The book “Software Engineering at Google” exposes a dangerous management fallacy: hoping underperformers will quietly leave while doing nothing, only to watch your A-players walk out instead.

Too many managers take the path of least resistance: ignore poor performance, hoping it resolves itself. Managers avoid difficult conversations most of the time, believing underperformers will eventually self-select out.

But… Are the high performers who leave first.

📖 What Google Actually Says
The book says that poor performance is handled with manager feedback, and performance improvement plans, not wishful thinking. OKRs create social incentives where engineers know their team will score publicly, making poor performance impossible to ignore.

📊 The Reality
High performers are 34% more likely to burn out carrying underperformers’ workload.
Top talent leaves 2x faster when they see no accountability for poor performance.

💥 The Backfire Effect
When managers stay silent, high performers interpret this as:
“Excellence doesn’t matter here”
“I’m working harder for the same recognition”
“Leadership doesn’t have my back”

The result? Your stars start interviewing elsewhere while your underperformers get comfortable.

⚖️ A Good Solution
✅ Clear improvement plans with deadlines
✅ Public team metrics preventing hiding
✅ Quick decisive action when plans fail

Addressing underperformance increases team engagement because it shows fairness.

🎯 Your action, managers!
Stop hoping underperformers will leave. They won’t. But your best people will. Create systems where poor performance can’t hide and excellence gets rewarded.