Peter, Peter - Promotion Eater

Hello folks,

I read a fascinating article today on howstuffworks.com. Ever work for a boss that you were convinced was an idiot? Have you every been pretty sure that you could do a better job then the person signing your paycheck?

A lot of people have, in fact someone back in 1967 wrote an article about it, it's called "The Peter Principle" and goes something like this:

"As a person continues his path of promotion, he's eventually promoted right out of his field of expertise and into a position where he's utterly and helplessly incompetent....At the point where his level of incompetence is reached, an employee's promotional trajectory usually ends, and he's stuck in a position where he no longer has confidence in his abilities and produces less work for the company than he did in the position in which he excelled. The problems created by this promotion are compounded by the idea that an incompetent manager will make incompetent decisions -- including deciding who to promote. Eventually....the higher levels of a bureaucracy become populated entirely by incompetent people.

Once an employee reaches his level of incompetence, in general, he won't be fired from the position, unless he's what Dr. Peter dubs a "super-incompetent" -- a person who's actually defined by his mistakes. Instead, the promoted employee is usually mediocre in his new position. He's able to cover up his incompetence....Since the bulk of the productivity within the company is generally carried out by the regular employees who form the base of the hierarchical pyramid, companies can operate indefinitely, so long as the incompetence of the higher levels doesn't present itself through catastrophic decisions.

I've been observing this principle almost from the day I started working at 15, but never thought to formalize what I had seen. Certainly I've never thought to put a name to it. But someone sure did... Dr. Laurence J. Peter, my hat goes off to you sir. Putting pen to paper so you can explain a often viewed but perhaps not well understood phenomenon and thus enlightening the masses just a little more; Tomland Approved!