Peter Principle

The Peter Principle:

: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

See http://www.gatelyconsulting.com/bkpeter.htm

I had to relocate my web page from compuserve to www.gatelyconsulting.com

Yeah, um, you forgot to mention that you're hustling your book through that link.

Paraphrases:

: In an organization, individuals tend to reach a level of responsibility at least one level above that at which they can function competently.

A generalization has been proposed as follows: "In evolution, systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence".

There is one sense in which this can be said to apply to software systems - such systems may tend to reach a level of complexity or functionality at least one level above that at which they can efficiently meet their requirements.

But is this a generalization of the PeterPrinciple? It seems to be saying the exact opposite: That (in evolution) systems rise to the highest level of their competence. Software systems don't develop to their adaptive limit - they stop growing as soon as FUD>value for proposed changes, which may happen much sooner. -- AndersMunch

Just a less axiomatic sounding description I like very much:

If you are good you will be promoted.
If you are bad you won't be demoted.
In the essence: good people fade away, bad remain.

Maybe it's true, but it's certainly not the PeterPrinciple. The PeterPrinciple seeks to explain why so many organizations have so much incompetence, and it explains this by saying that people are promoted until they are in over their head. And if the organization does get anything accomplished, it is by those who are not yet in over their head. And that's a temporary development, since the accomplishments of qualified employees will eventually get them promoted until they underqualified ... See http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gately/bkpeter.htm for more.

Contrast with TheDilbertPrinciple: the competent person is the last one you want to promote, because who then would get the work done?

Competent workers get promoted to be supervisors. Supervisors supervise less competent people and by doing so, less competent people become more competent, while supervisors are allowed to get even more competent.

The problem is the incompetent supervisors. Those supervisors are quick to detect competent workers, they fire them as soon as possible, because they can get replaced by them. Therefore all workers under incompetent supervisors are incompetent.

This concept is a term I heard used in the training industry called "Best of Breed" (often applied to call-centre environments with team leader/trainer structures), a great idea in theory because you get the best people training the new or less competent people, however, if you use this promotion culture for too long you end up removing all the best people from the floor leaving the new/less competent ones to do the work and the business begins to turn bad. So in reality this practice doesn't work - the idea being that the best people are supposed to help produce others like them and raise the overall competency level often fails. -- SusannahWilliams?

Question:

Why promote a competent person? There are many ways to reward competence, e.g. a pay rise, a more rewarding tasks. Is it because promotion is equated with recognition?

If a company promotes people as a reward for competence in their job, and moves them to a new job, it follows that eventually they may find themselves in a job they can't do. However, if a company promotes people as a reward for doing (elements of) that more senior job despite being in the more junior role, it is likely that they will never find themselves in a job they can't do.

If struggling with incompetency is a way of learning, then from an organizational or a personal standpoint, it's just a matter of an equilibrium between learning and performing.

The "equilibrium" comment is right on the mark. Struggling with outright, debilitating incompetency is not the best environment for learning. Promotions that force that are themselves a form of incompetence. In your area of expertise, you have a range of performance available to you. That range is a safety zone. A promotion should force you to use the upper part of that range and maybe a little beyond (depending on whose life hangs in the balance other than yours, of course).

The tension between learning and performing is always there. Equilibrium means a dynamic of imperfect equality, straying off center but with forces in place to send it back (your conscience, among other things). Discontinuous promotions overcome those forces in spite of you. That's bad.

If a programmer is competent, make him team leader. You never know if he is competent as a team leader or not without trying him first.

And if the programmer isn't competent at that, you have just raised him to the level of his incompetence. Thereby demonstrating The Peter Principle in action. -- BenTilly

Try him first and then make him a team lead if he turns out to be competent in that.

Who is supposed to try him first?

His Boss?

Most organizations couple promotion to rise in wage. Therefore correcting a wrong promotion is very hard. I'd suggest demoting an incompetent person back to their old job (which they did quite good) but keeping the rise in wage. Somehow nobody will listen to me...

Perhaps the rise in wage should not come until competence is observed. Also, organizations that pay according to job grades often have the highest level or subgrade pay at a higher rate than the lowest subgrade of the next grade up. e.g. An organization has 11 job grades from entry level to executive and 5 levels or subgrades within each grade. A grade 4 level 5 pays more than a grade 5 level 1, and maybe roughly the same as a grade 5 level 2. You can get promoted to a higher job grade, without necessarily getting a higher salary. Grades and levels are also ranges that leave some discretion to the manager according to various factors.

I've met lots of people who refer to the PeterPrinciple and try to use it to explain all sorts of pessimal organization behavior, as if it were a scientific law, but very few who have actually read the dang book.

If you actually read the book, you'll probably take the "principle" a lot less seriously.

It's satire, folks, and not particularly well-written at that. --TimLesher

I see it as a HaHaOnlySerious commentary - satirical, but also true.

I wonder whether PowerGameConflictsWithCompetence.

See: PeterPrincipleProgramming, TalentPump, SinkOrSwim, AllRoadsLeadToBeeMinus