I had an employee give me this book one morning. He wasn’t a direct report, he reported to his manager who reported to me. Anyway he came in my office one morning and gave me the book. I hadn’t heard of it so I smiled and thanked him for thinking of me. I had an interesting wave of thoughts reading it… I still don’t know if he thought I was incompetent or what, but, in any case, it was enlightening.
Peter principle
71–80 of 190 posts
Re: Peter principle
#72My own observations:
A) Some places, the only way to land a leadership position, is by simply outliving your competition in the firm. Some firms put way too much emphasis on seniority, and are afraid to not promote senior employees in a predictable fashion, in fear of them leaving.
These types of places also compensate purely based on your seniority and job title - which is why everyone wants to land such positions.
B) The Peter Principle is rampant in sales. Good salespeople get promoted to leadership positions, and are bogged down with tasks they do not enjoy, or want to do.
C) Places with a strong focus on "up or out" can also end up with a system where the Peter Principle is rife. Employees will do anything in their power to reach tenure, and once tenured, they might lose all motivation to perform their leadership duties - other than to work their subordinates to the bone, because they know there's a endless supply of them, and that all of them are equally motivated to reach promotion / tenure.
Re: Peter principle
#73counter example, the peter principle is used to disguise the lack of a career path.
when I started my career I was working at a national news agency as "Business Development Web" this was from 1998 to 2004 and everything "internet / cyber data highway" was my job. from website to api-s to product design to design to code, frontend backend and project management and well product management (feeds, stream, ...) . seperation of work in the online space did not exist then.
as at one point i told them that i want to develop further and not relaunch the website next year again the hold me back 'cause of the fear of peter principle - ans that they need me cause there was nobody else who could ever do my job.
so i quit.
so i think the peter principle exists, yes. there are incompetent managers which were very competent in another position.
but applying the peter principle for decision making is harmful. for the individual and the organisation.
i would say the sum pf applying the peter principle in an organisational is more harmful to promote people and see of they will be valuable, even if some of them will suck eventually.
Re: Peter principle
#74The "Peter principle" rests on the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies, and will reward people that are competent at their given task. And those organizations may (still) exist, but they are not the norm, at least not in my experience. I propose another, more important, principle as an explanation for the obvious incompetence of many managers: Competent people are a source of pain to higher level…
This is, fortunately, not my experience. In all of my jobs, the most highly regarded people, including by management, were/are those who have an informed opinion and are confident enough to voice it, and potentially take responsibilities outside of their job description in order to steer the business in the direction they are convinced is the right one. Note that this handful persons I am referring to _also_ accept c…
> This is, fortunately, not my experience.
I'm happy for you. I have also had such workplaces, healthy and dynamic organizations. Are they in the majority, or somewhere in the middle in a normal distribution? Not sure, but my guess is not.
Re: Peter principle
#75The "Peter principle" rests on the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies, and will reward people that are competent at their given task. And those organizations may (still) exist, but they are not the norm, at least not in my experience. I propose another, more important, principle as an explanation for the obvious incompetence of many managers: Competent people are a source of pain to higher level…
1/ it’s not rational to promote someone competent at their tasks
2/ there are either ways to reward than promote to a higher level in the management pyramid
Re: Peter principle
#76George 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…
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Re: Peter principle
#77I had an employee give me this book one morning. He wasn’t a direct report, he reported to his manager who reported to me. Anyway he came in my office one morning and gave me the book. I hadn’t heard of it so I smiled and thanked him for thinking of me. I had an interesting wave of thoughts reading it… I still don’t know if he thought I was incompetent or what, but, in any case, it was enlightening.
So you never asked him why he gave you the book?
Re: Peter principle
#78The "Peter principle" rests on the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies, and will reward people that are competent at their given task. And those organizations may (still) exist, but they are not the norm, at least not in my experience. I propose another, more important, principle as an explanation for the obvious incompetence of many managers: Competent people are a source of pain to higher level…
1/ it’s not rational to promote someone competent at their tasks 2/ there are either ways to reward than promote to a higher level in the management pyramid
Hence it's not rational for an employee who wants to get a promotion to be competent at their work.
Re: Peter principle
#79counter example, the peter principle is used to disguise the lack of a career path. when I started my career I was working at a national news agency as "Business Development Web" this was from 1998 to 2004 and everything "internet / cyber data highway" was my job. from website to api-s to product design to design to code, frontend backend and project management and well product management (feeds, stream, ...) . seper…
Isn’t that more a case of “if you want job security make yourself irreplaceable. If you want a promotion make yourself replaceable”
Re: Peter principle
#80The "Peter principle" rests on the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies, and will reward people that are competent at their given task. And those organizations may (still) exist, but they are not the norm, at least not in my experience. I propose another, more important, principle as an explanation for the obvious incompetence of many managers: Competent people are a source of pain to higher level…
This is, fortunately, not my experience. In all of my jobs, the most highly regarded people, including by management, were/are those who have an informed opinion and are confident enough to voice it, and potentially take responsibilities outside of their job description in order to steer the business in the direction they are convinced is the right one. Note that this handful persons I am referring to _also_ accept c…
> in order to steer the business in the direction they are convinced is the right one
It's also necessary to be able to accept that others have other opinions and that to make progress everybody needs to be pulling in the same direction. A decision must be made and most of the time it's not going to be exactly what you're convinced is the perfect direction. Yet, having said your piece and perhaps having influenced the direction, it's necessary to then support the final decision even if you don't precisely agree with it.
A large proportion of people with the qualities you describe are unable to do this, and therefore tend not to be highly regarded by management.
Of course if you consistently find yourself at odds with the eventual direction then you're better off being elsewhere.