Good book. I highly recommend it. The last chapter spells out the single most important principle:
Fire the A$$holes.
Posted on 07/20/2002 8:53:56 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple
The Peter Principle: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
The author provides an insightful analysis of why so many positions in so many organizations seem to be populated by employees who exhibit signs of incompetence which is a most disturbing since we all tend to all rise to our own level of incompetence. This concept is likely to be ignored by most senior managers and consultants since to admit it is to admit that we may also be at our own level incompetence. Ignorance is bliss?
The end result is that non-growing companies are more likely to have incompetent employees at many levels of the organizational structure whereas growing companies add new positions and employees so fast that the inevitable results of the Peter Principle may be forestalled as long as growth continues.
According to Dr. Peter: Work is accomplished by those employees who have not reached their level of incompetence. Thus we can see why organizations still function even as the Peter Principle causes some employees to accept one too many promotions. Peter's Corollary: In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.
Consider your own work experience and answer this question: "How many incompetent employees or managers have you encountered and how many were subsequently fired?" Fired, not relocated or bump upstairs so to speak. The Peter Principle maintains that to be promoted from one level of incompetence to another level of incompetence does not negate the principle, but Dr. Peter does call this a pseudo-promotion or percussive sublimation.
Another apparent exception to the Peter Principle is the Lateral Arabesque which means that the incompetent worker is moved laterally or to another location with possibly a longer title.
Management consultants who recognize that the Peter Principle is in full swing in their clients organization often recommend percussive sublimations and lateral arabesque for high ranking employees to make room for new employees, because new employees are not at their level of incompetence thus they can actually do the work they were hired to do which increases total output of the organization.
Employees, as the author points out, do not want to be incompetent, but when management offers promotions that put the employees into their level of incompetence, the employees have no way of knowing that ahead of time. After all, if the offer is made it is because management knows the employee can do the job competently. Many managers are at their level of incompetence thus they make these poor selections.
Read the book, don't go to the movie.
If they ain't just a little hungry, they cease to exert themselves. Human beings are HARD-WIRED in this respect. They cannot be trained out of this aspect of their nature.
Because management consultants are themselves incompetent. They should be recommending that the deadwood be trimmed completely.
After all, if the offer is made it is because management knows the employee can do the job competently. Many managers are at their level of incompetence thus they make these poor selections.
It's been my observation that the incompetent intentionly promote those who are even dumber in order to make themselves look good. It is the talented achievers who may someday outperform the incompetent promoting manager who get sacked.
This statement is non-PC. Should be: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to her level of incompetence. < /sarcasm>
Some companies/organizations grow beyond the competence of the originator to handle the success, and remain successful inspite of that incompetance."
Gee, I hope you are not referring to FreeRepublic here. &;-)
This is especially true when the work we do is not the work we were designed to do.
The work we were hard-wired to do is fun to do: hunting, fishing, and gathering.
But as population increased, the natural environment was not productive enough to supply enough people with their wants.
So people had to invent agriculture and turn from the fun and healthy life of hunting and gathering to the back breaking toil of farming, to be followed by the work of industrial man in a few more centuries.
Now most people will work only until their most dire and immediate needs are met--beyond that, they balk.
So it is in the interest of the powerful to always keep the general population of workers hungry.
This they do by encouraging immigration to flood the country with workers, to prevent the average worker from having it too easy.
But to accomodate the population explosion from immigration, technology must be developed even further, and the lives of people are removed even further from the lives they were by nature designed to live.
Unhappiness, discontent, perversion, irritability and anger result.
m
Good book. I highly recommend it. The last chapter spells out the single most important principle:
Fire the A$$holes.
The work we were hard-wired to do is fun to do: procreating, hunting, procreating, fishing, procreating, gathering and procreating ;-)
Some companies/organizations grow beyond the competence of the originator to handle the success, and remain successful inspite of that incompetance."
Gee, I hope you are not referring to FreeRepublic here. &;-)
Stay in the city where....eh....dirt, yeah, It's dirty out here! And Bugs! And Work! And No Fun! Run Away! Run Away!
(Just teasing, but you left yourself wide open with a Peter Principle statement.)
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