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Peter principle

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Re: Peter principle

#91

Post by stareatgoats »

md_ wrote: post #88
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 the risk of seeming like an asshole: I think for every highly competent person who just lacks a bit of social graces and is unfairly punished by a defensive bureaucracy, I have encountered many more incompetent people who, due to Dunning-Kruger, don't recognize their own incompetence, and instead ascribe the rejection of their (mediocre) ideas to the unfair defensiveness of the bureaucracy above them. Or, in meme…

> many more incompetent people who, due to Dunning-Kruger, don't recognize their own incompetence

You are right of course, I am myself a living proof of that, and I would not wish it on my worst enemy organization to give me a promotion. That said, this doesn't really explain why so many incompetent people end up being promoted, which Peter (I believe correctly) documented. His theory is admittedly a bit more elaborate than mine, but it obviously builds on an endearing naïveté regarding the nature of organizations, especially large and mature such.

Re: Peter principle

#92

Post by Aeolun »

rlpb wrote: post #80
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…

> 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.

Re: Peter principle

#93

Post by P_I_Staker »

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.

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, axium? law?). Could even be considered a paradox of sorts.

Think of it like this: Assuming an organization promotes people that excel at their jobs, but not if they are incompetent. Draw a flowchart. If someone succeeds what happens? If they fail what happens? (not clear, but it isn't really mentioned if the incompetent ones are fired).

Either way it's a guarantee under this system that all will be promoted to incompetence. You could even compare it to an ideal system like circuits. Yeah the real world doesn't work exactly like this, but it kinda can.

So, it's not about the above job being more challenging per se. You might just not have the right stuff. You could even add being accepted by the team or boss, because you can't be successful otherwise (though I dislike this one).

Actually, I tend to think it's the drive to "advance" that's the problem, and unwillingness to just pay senior people more (though there's often good reasons there too).

Re: Peter principle

#94

Post by wccrawford »

jongjong wrote: post #53

I think the Peter Principle actually doesn't apply to hyper competent people because we get the "You're too valuable in your current position" treatment and therefore aren't given the opportunity to rise at all. By some interpretations, it sounds like it means that people who are incompetent used to be competent before they were promoted into their current position... But in fact, because the super-competent candidat…

I don't know that it's about being "hyper competent" so much as it's about being competent in a niche position that is incredibly hard to fill. I think after a while you could argue that that person is indeed "hyper competent", but the situation actually starts before that point.

Re: Peter principle

#95

Post by burutthrow1234 »

keybored wrote: post #82
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…

> So it was like finding the right guy (and it definitely was a guy back in those days) for the right job. I almost spit out my coffee while reading HN. “Holy shit” I think to myself, “the second world war was a boys club!” My mind reels as a I pace the room and look at my Condoleezza Rice and RBG posters. “How many potential career women did WWII hold back? And in turn their daughters and granddaughters from the lac…

[flagged]

Re: Peter principle

#96

Post by peteradio »

md_ wrote: post #88
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 the risk of seeming like an asshole: I think for every highly competent person who just lacks a bit of social graces and is unfairly punished by a defensive bureaucracy, I have encountered many more incompetent people who, due to Dunning-Kruger, don't recognize their own incompetence, and instead ascribe the rejection of their (mediocre) ideas to the unfair defensiveness of the bureaucracy above them. Or, in meme…

How have you ever gotten the full story so many times to know that these people exist in such numbers? You'd have to hear their bad idea (apparently be intelligent enough to understand them completely) and then you'd also be there to hear them griping and blaming management and again finding their complaints uncompelling.

Re: Peter principle

#97

Post by nabla9 »

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…

Wehrmacht gave great support from the sides.

At the beginning of the war, American flag officers were humiliated by their much more experienced and skillful Wehrmacht counterparts. Lt. Gen Lloyd Fredendall and other fools just had to go or the war would end before it started. It was a natural evolution.

The only subpar American general who thrived in WWII was Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He came out of every mess he created with a hero's reputation. He could fix everything with a bombastic speech and infinite self-confidence.

Re: Peter principle

#98

Post by Eisenstein »

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.

In that case how are you sure that you are correct and everyone else is wrong?

Re: Peter principle

#99

Post by peteradio »

pi-e-sigma wrote: post #78
hcks wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've seen this happen. Start pushing off the work of the old job and doing the new job before the promotion.

Re: Peter principle

#100

Post by md_ »

peteradio wrote: post #96
md_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of seeming like an asshole: I think for every highly competent person who just lacks a bit of social graces and is unfairly punished by a defensive bureaucracy, I have encountered many more incompetent people who, due to Dunning-Kruger, don't recognize their own incompetence, and instead ascribe the rejection of their (mediocre) ideas to the unfair defensiveness of the bureaucracy above them. Or, in meme…

How have you ever gotten the full story so many times to know that these people exist in such numbers? You'd have to hear their bad idea (apparently be intelligent enough to understand them completely) and then you'd also be there to hear them griping and blaming management and again finding their complaints uncompelling.

Hmm, let me put it this way:

I have often run into people who seem to think management is stupid for not accepting their idea, which they then explain--and which I also think is a bad idea.

Maybe I'm also just dumb, though!

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