The Peter Principle 1

[BJCooperIT]

According to: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

Peter Principle

NOUN: The theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.

I feel that this also applies to changing jobs. In today's IT economy one might accept employment, in a desparate moment, any employment that might place a talented person in a position in which they will be incompetent.

How can we recognize this potential for failure? Many of us get "butterflies" when tackling something new or unfamiliar, but often it is just a matter of getting busy and strengthening our skills as we work. We might have enough knowledge to claim a skill, but how to know if we should take the leap of faith that that skill is strong enough to for us to be competent? How can one avoid the "Peter Principal"?

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[Golom]

CajunCenturion

> a new job which is outside of the current area of expertise.

Dr. Peter covered that too. He called it summit incompetence in which someone ascends to the top of his or her chosen field and then attempts to extend that success into an unrelated area. The classic example is Adolph Hitler who was the consumate politician but a disaster (fortunately) as a military leader.

Similar observations could probably be made about various "celebrities" whose success as entertainers is viewed as qualification to comment on politics, the environment, gun control, etc.

 

[GwydionM]

One set of skills are useful for IT, another for marketing, yet another for cookery, and so forth. You can be close to autistic and very successful in IT, or as a scientist or engineer. Some very good actors are dislexic, and so too are some business successes.

Being a middle manager - directly controlling the people who do the work - is different from doing the work itself.

If you've ever watched the BBC's Fawlty Towers, the logic was to have a manager who handles every problem exactly the wrong way. John Cleese got it from stuff he learned making management training skills.

A view from the UK

 

[SQLSister]

"Of course both bad coders and bad managers exist and a girlfriend of your boss may have more chances to be promoted"

Dima, I see you've worked where I work. Sadly this last is true.

 

[sem]

I don't find it to be so sadly: she might have some extra means to affect him, thus this also may be treated as an "extra skill".

Regards, Dima

http://seminihin.narod.ru

 

[SQLSister]

I wouldn't mind if it was an extra skill, it appears to be her only skill. Or maybe I'm just old fashioned enough to think a programming project manager should be able to remember her password and know whether a kilobyte or megabyte is bigger. And perhaps she shouldn't have to ask what language we are programming in a year and a half after the start of a project (which she was in on from the beginning).

 

[GwydionM]

The Peter Principle assumes that there is a single thing called 'competance', which people possess in fixed amount. And that jobs higher up an organisation need more of it.

The world never does work like that. The late Sir Fred Hoyle was one of the great scientists of the 20th century, yet read his autobiography and you find he showed no great promise as a schoolchild or as a student. Nor did Stephen Hawking, nor Charles Darwin. And the 'Red Barron', German fighter-pilot ace, had previously been a rather substandard cavalry officer who kept being thrown off his horse. In the US Civil War, General Grant had been the town drunk, Sherman was regarded as mad and 'Stonewall' Jackson was a fussy teacher at a military college where no one much respected him.

------------------
A view from the UK

 

[ChrisHunt]

I'm not sure GwydionM is right. My understanding of the Peter principle is that you continually get promoted out of posts that you are competent to perform until you reach one where you lack that competence - then you stay there.

It's not so much a question of management jobs needing more competence than, say, programming jobs. They (need to) have competence in different areas. Those that lack it get hit by the Peter principle.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk