I came across an older post by Alex Papadimoulis on TheDailyWTF.com, dealing with the Dead Sea Effect described by Bruce Webster.

Frankly, it's one of the most interesting and thought-provoking posts I've read regarding employee retention.

The Dead Sea Effect (in I.T.) is the predicted end result of many years of having the best employees leave, without replacing them with people of equal or higher skill levels. What's left? An accumulation of staffers who are less ambitious, less talented, and generally less capable of finding work elsewhere.

The post on TheDailyWTF describes the problem another way: the motivational differences between the talented (and ambitious) and the mediocre. The talented/ambitious types seek growth and self-actualization; the unskilled seek job security and entrenchment by creating and hoarding institutional knowledge.

According to Alex Papadimoulis, the talented and/or ambitious tend to start getting restless when they reach their 'value apex', that is, when they realize the value they get (growth, self-actualization) out of their career is in decline due to institutional factors beyond their control.

The unskilled, on the other hand, seek 'value convergence', settling in to a position of mediocrity and staying indefinitely. They create and hoard institutional knowledge as a way of building a strong defensive system—this makes them appear to be indispensable since they hold large amounts of important knowledge.

Cultivate a culture of quitting

Papadimoulis suggests that a solution is to acknowledge, openly and without animosity, that people will quit. In fact, he suggests that you should cultivate a culture where you are expected to quit and if you don't, it's either because you are moving up in the organization or your are obviously not growing.

This point bears repeating. Indefinite retention is impossible; employees always quit. The key part is understanding why, and how to leverage this inevitability towards everyone’s advantage.

The first step: If you are a manager, acknowledge that people will quit, and that's OK. And everyone should acknowledge that ultimately, they will quit, and that's OK too.

Papadimoulis mentions that the culture of quitting he describes bears some resemblance to the Cravath System, created eons ago (well, actually, about a century ago). I'm having a bit of trouble finding useful details online but I will be investigating Cravath's method when I can.

So, does it make sense to create a 'culture of quitting'? Or is that likely to cause more harm than good? What say you?

Links

Up or Out: Solving the IT Turnover Crisis
The Dead Sea Effect
Some thoughts on "Up or Out"

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