In other words, if I get promoted that means what...?

The way I read these alleged research results, a lottery is just as effective at picking people for promotions as what we’ve been doing for years?

But is there a better way of choosing individuals for promotion? It turns out that there is, say Pluchino and co. Their model shows that two other strategies outperform the conventional method of promotion.

The first is to alternately promote first the most competent and then the least competent individuals. And the second is to promote individuals at random. Both of these methods improve, or at least do not diminish, the efficiency of an organization.
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: Why Incompetence Spreads through Big Organizations

I think some researchers have been playing The Sims too much lately...

From personal experience, I know that it matters quite a bit to cow-orkers’ morale who gets promoted... and it’ll be hard to convince even an average CEO or HR generalist that promoting people at random results in an organization that’s just as efficient as one produced by experience, interview selection, seniority and/or the good ole boy network connections.

Pick me. Pick me! Heh.

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 09, 2009
  I agree with your choice of tags.