The Peter Principle
 

The Peter Principle has some gray hair these days. Was he right in the long run? I don't think he was.

I think it has been renamed to affirmative action.

It sounds like you have an example(s) to support your opinion. If so, please share.

Are you kidding? Its not only alive and well, its explains much of the mess we are in today.

Glaringly so. (Community organizer turned ... . er . . many examples.

There's that saying; A man needs to know his limitations.

For those who do know, they know not overstep; even when offered a "promotion."

For others, they play the con-game and push for whatever they can grab.

And for the record, I seem to recall that the Peter Principle said:

A person will rise to his/her level of incompetence.

I think it remains as good as gold.

Truer words were never written.

What it means is the the guy right above you is you and you can't do his job.

Now do you buy it?

no, you may be able to do a better job than the guy above you. I have known some rare individuals that can perform no matter where you place them. the peter principle mainly refers to a bureaucracy anyway.

No it doesn't. I have the guy on tape and the book. He is a fascinating speaker with a good theory. That's it.

But, if he was right, how would you counter the principle?

Be careful to not be promoted past the level you feel comfortable performing at. No problem then!

If you can perform the job at the next level, then that's still below your level of incompetence. Eventually you will get there though.

One approach to counter the Peter Principle is to make people prove they can handle the work before they are promoted.

Unfortunately, this can often have the effect of making employees do the work of one level up without promoting them.

To quote Dirty Harry..........."A man has got to know his limitations". Mine seem rather obvious to me.

Ditto. That's also why I view very ambitious career people with some skepticism. I've seen some unbelievably stupid decisions made by top people who eventually get canned with a nice severance and stock package and then land in another top job somewhere else to end up doing the exact same thing. I swear, there's an entire class of incompetent executive leaders who job hop from one smoldering disaster to another and get bigger salaries and perks with each move. Good work if you can get it.

If you are successful, you get promoted. This continues to happen until you fail at which point you are no longer promoted. As such, you rise to the level of your incompetence.

I've seen this a dozen times where the number one salesman is NOT a good sales manager. The company hoped that they could teach others to sell only to find that the person is a better salesman with no management skills. At that point, the person is fired or, no one wants to admit the mistake and the rest of the company suffers. Rarely will a person who is promoted to manager be willing to go back to sales. The ego is too fragile and because he is a bad manager he may have made enemies from the lowly sales force. That's why a man has to know his limitations.

Yup, and that's why I'd never want my boss's job.

In my job account managers rarely have two good consecutive years because your annual goal is whatever your revenue was the previous year plus 15-18% growth. So if you blew your quota out of the water at 140% one year, add 15-18% to that number the next year and that's what you have to get to just to be at 100%. The most successful account managers leave after a banner year because they then have the best proven track record for finding another job and they know they won't make more money at the current job.

Quick!
 

You need to call John Corzine and let him in on your theory!

Who needs to do this?

Oh, and it's Jon, not John.

I've seen lots of it and still see lots of it.

The Peter Principle is alive well and not showing any signs of age!

In order to ensure the best people are making decisions, the fear of failure has to be removed.

In so many business cultures, people will go to inordinate lengths to cover up the fact they made a mistake.
My father used to say the only person who never made a mistake never did anything.
If that is true, you have to get used to the fact that you will be offered more responsibility until you start to make too many mistakes.
At that point, if you are honest with yourself and your employer (and vice-verse) you will both agree to reduce responsibilities to a level you are competent to handle.
In this way, you are performing at your maximum. Your employer should be happy and you should be happy.

Of course I'm just dreaming here, but wouldn't it be nice?

Best
Les

The Peter Principle is a serious flaw inherent in capitalism. You want people who work to their potential for the satisfaction of doing the job as well as they can. But the reward offered is financial, so people are often attracted to the job for the financial rewards moreso than the satisfaction of performing their best. They're in it for a paycheck. That's the problem the Peter Principle illustrates, people are interested in the promotion rather than the job. The converse is also true when you hire a contractor based on price. You're hiring based on the paycheck, not the satisfaction of receiving the craftsmanship involved in the job.

At least that's my take from observations, I haven't read the book.

If anyone doubts the Peter Principle, just look at the airline biz.

Taz - it isn't just Capitalism. Look at the former Soviet Union and it's satellites. Worked the same way.

Certainly it isn't just capitalism, nor does that flaw ruin capitalism's functionality, but capitalism does tend to direct one's focus on the reward rather than appreciation for the task at hand, often resulting in a willing misapplication of the merit system.

I'll have to think about that. FWIW, I push for T&M contracts because that is the theoretical lowest price the job can be done for and the owner can terminate the contract at any time. Seems like everyone wins.

:D . . .but we can't talk about the Elephant (and Donkey) in the room here. ;)