yeah, yeah, we should pay people for their performance. We should be pay people who are doing well. We should reward people and incentivize them to continue to do well, in my opinion, and so like I might have
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Greer Procich: a pretty unpopular opinion when it comes to this stuff. But I also think we treat things as a checkbox right now, like this is a total performance. Management is a compliance thing right now, if companies didn't have to do it, they would not do it. Let's just put that out there. They have to do it because the Board says so, because their lenders say so, because whatever you know is the governing body of their organization says that they have to do it. It's not because they want
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Greer Procich: to do it. And so let's meet our people where they're at. And let's create a system that makes sense
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Greer Procich: for them. And so for me, like, Yeah, attach it to money, attach it to your money, and revisit it often.
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Greer Procich: and help under people understand like, Hey, this is why you're not getting a raise. This is what you have to do to get there.
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Marion: Yeah. Give. Give managers the tools.
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Greer Procich: Yes.
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Marion: To be able to have those conversations to be able to. Really, you know, work with someone on shaping their performance, shaping their development, helping them grow. And again, that does sound Utopian at this point. Because what's happening in industry right now, it's about flattening structures. It's about you know, do more with less a phrase that makes me want to vomit, almost, you know, instantly when I hear it.
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Marion: it's about.
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Marion: you know. Go faster. So what happens when you go faster and you get bigger, you promote people faster. You're not giving them the long enough runway to prepare to, then be able to go in and have these types of conversations because they just got thrown into the hot seat overnight, because guess what a role opened up so like
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Marion: it. There's so many headwinds to this entire situation.
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Greer Procich: These feel like man made problems. These feel like self made problems. We made ourselves.
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Cacha Dora: But but the pro.
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Marion: Completely, completely.
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Greer Procich: And the problem with the problem just to double down on that career.
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Greer Procich: to drill, to drill the fuck down. Sorry, please.
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Cacha Dora: Let's just drill the fuck down
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Cacha Dora: that like for me, like I
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Cacha Dora: I always like. I struggle with comparison all the time, and that's really what like they're bringing back the rank and yank right like it's really about.
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Greer Procich: Yup!
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Cacha Dora: Harrison, and there's no one like
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Cacha Dora: you could compare people against a job description, not against the person.
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Greer Procich: Yes.
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Cacha Dora: And I think.
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Greer Procich: Even really compare people against a job description half the time. Let's.
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Cacha Dora: That's a whole other thing. Right? Here's your job description. And here's the work you're here's your actual chat
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Cacha Dora: exactly.
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Marion: Yes.
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Cacha Dora: But then you start adding, in the fact that you've got people who have real lives and life happens, they're gonna start comparing about against the fact that you've left early for work for a doctor's appointment. You've left early for work because you've got kids, and they got sick at school. You know, they're gonna
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Cacha Dora: compare against the fact that you left early to go for a business trip that they're paying for. But your other coworkers like found a way around it, or something like that. Right? They're gonna find all these little like small things that start adding into that rank system that they? That's that they've created. And then you add on things like people who are neurotypical versus not being neurotypical. And suddenly this ranking system becomes personal.
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Cacha Dora: In the wrong hands, and
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Cacha Dora: because, I think that, you know, like to. To Marion's point earlier, right? There are some pros and cons to the rank and yank, and if done well, you might have less con than pro.
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Cacha Dora: There's always gonna be some like there is in every system. But I don't know like for me like reading that article about it. It just like it gave me an eye twitch for longer than it should have.
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Marion: So, yeah.
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Greer Procich: I.
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Danny Gluch: Got the hard question or or a hard question that I'd like to to circle back to.
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Marion: Oh!
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Danny Gluch: Clock back to you. What's what's the what's the proper? I don't want to get buzzed.
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Danny Gluch: I don't wanna get.
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Marion: Fuzzed.
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Danny Gluch: The fact is that organizations mishire, or they do their best and and have the process to hire the right person. And some people just aren't gonna work out.
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Danny Gluch: They're there because they they need the paycheck, and they're trying to do you know what they can to, you know, not go live in a van down by the river? And how are organizations supposed to identify
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Danny Gluch: and separate from dismiss? Get the hell away from those people who are just like could be replaced by someone who's actually like good for the organization.
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Danny Gluch: And and I feel like.
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Danny Gluch: because that's really hard to do and to like support in the court of law, in case that person like
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Danny Gluch: sues you for wrongful dismissal.
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Danny Gluch: like I feel like the companies are just like and that's what Rear was talking about. Where, like, they're doing this because they have to, because they feel like this is what is going to hold up in court, because the court can be like. Oh, I can see this is pretty objective. You know that. The data said this, and your manager said that, and that's why you were let go. And and we know it's not because they're actual, just like they can't do the job most of the time. It's it's a million other reasons.
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Danny Gluch: But how are organizations supposed to weed out the the bad actors, the the bad apples, the people who just don't care, the people who
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Danny Gluch: aren't very good, and looked better on paper and in interviews than they are in person like
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Marion: I mean, that's actually not a hard question. It it's not it. It's given managers the tools and capability to be able to manage it, giving them
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Marion: guidance, having clear policies that have transparency. Where, hey, Danny, this is what I expect of you. Here's your job description. Here's the values of our organization. That's your parameter framework to work within.
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Marion: Do your job, how you want to do it when you want to do it. As long as you stay within those parameters. And and you know
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Marion: you're great. You're golden, right? And I don't care whether you're black, white, disabled, neurodivergent, like I don't. You know I mean I do, Kate. Obviously I love you. You're one of us, one of us, but I don't care how you show up. I just I just want you to succeed right? And if we could just treat people one like adults and give them the tools to be successful.
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Marion: a lot of these problems would go away. But we can, because we can't get over the hurdle of getting to that point, and also
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Marion: organizations struggle with limit, with trust.
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Marion: And so when they struggle with trust. There's no psychological safety when there's no psychological safety. People don't take risks because they see the fallout happen in other ways right? And and so again, it's that systemic thing so like
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Marion: it's almost, you know.
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Marion: I
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Marion: it's a big ship to correct the course on like, if you're an enterprise, and your course has gone. Your ship's gone way off. Course you're a long, long haul of very
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Marion: critical change management to to get that ship back on course. But if you're a startup
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Marion: and you hire someone like a greed, or a Marion, or or whoever right who who gets it from the get go. And you've got a CEO who's really open to doing things in the right way. You can build from the ground up
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Marion: something absolutely incredible. The hard work is when the ship's off. Course.
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Danny Gluch: Ships are hard to redirect. Canonically.
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Greer Procich: Yeah, I can. I can share an anecdote of sorts. I can remember sitting in a calibration.
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Greer Procich: you know, just having a conversation. Should this person be promoted? Where are they at? And
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Greer Procich: out of nowhere unprompted? Somebody in the calibration said, You know, I think they're on the spectrum.
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Greer Procich: And I just said.
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Greer Procich: Okay, that's the end of this calibration. I'm going to have to go get a new panel, and I'm going to have to speak with your manager about that because you are a leader
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Greer Procich: and you are making a decision about somebody's money
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Greer Procich: career. Because you are. You think that they are neuro.
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Marion: An armchair.
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Greer Procich: Of course.
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Marion: Armchair, psychologist.
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Greer Procich: Oh, my gosh, I was just like.
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Greer Procich: Okay, I understand the intent. I understand that you're trying to be empathetic and maybe paint a picture. But like how fucking, inappropriate! How would you feel if somebody said that about you? And that was the reason that you didn't get a promotion. And so I think that there's also you can go all the way the other way, right of like. Well, I'm trying to show up for this person, and I'm trying to be here to say like, Oh, here are maybe some challenges, or here's some quirks about their personality I'm using air quotes you can't see it.
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Greer Procich: But like, here's here's whatever it is. And so they're trying to call that out as like a well. Let's take this into consideration. But they haven't had the training. They don't have the awareness that you know the the ethical concerns.
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Marion: Did see a tiktok on it once.
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Greer Procich: Oh, Danny, God damn it!
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Cacha Dora: But.
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Greer Procich: But I share this to say that, like I do as much as I think that managers, you know, we don't hold them accountable, and that kind of stuff. I also don't think that we set them up to succeed in a lot of ways, and they're doing their best. And so, you know they might. I think they called that out to say, Hey, maybe they need extra resources if we're going to promote them, or Hey, this, whatever it might come along with it. But at the end of the day it was such an inappropriate, inexcusable thing to call out.
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Greer Procich: How would they know until they did it?
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Marion: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: Is my whole thing. And so like, there's just, you know, we have so many biases against people who live with disabilities and who are neurodiverse and all of that kind of stuff like I can personally say that I have. I know I've been penalized for trying to deal with my my disability and perform at work at the same time.
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Greer Procich: and so there's a lot of that that we don't think about either. And so like, if we're comparing people to each other. We're not thinking about what Greer needs versus what Marian needs versus what Kasha needs versus what Danny needs. And that's where performance management really succeeds is when we think of what does that individual need? And let's be honest like, we could all have the same job description.
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Greer Procich: But our expectations for success, the projects that we're working on our individual deliverables. They are all different.
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Marion: Yeah, you know, I I want to link something here because just something you were saying just really screamed at me. I've been quite vocal on Linkedin about this in the last 24 h there's been reporting about all the legal cases that have come up against Amazon for
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Marion: you know the mishandling of of Ada accommodations, you know, one employee was after having multiple strokes. Applied for remote work and was told because, you know. Obviously they had strokes couldn't drive right, and so they were told to either take public transport
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Marion: or some other some other bullshit, and you know, like, so I don't believe.
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Marion: I don't believe. I believe, that people who work in our profession are good fucking people right.
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Marion: but I believe that again a lot of the the kind of
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Marion: constraints and parameters that we're forced to work in are absolutely against our values, against our better judgment, and quite frankly against against the law. I mean, that's just basic discrimination. Right? So when you think about, think about the the Hr person stuck in that right, and then
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Marion: having to still make all of those employee lifecycle things happen like performance review.
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Marion: And you're in that environment.
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Marion: You're so broken by that point. You don't have the energy or the wherewithal to fight like I'm making an assumption here. I don't work in that company, but I'm just trying to put myself in in those shoes. If that is the kind of stuff that the current leadership is is putting into play
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Marion: that does not speak highly of the overall culture. And when you, when you marry those things up and you marry up particularly again, performance management, and how managers are supported through these processes, and you can see indicators of
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Marion: really how they think of their people.
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Marion: man like, how how are you showing up for your people? How are you creating an environment where they're going to want to do their best work. I am just flabbergasted.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, wanting to do your best work, man like that's
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Danny Gluch: everyone who who I read positively about the stacked rank
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Danny Gluch: talks about like this incentivizes people to really strive to be in that top percentage. And I,
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Danny Gluch: there's no wanting to do well in your role in that. There's a
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Danny Gluch: fear of being in the bottom percent, and or maybe like a cutthroatness of I'll do whatever I can to like. Get over that hump where I'm not in the you know the the 80 or 70. However, they cut it apart. And in that top 10 I'm gonna like backstab. I'm gonna do what I can, because there's a huge difference between, you know, being
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Danny Gluch: 12% and being 8%,
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Danny Gluch: it just it pits people against each other. And I'm reminded of. And this is going to be, you know, for sports people, you know. You can make all the sports ball jokes that you want there, Pete Carroll, the head coach of Usc. And the Seahawks. Now the
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Danny Gluch: La Oakland Las Vegas raiders, whatever they are, he has a a motto where he just, he just yells, compete
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Danny Gluch: like he. He wants his people to compete, and they have so much fun, and have such a sense of unity.
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Danny Gluch: And it's like I,
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Danny Gluch: I feel like the the stacked rank might get people to compete in like the I'm gonna backstab and do whatever I can to like crush someone so that
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Danny Gluch: I know.
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Greer Procich: Yep.
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Danny Gluch: Like. That's the isn't that like the opposite of what every organization.
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Cacha Dora: Asian one. Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Well, like when when it's I love that. You call that out, Danny, because the thing that I, when I 1st read about rank and yank God, only I know in some business course. And then reading this article I was like, that's still a thing.
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Cacha Dora: but like the thing I made me think about immediately was sales, jobs, commissioned sales, jobs.
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Marion: Who knows?
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Cacha Dora: That's really what it made me think of was like, was this written for that kind of going back to your point career, compensation structure
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Cacha Dora: of. If you're it's the line of Ricky Bobby, if you're not 1st or last.
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Greer Procich: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: And if you're doing, and then when you add on, if you stack on
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Cacha Dora: the comparisons, and then you add everything else together like.
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Cacha Dora: how how do you have any semblance of an environment of something with psychological safety? If all you're doing is looking around you and kind of just seeing like a number over someone's head. I'm I'm I'm 3rd on the team right now. I need to be 1st on the team and like, Oh, that new guys outshining me like, you know, I'm I'm gonna speak up. And maybe I'm gonna speak out incorrectly now or out of turn, because I'm trying so hard
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Cacha Dora: to to be at the top. And you know, I think that
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Cacha Dora: I feel like in the real world that's going to play out far more to the cons of rank and yank than the pros to rank and yank.
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Greer Procich: Well, can we also just talk about like accountability for a second, too, on how like.
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Greer Procich: I'm not rating my manager, and they're not getting stack rank and yanked.
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Greer Procich: It's just the ics we're seeing that happen too,
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Greer Procich: right and so like, like, i'm my feedback for my manager generally doesn't make a difference. Let's just call that out right now, right like the.
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Cacha Dora: If your organization asks for it.
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Greer Procich: Exactly, if yeah, even if like, that's only like 30% of the time that I even have the opportunity to give feedback upwards to my leader right? But then they don't know what to do with it. And so like I could be giving feedback that my leader isn't making me feel psychologically safe and isn't giving me the resources that I need, and they're taking credit for my work and this, that and the other. But I don't have the power in this situation either to call my manager out, or now maybe that puts
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Greer Procich: a target on my back because I gave feedback. That's now attached to my name. And so I think that there's also just this, like
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Greer Procich: again, power dynamic that exists where it's like, oh, this applies to you, but it doesn't apply to me. And so like, how do I feel safe in a system where the feedback could be used negatively against me? But I could get feedback about my leader or their leader or the CEO, and it doesn't really matter.
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Marion: Yeah, I I again, I think a lot of that goes back to the performative mechanisms that we have in place, like.
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Marion: you know. Kasha and I worked for a company before that took feedback pretty seriously, and it was one of the things you 1st got into when you joined the company right like they. They talk about it on day one, and there's a lot of benefits to that, because it demonstrated that it really was an important part of the culture, and it was really, you know, embraced, and all of that stuff, and it was something that's always stuck with me. However.
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Marion: in the wrong hands. It's very easily weaponised.
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Cacha Dora: That was, that was the exact word I was like. Don't interrupt her. Don't interrupt.
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Marion: But yes.
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Cacha Dora: Weaponized. It gets very easily weaponized. Exactly.
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Marion: It does, it does. And and it's like, you know, given the keys to given the keys to 5 year old to Ferrari right like. It's just way too powerful and and way too big, and there's not a toy, and and all of that stuff and
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Marion: again. It's very difficult to try and close the stable door after the horse is bolted, and I think what practitioners and C-suites generally, those who are of a mindset of trying to do things better and do things different.
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Marion: They have to be really open to taking a long, hard, brutally honest look at themselves and at the organization, and truly commit
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Marion: to clean and house. I don't mean people, but I mean, just like getting their getting their house in order, and that foundation of psychological safety has to be number one. I've said it before. I'll say it again. You can't have a healthy organizational culture without psychological safety.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Marion: And so it has to be that critical foundation.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. And that's what you know. When Kasha brought up like, Oh, this looks like it. They just took sales teams and said, What if we did this everywhere.
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Marion: Okay.
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Danny Gluch: And
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Danny Gluch: I maybe this is just anecdotal. I'm pretty sure I read this, though, but like aren't sales teams like canonically toxic and like really like me for.
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Greer Procich: Doggy top, very dog.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. And and this, this is just like great. Let's normalize that and put that in on every team.
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Marion: And that that seems like.
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Danny Gluch: How can you even say you have a culture like, what? What is that culture like? I.
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Greer Procich: Eaziness.
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Danny Gluch: Apps, yeah.
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Marion: Laziness, and also I.
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Greer Procich: Yes.
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Marion: Yeah. But there's also different complexities in there. There's there's not just organizational culture. But there's people culture, right? Like.
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Cacha Dora: And team culture. Yeah.
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Marion: And and where you live, culture, like America, right again, go back to you know what we know about hofsted and dimensions of culture.
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Marion: masculine, individualistic, capitalist society. So it's always going to be me first, st me first, st me first, st whereas other societies, other cultures are completely opposite to that. And it's about the collective right? So like you layer all of those elements into into this one issue
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Marion: it screams. It cannot be a 1. Size fits all. But again we haven't figured anything else out, and it the the windows rolled around again, so we'll just do the same thing again, because we still don't know anything better to do.
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Marion: I think that
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Marion: God, I think if we could solve this problem we could retire. We could buy an island and just
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Marion: get, you know. Get out here, do? Do you wanna like? Just let's figure this shit out and make some money.
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Danny Gluch: The thing, though, is, I don't think it has to be a better answer or more effective. It needs to be. A quicker shortcut is what people are, actually what they would try.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, this isn't fast or efficient enough, and we already know that a big reason why it's flawed is because it's taking all these shortcuts. But like they're not gonna do the hard work to do it right.
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Danny Gluch: And and so it doesn't even matter about like, do we solve this theoretically, and even in practice, like here it is. We did it. It takes all of this work.
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Danny Gluch: What organization is going to take that on.
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Marion: Well, they're not, and that's the thing they don't. And and again go. Let's go back to our managers. And again, particularly our our license and managers.
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Marion: They don't have the the skill set. They haven't built the competence or the confidence or the courage to to have a lot of these difficult conversations. So it just continues and and from there there's no way that there's any more time in a day to squeeze more learning in to make this better, because it's all about what you're producing at the end of the day. Right? You're you're producing stuff first, st and you're a manager. Second.
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Marion: Organizations that truly understand productivity and motivation flip that and and and their leaders are focused purely on their teams who are the ones producing right, but but
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Greer Procich: But we've lost the plot. We've lost the plot with what a manager is, and what their role is.
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Greer Procich: what what success looks like. Right?
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Greer Procich: We have.
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Greer Procich: They have 50, 50 responsible. I wouldn't even say 50 50. They probably got 60% responsibilities of an IC and 40% of being a manager, and their teams are huge.
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Greer Procich: Right like, we're seeing people managers who have 20 reports on their team. And so if you think about it, and that person is going to spend 30 min a week with somebody that's 10 h out of their week right there, that all they're doing are one on ones, and that's not taking action on it. That's not following up. That's not doing anything
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Greer Procich: outside of just talking in a 1 on one. And so a quarter of their week should just be meeting with people and then helping solve their problems after that. But no, we're just meeting with people not talking about their development, not talking about their growth, not giving them feedback, not talking about their careers.
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Greer Procich: We're just going in checking boxes and working on projects. And so there is no developmental element. There is no performance element there. And I want to go back and just say, you know, I don't think this is just a middle manager problem. I don't think that leaders are good at giving feedback. I don't think that they're good at
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Greer Procich: helping with constructive ideation. I don't think that they're good at all of that. They're the reasons that we're in these problems, right? And so like, let's let's call it out. Why do we do layoffs? We do layoffs because the executive team failed somewhere along the way.
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Greer Procich: Right? But we're using this scapegoat of performance management to come and manage these people out when really it's like, Oh, your projections were wrong, like we didn't hit what you said, but we're going to penalize everybody else that had no authority in this entire decision or outcome. And so I think performance management a lot of times is also just an easy way out for leadership who doesn't want to do the right thing, because they don't care enough to do.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: The right thing, because at the end of the day nothing bad's gonna happen to them.
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Marion: No, absolutely. But but but you're completely right. But there is the layer of those that are underperformers. Right? That's that's just natural, right.
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Greer Procich: There always will be. Yes.
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Marion: How much of that underperformance lies at the fault of the organization for not supporting the managers who manage those people to get them to where they need to be right.
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Greer Procich: Or hiring companies are terrible at hiring. Let.
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Marion: Oh, yeah.
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Greer Procich: And so how do you even manage somebody to be successful in their role when they're just the wrong person for the role.
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Marion: Yeah, or they are in the wrong job family, because someone.
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Greer Procich: It's too.
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Marion: Lazy to fix out a problem that that was put in place 20 years ago. Like all of that, all of that shit like there's so many systemic issues that are holding us back from
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Marion: completely having a radical shift on all of this. And I think until
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Marion: leadership teams, because Hr. Teams know this shit like we, and we sing it out. We scream it out into the void all year, right every year.
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Marion: But until C-suite actually wake the fuck up and listen and and understand all of the components that are that are.
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Marion: you know, making this a continual point of failure. We're never going to move past this and and the pantomime. The wheel just continues.
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Greer Procich: I agree, I totally agree.
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Marion: Hmm.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, and it's.
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Cacha Dora: So many wheels. It's not just. And I think that's the thing. When you think about like performance management and how it
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Cacha Dora: T comes to a critical failure point. It's not performance management. That's the critical failure point. It's all the things that make it happen.
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Marion: Absolutely.
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Greer Procich: Yes.
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Marion: So lately.
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Greer Procich: It's what happens that leads up to that review is what's important and the meat and what we should be focusing on. But all of the attention and emphasis is on that rating.
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Marion: It? Is it.
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Cacha Dora: One, through 3, 1 through 5.
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Greer Procich: I love.
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Marion: I know.
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Greer Procich: Expectation. It's just really like that rating just really pumps me up and motivates me. I don't know about you all.
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Marion: No.
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Greer Procich: Expectations.
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Marion: I know, and and especially especially when like. I was listening to the news yesterday, and
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Cacha Dora: I'm sorry.
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Greer Procich: Yeah, are you? Okay?
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Marion: No, I know. No, I know it was local. It was local news, but no better, because the Governor of Arkansas is one Miss Huckabee Sanders, who I'm not a fan of, but you know she'd announced salary per like pay performance related pay increases for state employees, and I was like cool, great.
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Greer Procich: Yeah.
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Marion: 1%. If you meet expectations, 3%, if you're exceptional. And I thought, Wow.
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Cacha Dora: Wow!
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Marion: No, I get it.
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Greer Procich: A living that's not.
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Marion: I know.
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Greer Procich: Cost of living.
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Marion: And again.
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Cacha Dora: It's not even a sneeze.
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Marion: Local government, local government. You know, we could get into that whole thing and let's not go there. But but this is the, you know this is the kind of crap that happens in organizations that are making a shit ton of money, and they will still put these sorts of increases in place. And who has to be the poor bugger that delivers the message.
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Marion: you know, cause it's it technically probably should be in the manager. It never is. And it's the the mugs like us, who are the ones that then have to try and say, well, you mean, you know, meeting expectations, 1%. I mean that that shows that you're being the you're being the rock star in the day job off, like, you know, we can't sell that can't sell that lemon so again.
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Greer Procich: Meanwhile, and meanwhile, as I say, meanwhile, Ceos are getting like a 30 million dollar bonus. Sorry.
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Marion: Yeah, yeah, no. Exactly.
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Danny Gluch: And what does that do to the culture? And I'm glad you said that, Greer, because you're right when we're just like Oh, my God like
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Danny Gluch: my performance. Reviews are so important, and it's so one a little bit vague of how you go between meets and exceeds, and all of that the language and structure is really brutal. And and the payoff, the end is one to 3%. And it's like.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, my God! But at least I didn't lose my job, so that's nice.
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Danny Gluch: And then.
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Greer Procich: Fear is fear is a motivator in the workplace right now.
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Cacha Dora: I was. Gonna say, it was like that, and that that's a real thing, Danny, like to.
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Greer Procich: That is.
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Cacha Dora: People and people are reading reading in between lines that don't even exist. If there are layoffs coming because they're so afraid of them right now.
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Marion: Hour.
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Danny Gluch: I mean, it's the tea leaves are there. I think they're reading it right. I think any organization after the after 1980 should be fearing layoffs it just at any point. Just a drop of a hat.
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Danny Gluch: I think that's on steroids at the moment.
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Danny Gluch: Moment. Yeah.
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Marion: Yeah, I think that's like, you know, we we always go through these industrial kind of revolutionary periods right? Where employment is high, employment is low. But right now, particularly in tech, because of just all of how everything's shaken out between AI and and different. I guess
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Marion: allegiances to what tech you're using, etc, etc, like it's so. It's so vulnerable and so volatile. Right now, I I don't think anyone can feel safe. And so, yeah, people are just
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Marion: doing enough to get by to to keep their job.
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Marion: But there's no heart in it. There's no passion in it. There's no love in it. It's just a lot of performative nonsense to keep making sure they can pay their bills at the end of the day. And
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Marion: what crap.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, 10.
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Marion: That's what it.
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Danny Gluch: And that's what it feels like to be in that organization, and it's compounded by well, if I do exceed expectations, I'm paid off with
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Danny Gluch: something that doesn't even, you know, equal the the rate that my rent just got increased.
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Marion: Exactly.
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Danny Gluch: You know, and it's just such a brutal environment.
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Greer Procich: There's a real. There's such a disconnect between the senior level suite and the Ics who are on the front lines. There's just.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Greer Procich: They're they're they can't put themselves in them shoe in their shoes. Unfortunately, yeah.
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Greer Procich: And so they think a 1 to 3% raise is enough genuinely in their hearts. They probably think that because they think, Wow, if I got a 1 to 3% raise of my.
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Danny Gluch: The new boat.
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Greer Procich: $80,000 salary correct. And so, you know, there again, there's just such a disconnect between the executive suite and what's actually happening that if we're giving them the power to lay out what's happening in performance reviews and how they're going to offer rewards and stuff like that, it's just not realistic, and it's not reflective of like where I am in my career versus where they are in their career.
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Marion: Yes.
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Marion: so not to not to take this away from you, Danny, because this is normally your thing. But wrapping this up, I do want to ask a question.
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Danny Gluch: Please, do.
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Marion: Yeah, it does.
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Danny Gluch: That to you forever.
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Marion: Thank you, darling, but, Greer, like
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Marion: you know, we we clearly all of us have very strong opinions on this, and I think we're all pretty
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Marion: open to admitting that none of us have a magic solution. I mean, we we know, yeah.
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Marion: right? And we know what theoretically should and would work. But the implementation of that is really difficult. So what advice do you think we can give to our our Hr colleagues listening to this that are really struggling with this right now, and are really like trying to do the right thing and trying to protect employees as much as they can, but still keep their own jobs at the end of the day. What advice would you give.
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Greer Procich: My biggest piece of advice right now is draw boundary.
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Greer Procich: Draw boundary because you can only do what you can can do. You can only control what you can control. Right? You only have as much power as the executive team has given to you, and so don't, if you can help it. Easier said than done. Don't take it home. Don't
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Greer Procich: don't wrestle it in your brain after hours, you know. Don't put too much into it, because
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Greer Procich: you don't want to waste your energy or your mental space with something like that. And so for me, I think 2025 is the year of boundaries. And so for Hr. People, it's like.
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Greer Procich: drop it at the end of the day, or you'll have a fight up to an extent, or you know you'll present it to the Executive Committee. But you're not going to keep having that conversation 1015 times right. You have to draw the boundary for yourself to stay sane right now. I think we all know that
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Greer Procich: again, we have the autonomy of of performance management a lot of times without the authority. And that's not a winning combination. And so
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Greer Procich: we are working within systems that are broken. It's not a failure of us. So for Hr people, we see you, you know, we're here. Community is here, and you're not failing the system's failing, you would be my recommendation.
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Marion: I think that's a really strong one. I I totally concur on the boundaries thing like I have been so intentional about boundary setting this year, and
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Marion: it feels damn good.
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Marion: But I'm not gonna lie. When I parallel myself to colleagues who are not setting the same boundaries. It's really it's a really interesting observational point, and I do think that there's a cultural element in there. I'm Scottish. I'm British. I'll do what's expected of me, but I don't have the same, and I love my job. But I don't have the same sense of
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Marion: pressure, I guess, is my American counterparts, because you've all grown up in a culture where it's like.
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Marion: Go harder. Go harder, go harder, go faster. And you know we're like, let's get the job done. Let's go to the pub right like.
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Greer Procich: Isn't it.
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Marion: So for me. I think it's easier to set boundaries, but I still feel very uncomfortable when I then put myself side by side by side with my colleagues, and see that they can't do it, or they struggle with it, and that that hurts my heart. You know.
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Cacha Dora: The thing that I love. The career that you really made sure to call out a couple of times is the fact that it's not on the person that the system that they're working within
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Cacha Dora: isn't working for them or for the business, or for just like in general, right? Like cause. We? We talked about that for like the last hour. But I think it's so important to remember that you, as an individual, as a human being, are not the reason for that happening.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Like I I love that you shared that cause, I think, especially as Hr. Practitioners. There's so much self ownership that you place
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Cacha Dora: upon yourself.
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Greer Procich: Okay.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, you wouldn't. And also you wouldn't be in the field that you're in if you didn't care about other people.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. Hr, is like the heart of the organization, and people want the organization to do well. But just like stacked ranking puts you comparison to your peers, and that's really toxic and gross and not good.
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Danny Gluch: Putting the current situation to where we would ideally want it to be if we had a magic wand is also toxic and unhelpful, and I really love that career of just like you know what you don't have the authority to. You haven't been given the authority to stop taking ownership of it, and I do. I do like that, and I'm not ever going to be able to take that to heart. But I appreciate I appreciate the work.
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Greer Procich: Sentiment. It's a cool sentiment. Yeah, it's good.
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Danny Gluch: Gonna go. It's gonna go up on the wall with the cat. Posters believe hang in there, don't take ownership of things.
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Danny Gluch: friends and family.
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Danny Gluch: and with that everyone. Thank you so much for listening, Greer. Thank you so much for joining us again. It's so great to have you back such a good friend of the podcast everyone, please, like subscribe, leave a 5 star review. Leave a comment on Linkedin. Let us know what we need to bring Greer back on for a 3rd time, so that we can talk about. Let us know what you want to talk about and let us know who wants to join us.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: season, because we're wrapping up. Oh, my goodness, yeah, this is the end of season 2. I'm going on vacation. I want to catch some fish, or at least attempt to.
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Marion: Good. I'm glad you're going on vacation, and I'm and I'm excited to hear if you catch any fish.
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Greer Procich: I won't.
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Danny Gluch: I am a forever the realist, Danny, that's it.
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Danny Gluch: But anyways, thank you, everybody. Let us know what you're doing for your summer vacation or winter, I don't know. You might be in the southern hemisphere, and we'll see you guys next time. Thank you. Everyone.
