Have you noticed that when a person demonstrates certain ability and receives several promotions, the most likely scenario is that they are completely useless in their final position? According to Canadian educator Laurence J. Peter, all that person did was reach their “level of incompetence”. This “Peter Principle” doesn’t just expose every critical flaw in modern hierarchical systems; it seems to confirm what we’ve suspected for a long time. Want to know more?
The feeling is that for every great achievement of humanity, there is a catastrophic error of equal magnitude. It’s something we see every day, everywhere. What at first seems like a brilliant idea soon becomes a horrible decision, and so we arrive at the question: “How come no one realized this before?”. “Responsibility” is a very powerful word, and it places a huge weight on anyone’s shoulders.
In the most common hierarchical structures, when someone has superior ability to the rest, they receive an appropriate reward, and an increase in their level of responsibility. In theory, this is a “good” action, since we recognize and reward both skill and hard work. But in practice… the story is very different. Welcome to the Peter Principle, explained in depth through this video (with auto-generated subtitles and automatic translation, in case you need it).
Understanding the Peter Principle
Let’s see: what better example to invoke the Peter Principle than the politicians of the day? These “luminaries” come to power with the promise of being “the” solution to all our problems. Perhaps they were fabulous activists, economists, councilors, mayors, or deputies at some point… but they keep rising, and they become a kind of “corrupt Midas,” ruining everything they touch.
If there is a controversial aspect to the Peter Principle, it is this: incompetence has as its main causes progress and ambition. Peter adds that “with time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent for their assigned tasks.” In that case, who do the real “work” in quality and quantity? The answer is the rest of the employees who are further down the chain, and who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
In part, the Peter Principle reminds us of the Dilbert Principle, created by cartoonist Scott Adams, and it explains that companies often promote their least competent employees with the sole purpose of limiting their reach. The difference between the two principles is obvious, since an employee’s competence feeds Peter’s theory, while in Dilbert’s case, the promotion is a simple “damage control,” or a “containment barrier” to get natural incompetents out of the way. Do you think they are right? Do we all reach a point where we “bite off more than we can chew”? Comments are open.
More information on Wikipedia.
