Peter principle
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 support or material support or training where they went on to deliver stellar service. So it was like finding the right guy (and it definitely was a guy back in those days) for the right job.
This is in contrast to continental armies with aristocratic baggage who found it difficult to fire flag grade commanders (looking at you, monty.)
But the political risk to his own career was enormous and the only way he got away with it was with the full support of FDR and his reputation earned partially as Pershing's Chief of Staff in WWI.
He is also the only person in the US Army to be considered for the rank of Field Marshall, mostly because FDR thought it would be funny to have Field Marshal Marshall.
Which is to say... you might be able to cheat the Peter Principal, but the amount of effort seems great and you would have to work very hard to sooth the egos of those demoted or reframe the demotion as a lateral xfer.
Related threads below. The 1974 video is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM.
Peter Principle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33855815 - Dec 2022 (5 comments)
The Peter Principle (1974) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32627396 - Aug 2022 (39 comments)
The Peter Principle: Are you at your level of incompetence? (1974) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32243969 - July 2022 (1 comment)
The Peter Principle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24433059 - Sept 2020 (1 comment)
The Peter Principle Tested - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19797375 - May 2019 (47 comments)
The Peter Principle is a joke taken seriously. Is it true? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845289 - Aug 2018 (108 comments)
The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17301215 - June 2018 (50 comments)
The Peter Principle Isn't Just Real, It's Costly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16972249 - May 2018 (48 comments)
The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270053 - Feb 2011 (2 comments)
The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121507 - Feb 2010 (1 comment)
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.
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 is all fine for lower levels.
For executives, there are only a few paths:
- take over your boss’s job when they retire/get fired. (One can slowly go from individual contributor to vice president this way!)
- fit non-competence based corporate goals and have the polish to visibly demonstrate such (industry track record not required!). More about fluff than stuff…
- have strong corporate political alliances with higher leaders
None of this has anything to do with vision, ability, or merit.
Hmm dunno, I have seen 1) people rising >2 levels above their level of incompetence, as well as 2) people staying <2 levels below their worth.
What’s definitely true is that actual level / title don’t match perfectly with “competence” which itself is a nebulous concept in many companies.
My own observations:
A) Some places, the only way to land a leadership position, is by simply outliving your competition in the firm. Some firms put way too much emphasis on seniority, and are afraid to not promote senior employees in a predictable fashion, in fear of them leaving.
These types of places also compensate purely based on your seniority and job title - which is why everyone wants to land such positions.
B) The Peter Principle is rampant in sales. Good salespeople get promoted to leadership positions, and are bogged down with tasks they do not enjoy, or want to do.
C) Places with a strong focus on "up or out" can also end up with a system where the Peter Principle is rife. Employees will do anything in their power to reach tenure, and once tenured, they might lose all motivation to perform their leadership duties - other than to work their subordinates to the bone, because they know there's a endless supply of them, and that all of them are equally motivated to reach promotion / tenure.
A good scene in 30 Rock is when Tracy is told about the Peter Principle and responds "but my incompetence knows no bounds!"
It's astonishing how many people come to me with a Peter Principle story from their own work. It's also incredible just how many people from all walks of life experience that they are working with incompetents.
What I'd throw in there as well is competence noise. The people who are sitting with someone day-to-day can tell whether they are competent. But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind to this.
Biggest constraint on this principle is that you can get promoted to a level where getting promoted again requires someone else quitting. That doesn't really imply anything about your competence.
Usually if you're blocked from advancing though, you'll move on to another company that needs someone in the higher role
The assumption here is that being good at a job is what 'earns' a promotion.
In fact, it can be the opposite; why risk promoting someone to a new role, when they are doing great at the current one?
What actually marks someone for promotion is clear potential for the target role, sometimes despite a not-so-good current performance, indeed sometimes because of it.
I've been promoted up to CTO as a former developer (CTO of some big companies now!) and I feel I'm a pretty mediocre CTO compared to my dev performance. I can attest to this principle :)
People can learn. So I've often wondered if the Peter Principle is more of a recognition that people stop learning as they get older. Seems like the data could fit either scenario. People rise until their job requires more skills than they have, or people rise until they stop learning (or learn to stop learning, or until their learning capacity is reduced.) There's this thing that is called "growing up". Does growing up entail not being naive and an end to accepting what you are told (i.e., learning)? "They" say that when you're over 30 you are "over the hill". Has anyone ever tried to measure that? Maybe it's not a physical change in the body, maybe it's a consequence of getting hurt and learning not to be naive and accepting less teaching, being less open. If you've watched children grow up you can see them becoming more reticent and adopting postures.
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 candidates are locked into their low positions, it ensures that the pool of candidates who are selected for promotion consists mostly of moderately incompetent people... Kind of like "I like this person and they are OK in their current position but maybe if we promoted them, we'll get that spark going..." But, surprise surprise, they never attain excellence.
Worth noting: Charity Majors' blog on management and tech: https://charity.wtf/
She says several things I've always thought were taboo to even think, including the fact that management shouldn't be viewed as a promotion, it's a completely separate job and some people are better at it than others. My limited experience: it's a separate job, it's a lot more things to juggle and carry, and it mostly makes sense that they get paid more. I have zero experience on director/c-level jobs, so I'm not going to speculate there.
I had an employee give me this book one morning. He wasn’t a direct report, he reported to his manager who reported to me. Anyway he came in my office one morning and gave me the book. I hadn’t heard of it so I smiled and thanked him for thinking of me. I had an interesting wave of thoughts reading it… I still don’t know if he thought I was incompetent or what, but, in any case, it was enlightening.
Since first hearing about the Peter principle, I've wondered whether it would work to just make all promotions probationary.
Summary: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
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.
There’s a Freakonomics podcast about this topic that’s worth a listen.
It helped me work through what it felt like to be in this position. I’d class myself as a reluctant staff eng at this point who has no wish to progress further at this time.
Most interesting part of the podcast is how it talks about how companies know this happens but let it happen anyways because it’s the least of all evils on their eyes.
One suggestion to beat it is wild: random promotions. As I’ve gotten older and seen how titles/pay are tied closely to experience and age I’ve started to see that maybe it isn’t the worst idea. It does, however, absolutely murder the method of meritocracy.
counter example, the peter principle is used to disguise the lack of a career path.
when I started my career I was working at a national news agency as "Business Development Web" this was from 1998 to 2004 and everything "internet / cyber data highway" was my job. from website to api-s to product design to design to code, frontend backend and project management and well product management (feeds, stream, ...) . seperation of work in the online space did not exist then.
as at one point i told them that i want to develop further and not relaunch the website next year again the hold me back 'cause of the fear of peter principle - ans that they need me cause there was nobody else who could ever do my job.
so i quit.
so i think the peter principle exists, yes. there are incompetent managers which were very competent in another position.
but applying the peter principle for decision making is harmful. for the individual and the organisation.
i would say the sum pf applying the peter principle in an organisational is more harmful to promote people and see of they will be valuable, even if some of them will suck eventually.
Which competes with the Gervais Principle: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
This is a negative view on human growth. If you don't promote incompetent people, then you promote no one, and the job doesn't get done, and no one learns to do the job.
I’ve always found it a little naive. Sure, day 1 of a new job you are not going to be as good as you are 2 years later. Seems like a normal part of growth.
This is a great excuse to not pay you as much as you deserve because you haven't demonstrated competence at the next level yet
I'm much more compelled by the "Gervais Principle" from 2009: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
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
I am a living example of this principle! They should use me as an example in the textbook.
Can we apply this to Boeing?
So what does this imply if you’ve never received a promotion, ever?
Does that mean long time employees are incompetent?
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.
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 levels of management, because they don't just say "yes boss", they will tend to point out the risks of flying blind, offer a better solution than what was recently clubbed at the board of directors meeting, and have ethical guardrails regarding what chemicals to put in the product, how to treat coworkers, etc. They are brilliant at their tasks, but have opinions that go beyond their designated area, they are expensive and demanding. And they usually end up getting the can, with or without a severance pay. And the incompetent, but "yes boss"-employee gets the promotion instead.
There you have it.