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Peter principle

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Re: Peter principle

#41

Post by ranger207 »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #25

George Marshall who was, among other things, Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII was lauded for his policy of yanking commanding generals if they didn't adapt to new positions quickly. But he lessened the stigma of being relieved by transferring them to other commands, still at flag rank. Several commanders early in '42 were removed from commanding infantry divisions, but were given commands of units in combat sup…

It's interesting reading about WWII generals because they're so well-studied it's relatively easy to notice patterns about them. One is that there were a few different types based on what they were good at. Patton was a good tactician and (mostly) beloved by his men; Eisenhower was a logistician with little experience actually commanding but he got along with everyone; Nimitz was good at delegating (aka finding the right man for the job); etc. A lot of leadership stuff is universal, but then a lot of it is also dependent on what's needed for the job, and a person's skills and leadership patterns may not be exactly what's needed for the job. The Peter Principle is that if you do a good job you get promoted, as you get promoted it gets harder, eventually you reach a point where your skills aren't enough to overcome the next level of difficulty increase. Most people would probably be able to go a lot further if they were fit into the right positions to use their particular leadership pattern

Re: Peter principle

#42

Post by ranger207 »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #24

This is all fine for lower levels. For executives, there are only a few paths: - take over your boss’s job when they retire/get fired. (One can slowly go from individual contributor to vice president this way!) - fit non-competence based corporate goals and have the polish to visibly demonstrate such (industry track record not required!). More about fluff than stuff… - have strong corporate political alliances with h…

If promotions are based on metrics (and they always are, even if the metric is "how much do I like this guy"), then you can either try to increase your score in that metric as much as possible, or you can game the metric as much as possible to make it look like your score in the metric is high. Most of the people at the executive level have been doing the latter so long that the former just isn't really considered at that level

Re: Peter principle

#43

Post by mellosouls »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #24

This is all fine for lower levels. For executives, there are only a few paths: - take over your boss’s job when they retire/get fired. (One can slowly go from individual contributor to vice president this way!) - fit non-competence based corporate goals and have the polish to visibly demonstrate such (industry track record not required!). More about fluff than stuff… - have strong corporate political alliances with h…

This is all fine for lower levels

More likely the other way round; if there are more options at lower levels - as you imply - then there are more ways for the principle to be countered or defeated.

None of this has anything to do with vision, ability, or merit.

Unfortunately, if you take the principle seriously, that's pretty much exactly what it has to do with.

Re: Peter principle

#44

Post by makeitdouble »

Willish42 wrote: post #21
wrp wrote: post #16

Since first hearing about the Peter principle, I've wondered whether it would work to just make all promotions probationary.

Some big tech organizations basically do this without the pay. Essentially in some FAANG corps, you have to prove having worked at L+1 while still at L to get promoted to L+1. In my biased / personal experience, the veracity of such a bar kinda deteriorates over time and the short average tenure makes most promo processes corrupt B.S. when folks are more incentivized to just quit and join somewhere else for more mone…

> You have to prove having worked at L+1 while still at L to get promoted to L+1.

Yes, and this line of thinking has spread to many orgs. And as you point out people tend to just move elsewhere instead.

The length of the observation window is one thing, and more fundamentally employees are asked to work above their pay grade in hope for it to be noticed/recognized, which is never a fun thing to do.

Then comes the responsibility problem: If a dev want to become a manager, there's no way to let them deal with HR, write performance reviews and do 1 on 1s including private information as a trial. They need the actual role inked in their contract, have people treat them as a manager. They can't be doing it as a role playing exercice. A probation period could work, but I think it would be pretty awkward to have them step down after 3 months.

Re: Peter principle

#45

Post by abadpoli »

spott wrote: post #28

The peters principle makes an assumption about the convexity of competency that I’ve never thought was great. Essentially someone could get promoted to their level of incompetence, when if they were promoted again they would actually get better at their job. There is an implicit assumption that competence at job a is less than competence at a job b above job a, which isn’t necessarily true.

I don’t think there is that implicit assumption. My understanding of the principle is that a person would never get “promoted again”, because their incompetence at their level prevents it.

Essentially: if you’re good at a job, you get promoted out of it. If you’re not good at a job, you don’t get promoted out of it. So the end state for everyone is that they remain in jobs they are not good at.

Re: Peter principle

#46

Post by fourthark »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #22
Jimmc414 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quoted directly from the source you provided.

I was going to comment on this thread but realized I had reached my level of incompetence at explaining things to other people on the internet.

You'll never get promoted with that attitude.

Re: Peter principle

#47

Post by ipaddr »

Waterluvian wrote: post #38

I know the book is satire, but I’ve never actually witnessed this concept at play. What I have witnessed, many times, are people who always were incompetent rising because they are good at the social and political aspects of the workplace.

You've never seen a great developer turn into an awful manager after a promotion and then stay at that level?

Re: Peter principle

#48

Post by gpuhacker »

amackera wrote: post #36

People aren't static, nor are companies or roles within them. Treating every person as unchanging and treating the requirements of each level in the hierarchy as unchanging are just plain bad assumptions to make. People grow. Companies change. This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning.

From the wiki page:

"In 2018, professors Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue analyzed sales workers' performance and promotion practices at 214 American businesses to test the veracity of the Peter principle. They found that these companies tended to promote employees to a management position based on their performance in their previous position, rather than based on managerial potential. Consistent with the Peter principle, the researchers found that high performing sales employees were likelier to be promoted, and that they were likelier to perform poorly as managers, leading to considerable costs to the businesses.[15][16][2]"

Re: Peter principle

#49

Post by bowsamic »

amackera wrote: post #36

People aren't static, nor are companies or roles within them. Treating every person as unchanging and treating the requirements of each level in the hierarchy as unchanging are just plain bad assumptions to make. People grow. Companies change. This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning.

> This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning.

The article says it was satire but it also says it was based on their real research. Also satire doesn’t necessarily mean something is meant to be untrue

Re: Peter principle

#50

Post by throwaway458864 »

ranger207 wrote: post #41
OhMeadhbh wrote: post #25

George Marshall who was, among other things, Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII was lauded for his policy of yanking commanding generals if they didn't adapt to new positions quickly. But he lessened the stigma of being relieved by transferring them to other commands, still at flag rank. Several commanders early in '42 were removed from commanding infantry divisions, but were given commands of units in combat sup…

It's interesting reading about WWII generals because they're so well-studied it's relatively easy to notice patterns about them. One is that there were a few different types based on what they were good at. Patton was a good tactician and (mostly) beloved by his men; Eisenhower was a logistician with little experience actually commanding but he got along with everyone; Nimitz was good at delegating (aka finding the r…

> A lot of leadership stuff is universal, but then a lot of it is also dependent on what's needed for the job, and a person's skills and leadership patterns may not be exactly what's needed for the job.

Leadership is what's needed for leadership jobs. It's in the title. All leadership is the same: inspire the troops, block the bullshit, elevate the good shit. How you do that changes by rank.

> The Peter Principle is that if you do a good job you get promoted, as you get promoted it gets harder, eventually you reach a point where your skills aren't enough to overcome the next level of difficulty increase.

The Peter Principle isn't about difficulty, it's about skill set. As you climb the ranks you need a different skill set. The job isn't harder, the job is different.

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