Here's a link to an Interesting article a few weeks ago from Slate, in which two researchers used six supermarkets in a chain to study the effect of high performers on average/low performers.  A sampling of what they found:

Mas and Moretti rely instead on scarily detailed data: having somehow sweet-talked a supermarket into cooperating, they compiled a data-set that tracks every single "beep," every transaction, for 370 workers in six stores, timed by the second, for two years. They can measure each worker's productivity by the second and note how it changes depending on who else is working at the same time.

It is not obvious what they should find. Since shoppers can and do move to fast-moving lines, a quick worker will tend to lighten the burden on their colleagues. That might encourage them to slack off, or it might encourage them to work harder. The positive effect dominates, according to Mas and Moretti: They find that a shop assistant sitting near someone who is 10 percent quicker than average will raise her own game by 1.7 percent....

Ah, human nature as a mechanism to improving performance.  The researchers also found the following interesting tidbit - the increased performance only occurred if the performer in question was directly facing an individual with less productivity, but no impact occurred if the slower employee was simply facing the back of the star checkout associate...

Obviously, you can't drop cube walls, but it begs the question of how you can incorporate more visibility across associates regarding relative performance without taking the employee relations hit that can follow...  Sales cultures already have this component, why is it so hard to get for other functional areas within a business?

At my daytime gig at SourceMedical, we recently took the plunge on eliminating Business Casual as a requirement for our dress code.  While a lot of workplaces are starting to crack down on the slippery slope that is Business Casual, we went the other way and made our defacto standard Casual Dress (with standards, jeans and a collar on the shirt are requirements, but sneakers are OK).  Apparently Internet zillionare Mark Cuban agrees with the move, ranting on the economic and cultural value of suits in the workplace and in society in general over at Blog Maverick.  Of course, when you cash out at the height of the Internet bubble, you have more flexibility than most of us.  But to be fair, Mark talks about his days running his own business before the billions came rushing in and acknowledges he wore a suit if the targets he was selling to did so as part of their daily routine. 

How's it going 45 days into the relaxation of our Dress Code?  I think its going well, but I've been in jeans every day since we started, so of course I am happy.  I still see a lot of folks wearing Business Casual, which I think is great and healthy since we can all wear what we are comfortable in.  Also, people staying Business Casual when jeans are OK fits with some of the reported trends that grunge in the workplace is dead.   Of course, no matter how far you take the standard down, someone's always ready to take it further - recently seen in the building - hoodies aka 8 Mile... nice....