--- title: Seeing Like a State | daily.dev description: Drawing on James C. Scott's 'Seeing Like a State,' this essay uses the story of eighteenth-century Prussian scientific forestry, whose uniform tree plantations... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/seeing-like-a-state-znlzgerty twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Seeing Like a State | daily.dev og:description: Drawing on James C. Scott's 'Seeing Like a State,' this essay uses the story of eighteenth-century Prussian scientific forestry, whose uniform tree plantations... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/seeing-like-a-state-znlzgerty og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ZNLzGeRtY.png og:image:alt: Seeing Like a State og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Seeing Like a State **[Fish Food for Thought](https://daily.dev/sources/mikefisher)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Drawing on James C. Scott's 'Seeing Like a State,' this essay uses the story of eighteenth-century Prussian scientific forestry, whose uniform tree plantations collapsed after one generation, as a parable for corporate legibility schemes. Metrics like story points, badge swipes, and utilization rates simplify organizations for management at scale but discard the tacit, hard-to-measure knowledge (metis) that actually keeps things running. Microsoft's stack ranking system is presented as a case study: it made talent legible but eroded collaboration and trust until it was scrapped in 2013. The piece closes with practices for leaders to hold metrics with humility, go to the 'gemba,' and protect pockets of productive illegibility rather than optimizing purely to the dashboard. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why did Microsoft abandon its stack ranking employee evaluation system? Microsoft abandoned stack ranking in November 2013 because it was widely described by employees as the most destructive process inside the company. The forced bell-curve system, popularized by Jack Welch at General Electric, made engineers avoid joining teams with strong performers to avoid being ranked at the bottom, eroding collaboration and trust. HR chief Lisa Brummel announced there would be no more curve and no more ratings, and the culture shift that followed under a new CEO contributed to a major business turnaround. _Teams weighing performance-review systems can find grounded takes on management practices via daily.dev._ ### What is James C. Scott's concept of legibility and metis from Seeing Like a State? Legibility is the state's practice of simplifying complex, messy systems into standardized, countable forms like censuses and maps so they can be governed at scale, as described in the 1998 book Seeing Like a State. Metis, borrowed from the Greek term for Odysseus's practical cunning, is the local, experiential knowledge that resists being written down, such as a nurse's feel for a patient about to crash. Legibility schemes often destroy metis while making organizations easier to measure. _Leaders balancing metrics against on-the-ground judgment can follow more organizational thinking on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Legibility is Ruining You](https://daily.dev/posts/legibility-is-ruining-you-02mwuwa0q) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Seed Beneath the Snow](https://daily.dev/posts/the-seed-beneath-the-snow-elh0j1pcw) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [From Metrics to Meaning](https://daily.dev/posts/from-metrics-to-meaning-wycj9jyly) · Fish Food for Thought · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [What You Measure](https://daily.dev/posts/what-you-measure-5j5nzazyc) · The Daily WTF · 2 upvotes · 1 comments - [Speak So They Can Hear You](https://daily.dev/posts/speak-so-they-can-hear-you-lmqjegxvl) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#microsoft](https://daily.dev/tags/microsoft), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#company-culture](https://daily.dev/tags/company-culture) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/seeing-like-a-state-znlzgerty) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Seeing Like a State","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/seeing-like-a-state-znlzgerty","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/seeing-like-a-state-znlzgerty"},"datePublished":"2026-08-19T13:10:41.026Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:55:13.260Z","description":"Drawing on James C. 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The forced bell-curve system, popularized by Jack Welch at General Electric, made engineers avoid joining teams with strong performers to avoid being ranked at the bottom, eroding collaboration and trust. HR chief Lisa Brummel announced there would be no more curve and no more ratings, and the culture shift that followed under a new CEO contributed to a major business turnaround. Teams weighing performance-review systems can find grounded takes on management practices via daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is James C. Scott's concept of legibility and metis from Seeing Like a State?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Legibility is the state's practice of simplifying complex, messy systems into standardized, countable forms like censuses and maps so they can be governed at scale, as described in the 1998 book Seeing Like a State. Metis, borrowed from the Greek term for Odysseus's practical cunning, is the local, experiential knowledge that resists being written down, such as a nurse's feel for a patient about to crash. Legibility schemes often destroy metis while making organizations easier to measure. Leaders balancing metrics against on-the-ground judgment can follow more organizational thinking on daily.dev."}}]} ```