Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter principle

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 190 posts

Re: Peter principle

#141

Post by qup »

jerf wrote: post #126
ttoinou wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh those people disagree with themselves very often, that's how you can recognize them

Finding a reason to echo someone's own opinion back at them after a suitable time where they've forgotten they voiced it is a very effective test for disagreeableness, I've found. You don't need to chase them down about the contradiction. Just note it and take appropriate future actions. It can even be a bit amusing, if they are insulting about it, to watch them vigorous call themselves stupid for expressing their pr…

I find many of my previous positions to be stupid.

Re: Peter principle

#142

Post by lucianbr »

Eisenstein wrote: post #109
P_I_Staker wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often misunderstood, IMO. It's not purely about hierarchies and eventually "advancing" until you aren't talented enough to do the job (because the higher jobs are harder). Lots of the Scott Adams types misunderstand it this way, because they have a "40 rules of power" perspective. It works better as like a law of nature and physics. Perhaps even better as a mathematic or logical rule (don't know the exact name,…

Sometimes I wonder if Stalin had the right idea. Purge the leadership every so often to start with a clean slate. Of course this only works with bureaucracies and not things that require tons of experience. You also have to have somewhere for them to move on to if you don't want to murder them or ship them to Siberia.

Why doesn't anyone consider things like demotion, lateral motion or promotion contingent on an evaluation of fit for the target role? Must we jump directly to "never promote anyone" or "Stalin-type purges"? Are there really so few options?

Re: Peter principle

#143

Post by roughly »

maxrecursion wrote: post #136
throwaway458864 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. A big part of leadership, which might be covered under your 'block the bullshit' point, is fighting the higher level managerial battles, and only relying on your lower level staff for their specialized support. If there is one…

> If there is one thing I hate about some managers is throwing their employees to fight political battles with other managers, or high level Executives, while the manager hides in the bushes.

The “never bring a knife to a gunfight” rule of management.

Re: Peter principle

#144

Post by 082349872349872 »

rocqua wrote: post #68
082349872349872 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An argument for discrimination is that one then gets highly talented people from the discriminated-against class who stick upon their glass ceilings; I first heard this hypothesis as the British empire having been headed by English but run by Irish, Native, Scots, and Welsh administrators. (alternative to avoid relying on discrimination: apply "up or out"?)

What about up or down? If someone has reached their level of incompetence, bump them back to the previous level with their current pay. Apparently they were excellent at that previous level, and don't have room to grow right now. So put them to use at that previous level.

that's also found in the military, as a "brevet rank"

Re: Peter principle

#145

Post by scaryclam »

abadpoli wrote: post #45
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.

Though, I have seen on more than one occasion someone promoted again and again after reaching their level of incompetance. This seems to be more driven by the incompetance of the person/people doing the promoting to cover their tracks though. They can't be seen as incompetant themselves, so they move the original incompetant employee up the ladder again, but to the side so they're less able to cause problems, but still look good.

Re: Peter principle

#146

Post by ordu »

Eisenstein wrote: post #109
P_I_Staker wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often misunderstood, IMO. It's not purely about hierarchies and eventually "advancing" until you aren't talented enough to do the job (because the higher jobs are harder). Lots of the Scott Adams types misunderstand it this way, because they have a "40 rules of power" perspective. It works better as like a law of nature and physics. Perhaps even better as a mathematic or logical rule (don't know the exact name,…

Sometimes I wonder if Stalin had the right idea. Purge the leadership every so often to start with a clean slate. Of course this only works with bureaucracies and not things that require tons of experience. You also have to have somewhere for them to move on to if you don't want to murder them or ship them to Siberia.

If you have something else, they will not be trying so hard.

Generally, to make people try hard you need either punishments for not working or some benefits. Skinner proposed a little more complex classifications: positive/negative punishment/reinforcement[1]. Positive when you react by bringing punishment or reinforcement, negative if you remove them. So four different kinds of operant conditioning. His findings are not directly applicable to human subjects, but they are not completely irrelevant either.

So if you are trying to fix Stalin's system towards more humanism,... I have two ideas:

1. Negative punishment: make lives of highly ranked bureaucrats miserable, with the "promotion" as the only way to stop their misery.

2. Positive reinforcement: make a promotion for them to be a dream of their lives.

I'd try (1), with (2) conditionally on their performance. This way you could get an endless stream of applicants to pick from, and they really-really would do their best to move to the last part of their life, even if they turned out to be incompetents.

The only problem is how to distinguish short term and long term successes.

PS. Please don't get it too seriously, I was carried away by the idea of good Stalin.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment_(psychology)

Re: Peter principle

#147

Post by dagw »

marcosdumay wrote: post #123
mare5x wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people that are good at their jobs should be kept on the brink of promotion for as long as possible?

Promotion should not be into a different job.

If you're doing the same job after your promotion it's not really a promotion, it's just a pay rise with extra steps.

Re: Peter principle

#148

Post by dagw »

BeetleB wrote: post #138
mare5x wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people that are good at their jobs should be kept on the brink of promotion for as long as possible?

Or simply pay them more without a promotion. That's what bonuses are for.

I'm personally of the opinion that promotion and pay rises should be entirely separate discussions and it should be both possible and normal to get one without the other. In fact you should have to work your new position for at least 6 month after a promotion before you can discuss any pay rise.

Re: Peter principle

#150

Post by CamperBob2 »

qup wrote: post #141
jerf wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding a reason to echo someone's own opinion back at them after a suitable time where they've forgotten they voiced it is a very effective test for disagreeableness, I've found. You don't need to chase them down about the contradiction. Just note it and take appropriate future actions. It can even be a bit amusing, if they are insulting about it, to watch them vigorous call themselves stupid for expressing their pr…

I find many of my previous positions to be stupid.

Right, as should we all. The key question is, when you're confronted with one of those opinions, do you defend it, deny it, or renounce it?
Post reply on HN