Microsoft’s controversial employee-ranking system was called stack ranking.
Stack ranking required managers to place employees into relative performance categories, often using a forced distribution. Instead of judging each person solely against defined objectives, the system encouraged managers to rank colleagues against one another, with a predetermined share expected to fall into lower categories.
At Microsoft, the practice was also discussed as a “vitality curve.” Critics argued that it damaged collaboration because employees could be treated as competitors even when they worked on the same team. Reporting about the system linked it to internal politics, risk avoidance, and reluctance to cooperate with high-performing colleagues.
Microsoft’s human-resources chief Lisa Brummell announced on November 12, 2013, that the company was abandoning the practice. “Stack ranking” is therefore the expected quiz answer; OKRs are a goal-setting framework, while 360-degree feedback gathers input from multiple colleagues and is not the name of Microsoft’s forced-ranking system. The term “rank and yank” is related, but is more strongly associated with other companies’ versions of forced ranking.