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

121–130 of 190 posts

Re: Peter principle

#121

Post by ghaff »

aftoprokrustes wrote: post #63
stareatgoats wrote: post #58

The "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…

>I think him being original, not "focusing on the core product", and a strong character had something to do with it, so of course it happens.

You absolutely have people who are very competent but just not interested in what management (rightly or wrongly) thinks should be the current priorities. Sometimes things advance to the point where there's no longer a good fit. Not necessarily anyone's fault but it may be time to part ways.

Re: Peter principle

#122

Post by ghaff »

Aeolun wrote: post #92
rlpb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

The problem here being that if you are competent you’ll find it a strain to work in an environment that (often) does not listen to your advice, even if that means everyone is pulling in the same direction. It’s nice for everyone else if they’re all contentedly pulling in the wrong direction, not so much for the one that sees that direction for what it is.

And you may be right and you may be wrong. But you'll probably be happier if you go elsewhere.

Re: Peter principle

#123

Post by marcosdumay »

mare5x wrote: post #107
abadpoli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Peter principle

#124

Post by hammock »

stareatgoats wrote: post #58

The "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…

At middle management levels that approach may be the way it works, because of the incentives.

But once you start presenting to board rooms and people who have zero skin in the game of office politics, but 100% skin in the game of the firm’s profits (and more broadly firm profits at large), you absolutely will not succeed unless you are delivering value through competence

Re: Peter principle

#125

Post by [deleted] »

stareatgoats wrote: post #58

The "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…

[deleted]

Re: Peter principle

#126

Post by jerf »

ttoinou wrote: post #101
rokkamokka wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of the coin is the needlessly defiant people. These believe themselves to be those that "have an informed opinion and are confident enough to voice it", but in reality they just disagree with everything and everyone except themselves. From a third party's point of view they're easy to discern, however.

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 previous opinions.

Re: Peter principle

#127

Post by sofrimiento »

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…

This is a interesting talk held on UC Berkeley about the culture of firing officers during WWII:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE

Thomas E. Ricks main hypothesis is that the US failures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq can be attributed to the culture of firing under-performing disappearing.

It mirrors what I've seen in a lot of organizations as well, under-performing executives keeping their jobs when they shouldn't.

Re: Peter principle

#128

Post by P_I_Staker »

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.

Was this strategy very successful?

Re: Peter principle

#129

Post by eschneider »

mare5x wrote: post #107
abadpoli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

That's not a good recipe for retention of quality people.

Re: Peter principle

#130

Post by [deleted] »

rokkamokka wrote: post #81
aftoprokrustes wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The other side of the coin is the needlessly defiant people. These believe themselves to be those that "have an informed opinion and are confident enough to voice it", but in reality they just disagree with everything and everyone except themselves. From a third party's point of view they're easy to discern, however.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN