Ranking and Competition

In a post by Rita Keller on CPA Management she advocates the practice of publishing rankings of the firms associates. It would seem this is a practice of Moss Adams, a large national firm. The post titled Ranking Your Individual Team Members doesn’t provide specifics as to what the criteria that were used in the ranking scheme by Moss Adams. They state that you should rank people by the criteria that are important to your firm. The article goes on to state that the staff felt it was a positive motivator and “no one quit”. (Yet!)I certainly don’t quarrel with evaluating the strengths, weaknesses and potential of your associates in order to assist them in their professional development. I have a serious problem with publishing the ‘ranking’.

It’s interesting they refer to “Team Members” in the title. I’ve been a member of many teams – high school and college atheletics, military, and most notably in my capacity of managing partner – and the most important underlying principle in every team I’ve been a member of has been based on concern for the welfare and success of each team member by every other team member. Competition among team members precludes, denigrates and erodes the cooperative effort necessary for a ‘team’ to be successful in my opinion. It promotes the individual at the expense of the team. In our firm we’ve done everything possible to eliminate competition between team members. We want each team member to unselfishly cooperate in making every other team member successful. Ranking potentially precludes that. And for what benefit? Motivation to do better? To be at the top of the ‘list’? Good professionals don’t need that kind of whip. If they do, the firm made a hiring mistake, and they need to correct it.

We’ve chosen a different direction. One that minimizes competition, micromanagement, and places responsibility on the professional knowledge worker for their own career and development. We have virtually no turnover; a waiting list of professionals who have applied to join us; and a professional staff that is unparalleled in expertise, committment, and personal development. Most came from national firms. I’ve heard their comments (and they are invariably negative) regarding published rankings of charge hours, realization, etc., and the culture it engenders.

I’d be interested in a blind survey of those ranked at Moss. Do they really think that published ranking is a positive tool? How about the partners? would they just as enthusiastically support publishing the ranking of the partner group?