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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?
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…
I also had one colleague who was brilliant and had strong opinions about the product, which were expensive and demanding, and was affected by a lay off wave. 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.
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.
That’s brilliant … Or a brilliant restatement if the original peter principle (to gives props eleswwhere :-) So we just stop promotions … I think ???
So yes, probably promotions are not the right action often, but the other options need to be improved.
edit: i lacked the explanation of vertical scaling: rising salary in the job you are currently doing and building expertise and experience. Opposed to being horizontally moved to a whole different job where your expertise is probably worse.
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
Basically, instead of people being promoted to incompetence; the IC level is thought of as "economic losers"; IE: the exploited. People who are exploited and throw a lot of effort in are considered "the clueless" and occupy most middle management, and the high leadership of every company is considered sociopathic.
It's a much more compelling ideology to me as it maps unfortunately well into real life; at least as described (maybe the particular chosen words for the classifications evoke the wrong assumptions though).
9 minute video: https://youtu.be/jJYa68AnECY?t=29
Hmm dunno, I have seen 1) people rising >2 levels above their level of incompetence, as well as 2) people staying What’s definitely true is that actual level / title don’t match perfectly with “competence” which itself is a nebulous concept in many companies.
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"?)
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.
The peter principle assumes that competence in one role automatically translates to less competence in a higher role. If you follow this logic and reverse it, then it would be safe to assume that Steve Jobs would have been one of the best data entry clerks ever employed by Apple.
Notably it also suggests people could be great at high level jobs but never reach them because they aren't good at the low level ones.