An Australian company intentionally devalues performance:
Atlassian says it will no longer tolerate “brilliant jerks” who deliver results for the company but make life hell for their co-workers as part of a complete overhaul of how the tech firm conducts performance reviews.
The $47 billion Australian software company, which was founded in Sydney in 2002 and floated on the US stock market in 2015, says two-thirds of every performance review will now have nothing to do with job skills.
Instead, equal weighting will be given to how each of its 3000 employees impacts others on their team, and to how they live the company values. Atlassian says the change will “more fairly measure people on how they bring their whole self to work”.
While it’s true that teamwork is an important element of success in any organization, establishing feelings as the basis for evaluating performance is assuring rule by the most sensitive. Which in this case means that gamma males and women will soon rule the company and the ability to actually get anything done will become irrelevant.
One need only to look at Apple in the post-Jobs era to see what difference the loss of just one “brilliant jerk” can make to even the most successful corporation. Then contemplate the consequences of eliminating all of them from an organization.