[HN Gopher] Peter principle
___________________________________________________________________
Peter principle
Author : steelbrain
Score : 253 points
Date : 2024-03-27 20:19 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| nextworddev wrote:
| 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.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| An argument _for_ discrimination is that one then gets highly
| talented people from the discriminated-against class who stick
| upon their glass ceilings; I first heard this hypothesis as the
| British empire having been headed by English but run by Irish,
| Native, Scots, and Welsh administrators.
|
| (alternative to avoid relying on discrimination: apply "up or
| out"?)
| rocqua wrote:
| What about up or down?
|
| If someone has reached their level of incompetence, bump them
| back to the previous level with their current pay. Apparently
| they were excellent at that previous level, and don't have
| room to grow right now. So put them to use at that previous
| level.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| that's also found in the military, as a "brevet rank"
| sorokod wrote:
| I believe that example 1) is addressed in the article as
| "percussive sublimation".
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| 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.
| seb1204 wrote:
| I always understood that a person being competent in role A is
| being promoted because of being good paired with maybe personal
| or/and corporate development goals. Once in the new role, with
| likely higher pay, it is very unlikely to go back. Instead of
| going back the person will try to stay afloat in the new role.
| Some will rise to the challenge others not.
| jmholla wrote:
| > The peter principle assumes that competence in one role
| automatically translates to less competence in a higher role.
|
| No it doesn't. It just says that if you're good at your job,
| you'll get promoted. If you're not, you'll stay where you are.
| So you either are good at your job and can be promoted or
| you're bad at your job. You can be good at your current job and
| other forces outside of competence are preventing that
| advancement.
|
| And so, there is no logic to reverse and make that assumption.
| Also, for your reversal, Steve Jobs would've needs to start as
| a data entry clerk. Reversing this doesn't mean any job below
| you is where you came from.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| > No it doesn't. It just says that if you're good at your
| job, you'll get promoted.
|
| Respectfully, that's exactly what it says. Why else would
| someone get promoted "until they reach a level at which they
| are no longer competent" if one's competence increases with a
| promotion? e.g. Some people are intuitively better at
| managing people than they are at programming.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| And those people who are good at management will get
| promoted to directors. The ones who aren't remain
| incompetent managers.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| And some will be better at being a director than they
| were as a manager.
| Scarblac wrote:
| But those aren't the ones who earn a promotion from
| manager. The people who are good at being manager earn
| those.
| scaredginger wrote:
| And some won't, so they'll remain directors
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| And those ones will become senior directors, and so on.
| The principle isn't that no one will ever be good at
| their job; it's that they won't stay in that job long-
| term if they are good.
| jmholla wrote:
| It does not. To quote Wikipedia [0]:
|
| > employees are promoted based on their success in previous
| jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer
| competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily
| translate to another.
|
| That does not translate to or imply that:
|
| > The peter principle assumes that competence in one role
| automatically translates to less competence in a higher
| role.
|
| It is saying you will keep getting promoted until you are
| incompetent. You can be more competent at a higher role
| without violating the Peter Principle. That would be
| another point at which you would be promoted working your
| way towards incompetence. The Peter Principle just says you
| were competent at each step in the ladder until you got to
| the point you weren't promoted anymore because you are
| incompetent at it.
|
| You're then take another logical leap in saying that
| promotion to the next level means you are competent at
| every job on every career path that could get you to that
| level. The Peter Principle only talks about your own career
| path.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| I quoted directly from the source you provided.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| I was going to comment on this thread but realized I had
| reached my level of incompetence at explaining things to
| other people on the internet.
| fourthark wrote:
| You'll never get promoted with that attitude.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| I will have to be satisfied with being a foot-soldier in
| the online user generated content wars. Alas.
| jmholla wrote:
| I do not see your verbiage on that page. Can you point me
| to it?
|
| Edit: You seem to be referring to this quote of yours:
|
| > Why else would someone get promoted "until they reach a
| level at which they are no longer competent" if one's
| competence increases with a promotion?
|
| My response explained why your leaps in logic don't make
| sense. That line just means there's a point at which
| their skills won't apply. Not that every rung above
| results in reduced competence. You can be better and
| better and then worse and the Peter Principle would still
| be applicable.
|
| The Peter Principle is just about the changing
| competencies as one rises and how one hits a wall.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| You make valid points, and your interpretation is likely
| a more accurate interpretation of the Peter Principle.
| rocqua wrote:
| The principle just requires that competence at job A doesn't
| guarantee competence at the job you are promoted to after A.
| You would get the same results if competence at a job were
| random.
|
| Notably it also suggests people could be great at high level
| jobs but never reach them because they aren't good at the low
| level ones.
| habitue wrote:
| 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
| kovezd wrote:
| > getting promoted again requires someone else quitting.
|
| I can imagine this being true for 80% of high-mamager
| positions. But there's also a good portion of leadership
| positions that get created with new lines of business.
|
| That is blue ocean thinking. Generally, it will give you more
| ownership about the outcome of your career.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| 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.
| Willish42 wrote:
| https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-there-so-many-bad-b...
|
| link for the lazy
| random99292 wrote:
| I just listened to the episode and I am not sure I buy their
| premise why bad managers exists. There are many reason why
| someone get promoted into a managerial position, but saying
| it's because they were good at their current job seems
| simplistic and a broad generalization.
|
| I am also skeptical of their claim about sales numbers and how
| effective their managerial skills are. Correlation is not
| causation, and averages is a horrible way to judge if a person
| will be a good manager.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > I am also skeptical of their claim about sales numbers and
| how effective their managerial skills are.
|
| That's exactly the issue: there's no causal link. They could
| be good at both; indeed, this is what the org is banking on.
| But it's just as likely you're good at sales and not as good
| at management.
| random99292 wrote:
| I probably misunderstood it, but what I heard it as you can
| be a good manager even if you don't have knowledge on what
| you are managing.
| datascienced wrote:
| I would hate random promotions. They might then actually
| promote me. Increasing salary is a different matter; please do
| that!
| wrp wrote:
| Since first hearing about the Peter principle, I've wondered
| whether it would work to just make all promotions probationary.
| influx wrote:
| Most places I've worked require you to be operating at the
| level you're going to be promoted to before you get actually
| promoted.
| helpfulmandrill wrote:
| But you can't e.g. prove your ability to manage without being
| given a team to manage...
| Willish42 wrote:
| Some big tech organizations basically do this without the pay.
| Essentially in some FAANG corps, you have to prove having
| worked at L+1 while still at L to get promoted to L+1.
|
| In my biased / personal experience, the veracity of such a bar
| kinda deteriorates over time and the short average tenure makes
| most promo processes corrupt B.S. when folks are more
| incentivized to just quit and join somewhere else for more
| money.
|
| Also, this process and your suggestion at a "probation" tends
| to motivate working harder for the window being measured,
| regardless of how actually adept or well equipped the person is
| at the level for which they're trying to illustrate competence.
| ghaff wrote:
| The problem is the step function differences. Someone may be
| an exceptional individual contributor but a lousy manager
| even at a relatively low level. A manager of a small team may
| not be great at handling a big team that may need to be
| realigned.
|
| Some of it's about a company having reasonable tracks for
| people depending upon their preferences. But people may also
| have preferences they're just not suited for.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > You have to prove having worked at L+1 while still at L to
| get promoted to L+1.
|
| Yes, and this line of thinking has spread to many orgs. And
| as you point out people tend to just move elsewhere instead.
|
| The length of the observation window is one thing, and more
| fundamentally employees are asked to work above their pay
| grade in hope for it to be noticed/recognized, which is never
| a fun thing to do.
|
| Then comes the responsibility problem: If a dev want to
| become a manager, there's no way to let them deal with HR,
| write performance reviews and do 1 on 1s including private
| information as a trial. They need the actual role inked in
| their contract, have people treat them as a manager. They
| can't be doing it as a role playing exercice. A probation
| period could work, but I think it would be pretty awkward to
| have them step down after 3 months.
| helpfulmandrill wrote:
| Even better, have time-limited temporary promotions, which
| automatically revert after 6 months or a year. Permanent
| promotions are generally only available to those who have done
| a temporary promotion in the past.
|
| That gives the organisation a way to tell if you are ready for
| permanent promotion, but removes the humiliating experience of
| "not passing your probation".
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| This doesn't seem to work so great in practice. Same story for
| demotions and pay reductions. Not that they can't happen. It's
| just not the norm for understandable reasons.
| everly wrote:
| A good scene in 30 Rock is when Tracy is told about the Peter
| Principle and responds "but my incompetence knows no bounds!"
| jacknews wrote:
| 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.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| That's the "Dilbert Principal:" Promote incompetent employees
| to management to minimize their ability to harm productivity.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| 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.
| ranger207 wrote:
| If promotions are based on metrics (and they always are, even
| if the metric is "how much do I like this guy"), then you can
| either try to increase your score in that metric as much as
| possible, or you can game the metric as much as possible to
| make it look like your score in the metric is high. Most of the
| people at the executive level have been doing the latter so
| long that the former just isn't really considered at that level
| mellosouls wrote:
| _This is all fine for lower levels_
|
| More likely the other way round; if there are more options at
| lower levels - as you imply - then there are more ways for the
| principle to be countered or defeated.
|
| _None of this has anything to do with vision, ability, or
| merit._
|
| Unfortunately, if you take the principle seriously, that's
| pretty much exactly what it has to do with.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| 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.
| tivert wrote:
| > 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.
|
| According to Wikipedia, he got an equivalent rank that was
| named "General of the Army" It was not called "Field Marshal"
| because having a "Marshal Marshall" was considered undignified
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_marshal#United_States:)
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| _considered_ for the rank of field marshal. i did not imply
| he was promoted to field marshal. and even then, it was very
| likely just a joke.
| fsckboy wrote:
| well then you should have implied it because he was
| promoted to a rank equivalent to field marshall, 5 star
| general. (neither rank existed at the time, and when the
| rank was created, "field marshall" was eschewed as a name
| for it)
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| it would have been inaccurate to say George Marshall was
| promoted to Field Marshal, because he wasn't. He was
| promoted to General of the Army. It's sort of like saying
| someone who was promoted to Gunner in the Marines is a
| Chief Warrant Officer. The two are equivalent in rank,
| but very different roles in their organizations. And if
| you referred to a Navy Captain as a Colonel, people would
| look at you funny, even though the two are considered
| equivalent rank.
| fsckboy wrote:
| It's quite normal and ordinary to say and execute as if,
| for example, a "Group Captain" in a Commonwealth air
| force is the equivalent to a "Colonel" in the US Air
| Force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_comparative_
| military_r...
|
| The US doesn't have a Field Marshall rank; European
| forces do. The promotion of Gen Marshall to five star
| general was intended to make rational the lines and ranks
| of command, including between coordinated forces of
| allied nations.
|
| it's not the name of the title that matters, it's the
| rank in the hierarchy.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| I imagine that's where Joseph Heller got the idea for a
| character named Major Major Major Major:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Major_Major_Major
| ranger207 wrote:
| It's interesting reading about WWII generals because they're so
| well-studied it's relatively easy to notice patterns about
| them. One is that there were a few different types based on
| what they were good at. Patton was a good tactician and
| (mostly) beloved by his men; Eisenhower was a logistician with
| little experience actually commanding but he got along with
| everyone; Nimitz was good at delegating (aka finding the right
| man for the job); etc. A lot of leadership stuff is universal,
| but then a lot of it is also dependent on what's needed for the
| job, and a person's skills and leadership patterns may not be
| exactly what's needed for the job. The Peter Principle is that
| if you do a good job you get promoted, as you get promoted it
| gets harder, eventually you reach a point where your skills
| aren't enough to overcome the next level of difficulty
| increase. Most people would probably be able to go a lot
| further if they were fit into the right positions to use their
| particular leadership pattern
| throwaway458864 wrote:
| > A lot of leadership stuff is universal, but then a lot of
| it is also dependent on what's needed for the job, and a
| person's skills and leadership patterns may not be exactly
| what's needed for the job.
|
| Leadership is what's needed for leadership jobs. It's in the
| title. All leadership is the same: inspire the troops, block
| the bullshit, elevate the good shit. How you do that changes
| by rank.
|
| > The Peter Principle is that if you do a good job you get
| promoted, as you get promoted it gets harder, eventually you
| reach a point where your skills aren't enough to overcome the
| next level of difficulty increase.
|
| The Peter Principle isn't about difficulty, it's about skill
| set. As you climb the ranks you need a different skill set.
| The job isn't harder, the job is different.
| OhMeadhbh wrote:
| > The Peter Principle isn't about difficulty, it's about
| skill set. As you climb the ranks you need a different
| skill set. The job isn't harder, the job is different.
|
| This is a great observation and think it isn't very well
| described when talking about the Peter Principal. My Dad
| retired as a Colonel and required a LOT of political
| skills. He said he wasn't really interested in the politics
| of being a flag grade officer and thought he was too old to
| learn them. Me, on the other hand, never progressed past
| small unit command. And never even got to the point where
| politics were a major part of my job. In my unit we were
| all just trying to not get killed and find opportunities to
| use the logistics training we received.
| maxrecursion wrote:
| > Leadership is what's needed for leadership jobs. It's in
| the title. All leadership is the same: inspire the troops,
| block the bullshit, elevate the good shit. How you do that
| changes by rank.
|
| A big part of leadership, which might be covered under your
| 'block the bullshit' point, is fighting the higher level
| managerial battles, and only relying on your lower level
| staff for their specialized support.
|
| If there is one thing I hate about some managers is
| throwing their employees to fight political battles with
| other managers, or high level Executives, while the manager
| hides in the bushes.
|
| The manager's job is to fight those battles, and yet I've
| seen them hide from them a lot, while using their workers
| as shields.
| roughly wrote:
| > If there is one thing I hate about some managers is
| throwing their employees to fight political battles with
| other managers, or high level Executives, while the
| manager hides in the bushes.
|
| The "never bring a knife to a gunfight" rule of
| management.
| keybored wrote:
| > So it was like finding the right guy (and it definitely was a
| guy back in those days) for the right job.
|
| I almost spit out my coffee while reading HN. "Holy shit" I
| think to myself, "the second world war _was_ a boys club!" My
| mind reels as a I pace the room and look at my Condoleezza Rice
| and RBG posters. "How many potential career women did WWII hold
| back? And in turn their daughters and granddaughters from the
| lack of example and inspiration that those women could set?" I
| now know that I have a new research project on my hands. The
| electric typewriter beckons.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Wehrmacht gave great support from the sides.
|
| At the beginning of the war, American flag officers were
| humiliated by their much more experienced and skillful
| Wehrmacht counterparts. Lt. Gen Lloyd Fredendall and other
| fools just had to go or the war would end before it started. It
| was a natural evolution.
|
| The only subpar American general who thrived in WWII was Gen.
| Douglas MacArthur. He came out of every mess he created with a
| hero's reputation. He could fix everything with a bombastic
| speech and infinite self-confidence.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| So MacArthur had a "reality-distortion field" like Steve
| Jobs? Interesting.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > but the amount of effort seems great
|
| You "just" have to consider moves through the managing pyramid
| and promotions to be independent concepts.
|
| I mean, this is basic stuff that you can read on any management
| book. (Y careers, and the like.) And if you try it on the real
| world, every single person will think you are crazy and fight
| you (except for the competent ICs inside the organization).
| sofrimiento wrote:
| This is a interesting talk held on UC Berkeley about the
| culture of firing officers during WWII:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE
|
| Thomas E. Ricks main hypothesis is that the US failures in
| Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq can be attributed to the culture
| of firing under-performing disappearing.
|
| It mirrors what I've seen in a lot of organizations as well,
| under-performing executives keeping their jobs when they
| shouldn't.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Considering that when the 5-star rank (General of the Army) to
| which he was promoted had three other people promoted to it at
| the same time, if he was considered for promotion to Field
| Marshal but they ended up choosing a different name for the
| rank, he probably wasn't the only one.
| spott wrote:
| 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.
| abadpoli wrote:
| I don't think there is that implicit assumption. My
| understanding of the principle is that a person would never get
| "promoted again", because their incompetence at their level
| prevents it.
|
| Essentially: if you're good at a job, you get promoted out of
| it. If you're not good at a job, you don't get promoted out of
| it. So the end state for everyone is that they remain in jobs
| they are not good at.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| That's brilliant ...
|
| Or a brilliant restatement if the original peter principle
| (to gives props eleswwhere :-)
|
| So we just stop promotions ... I think ???
| the_cramer wrote:
| Where i work the only way to get a noticeable jump in
| salary is promotion. I call this "horizontal scaling" of
| salaries. I believe the "vertical scaling" of salaries
| would be a better fit. Some already have it in tariffs,
| most of the time there are tough limits to what you can
| earn as "simple developer/project manager/sales clerk".
|
| So yes, probably promotions are not the right action often,
| but the other options need to be improved.
|
| edit: i lacked the explanation of vertical scaling: rising
| salary in the job you are currently doing and building
| expertise and experience. Opposed to being horizontally
| moved to a whole different job where your expertise is
| probably worse.
| mare5x wrote:
| So people that are good at their jobs should be kept on the
| brink of promotion for as long as possible?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Promotion should not be into a different job.
| dagw wrote:
| If you're doing the same job after your promotion it's
| not really a promotion, it's just a pay rise with extra
| steps.
| eschneider wrote:
| That's not a good recipe for retention of quality people.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Or simply pay them more without a promotion. That's what
| bonuses are for.
| dagw wrote:
| I'm personally of the opinion that promotion and pay
| rises should be entirely separate discussions and it
| should be both possible and normal to get one without the
| other. In fact you should have to work your new position
| for at least 6 month after a promotion before you can
| discuss any pay rise.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Ideally you should evaluate if a person will be good in the
| new position, where they will be promoted. Don't know if
| that's always possible, or how easy it is.
|
| Also, maybe if someone is bad at their job, they should be
| demoted or otherwise moved. It's another way to break the
| convergence to people unfit to their positions.
| scaryclam wrote:
| Though, I have seen on more than one occasion someone
| promoted again and again after reaching their level of
| incompetance. This seems to be more driven by the
| incompetance of the person/people doing the promoting to
| cover their tracks though. They can't be seen as incompetant
| themselves, so they move the original incompetant employee up
| the ladder again, but to the side so they're less able to
| cause problems, but still look good.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| It's often misunderstood, IMO. It's not purely about
| hierarchies and eventually "advancing" until you aren't
| talented enough to do the job (because the higher jobs are
| harder).
|
| Lots of the Scott Adams types misunderstand it this way,
| because they have a "40 rules of power" perspective. It works
| better as like a law of nature and physics. Perhaps even better
| as a mathematic or logical rule (don't know the exact name,
| axium? law?). Could even be considered a paradox of sorts.
|
| Think of it like this: Assuming an organization promotes people
| that excel at their jobs, but not if they are incompetent. Draw
| a flowchart. If someone succeeds what happens? If they fail
| what happens? (not clear, but it isn't really mentioned if the
| incompetent ones are fired).
|
| Either way it's a guarantee under this system that all will be
| promoted to incompetence. You could even compare it to an ideal
| system like circuits. Yeah the real world doesn't work exactly
| like this, but it kinda can.
|
| So, it's not about the above job being more challenging per se.
| You might just not have the right stuff. You could even add
| being accepted by the team or boss, because you can't be
| successful otherwise (though I dislike this one).
|
| Actually, I tend to think it's the drive to "advance" that's
| the problem, and unwillingness to just pay senior people more
| (though there's often good reasons there too).
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder if Stalin had the right idea. Purge the
| leadership every so often to start with a clean slate. Of
| course this only works with bureaucracies and not things that
| require tons of experience. You also have to have somewhere
| for them to move on to if you don't want to murder them or
| ship them to Siberia.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Was this strategy very successful?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Successful in what regard? Stalin ended up dying of
| natural causes, Russia and Ukraine transformed from a
| backwards agrarian economy to a despotic industrial
| economy, the Soviet Army took a good chunk of Europe
| during WWII, the Soviet Union became a superpower, and
| during his rule it could be argued that the Soviet
| bureaucracy was incredibly efficient. I don't actually
| think we should take Stalin as a role-model for how to
| run a government (I was being tongue-in-cheek in my above
| comment) but it is amazing what you can accomplish when
| you have a total disregard for human rights, all of the
| levers of the State, a ruthless secret police, and an
| enormous amount of natural resources.
| lucianbr wrote:
| Why doesn't anyone consider things like demotion, lateral
| motion or promotion contingent on an evaluation of fit for
| the target role? Must we jump directly to "never promote
| anyone" or "Stalin-type purges"? Are there really so few
| options?
| google234123 wrote:
| people have too much pride for demotion - risk to the
| company too
| ordu wrote:
| If you have something else, they will not be trying so
| hard.
|
| Generally, to make people try hard you need either
| punishments for not working or some benefits. Skinner
| proposed a little more complex classifications:
| positive/negative punishment/reinforcement[1]. Positive
| when you react by bringing punishment or reinforcement,
| negative if you remove them. So four different kinds of
| operant conditioning. His findings are not directly
| applicable to human subjects, but they are not completely
| irrelevant either.
|
| So if you are trying to fix Stalin's system towards more
| humanism,... I have two ideas:
|
| 1. Negative punishment: make lives of highly ranked
| bureaucrats miserable, with the "promotion" as the only way
| to stop their misery.
|
| 2. Positive reinforcement: make a promotion for them to be
| a dream of their lives.
|
| I'd try (1), with (2) conditionally on their performance.
| This way you could get an endless stream of applicants to
| pick from, and they really-really would do their best to
| move to the last part of their life, even if they turned
| out to be incompetents.
|
| The only problem is how to distinguish short term and long
| term successes.
|
| PS. Please don't get it too seriously, I was carried away
| by the idea of good Stalin.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment_(psychology)
| dang wrote:
| 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)
| smilingsun wrote:
| It's very interesting with this perspective of internet
| popularity of the concept.
|
| I remember the Wikipedia entry from a long time ago as much
| shorter than the current version, so went back in time.
|
| In 2018, the article was much shorter:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_principle&o...
|
| But I really like the visualization in the 2018 version:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peters_principle.svg.
|
| And as I can learn from other HN comments below, there was
| indeed real studies conducted in 2018, so the comical/logical
| hypothesis has been further developed and empirical evidence is
| now also there.
| biercarsten wrote:
| Theres also a nice short movie in german (english subtitles
| included): - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGhTBqLkrZ4
| jensenbox wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM
| amackera wrote:
| 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.
| gpuhacker wrote:
| From the wiki page:
|
| "In 2018, professors Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue
| analyzed sales workers' performance and promotion practices at
| 214 American businesses to test the veracity of the Peter
| principle. They found that these companies tended to promote
| employees to a management position based on their performance
| in their previous position, rather than based on managerial
| potential. Consistent with the Peter principle, the researchers
| found that high performing sales employees were likelier to be
| promoted, and that they were likelier to perform poorly as
| managers, leading to considerable costs to the
| businesses.[15][16][2]"
| kbolino wrote:
| The Peter Principle might be downstream of the Monotonic Pay
| Scale, where it is expected that a person who manages others
| must be paid more than any of them. Conversely, no matter how
| good you are or how much money you are making the business,
| you will reach a point where your pay is effectively capped
| unless you transition to management.
|
| The government suffers from this especially, despite an
| ostensibly very different incentive structure. The explosion
| in government contractors (by which I mean, individuals
| indirectly employed to do jobs in lieu of direct hires) seems
| to be driven in no small part by this problem.
| bowsamic wrote:
| > This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many
| people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning.
|
| The article says it was satire but it also says it was based on
| their real research. Also satire doesn't necessarily mean
| something is meant to be untrue
| kitd wrote:
| Indeed, satire is _meant_ to uncover hidden truths
| subversively.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Yep, many "just-so" stories have some aspect of truth. I feel
| like people citing the Peter principle as a cliche
| explanation for many things that are likely to be
| overdetermined probably correlates with intelligence, as it
| takes greater intelligence to consider more complicated
| models of career advancement.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You've never seen a great developer turn into an awful manager
| after a promotion and then stay at that level?
| datascienced wrote:
| Most of the time no, they self select out of it and "go back
| to coding again".
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| greyman wrote:
| >But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind
| to this.
|
| Sometimes yes, but I also observed that sometimes it was
| necessary to do, since no other suitable person showed up.
|
| Also, I would add that what surprises me how slowly many people
| can improve.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Actually it's not universally true that people working closely
| together know who is competent and who is not. Because you
| yourself need to be competent to know if others are doing a
| good job or not. If you are surrounded by incompetent morons
| you as likely might be labeled as incompetent by them and since
| they are the majority you lose the battle. It doesn't even have
| to be done on purpose by the morons, they just don't know they
| are bad at what they are are doing and create a kind of a
| circlejerk re-assuring themselves
| peteradio wrote:
| Yes!
|
| Incompetent manager: "Hey uh can you pop open that firewall
| for me?"
|
| Me: "That's against corporate policy. You'd need to follow
| procedure xyz."
|
| Incompetent manager: "My good friend, J could open that
| firewall in 15 mins flat. J opened the firewall for me 4
| times last week. He could show you how if you don't know what
| you are doing, its no problem."
|
| Me: _Facepalming_ "Didn't you hear what I just said?"
|
| Of course the above happens in a meeting with a congregation
| of people.
| jongjong wrote:
| 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.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I don't know that it's about being "hyper competent" so much as
| it's about being competent in a niche position that is
| incredibly hard to fill. I think after a while you could argue
| that that person is indeed "hyper competent", but the situation
| actually starts before that point.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| I am a living example of this principle! They should use me as an
| example in the textbook.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| 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.
| aftoprokrustes wrote:
| This is, fortunately, not my experience. In all of my jobs, the
| most highly regarded people, including by management, were/are
| those who have an informed opinion and are confident enough to
| voice it, and potentially take responsibilities outside of
| their job description in order to steer the business in the
| direction they are convinced is the right one. Note that this
| handful persons I am referring to _also_ accept criticism and
| correct their understanding when new information ia given to
| them: they are not dogmatic jerks. Actually, all my managers
| were this kind of person, with crazy ideas and not affraid to
| disagree with anyone.
|
| I also had one colleague who was brilliant and had strong
| opinions about the product, which were expensive and demanding,
| and was affected by a lay off wave. I think him being original,
| not "focusing on the core product", and a strong character had
| something to do with it, so of course it happens.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| > This is, fortunately, not my experience.
|
| I'm happy for you. I have also had such workplaces, healthy
| and dynamic organizations. Are they in the majority, or
| somewhere in the middle in a normal distribution? Not sure,
| but my guess is not.
| flkiwi wrote:
| My experience in very large organizations is that, other
| than CEOs who can go either way, the very top levels are
| extremely bright, surprisingly well-adjusted people.
| Tensions arise because, from the perspective of the senior
| leaders, VPs and below are indistinguishable from the most
| junior employees, while from the VPs' perspective they are
| themselves senior leaders, leading to all sorts of
| friction.
|
| It's a bizarre environment and I cannot believe how much
| time I've spent in it.
| rlpb wrote:
| > in order to steer the business in the direction they are
| convinced is the right one
|
| It's also necessary to be able to accept that others have
| other opinions and that to make progress everybody needs to
| be pulling in the same direction. A decision must be made and
| most of the time it's not going to be exactly what you're
| convinced is the perfect direction. Yet, having said your
| piece and perhaps having influenced the direction, it's
| necessary to then support the final decision even if you
| don't precisely agree with it.
|
| A large proportion of people with the qualities you describe
| are unable to do this, and therefore tend not to be highly
| regarded by management.
|
| Of course if you consistently find yourself at odds with the
| eventual direction then you're better off being elsewhere.
| Aeolun wrote:
| The problem here being that if you are competent you'll
| find it a strain to work in an environment that (often)
| does not listen to your advice, even if that means everyone
| is pulling in the same direction.
|
| It's nice for everyone else if they're all contentedly
| pulling in the wrong direction, not so much for the one
| that sees that direction for what it is.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| In that case how are you sure that you are correct and
| everyone else is wrong?
| ghaff wrote:
| And you may be right and you may be wrong. But you'll
| probably be happier if you go elsewhere.
| rokkamokka wrote:
| The other side of the coin is the needlessly defiant people.
| These believe themselves to be those that "have an informed
| opinion and are confident enough to voice it", but in reality
| they just disagree with everything and everyone except
| themselves. From a third party's point of view they're easy
| to discern, however.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Oh those people disagree with themselves very often, that's
| how you can recognize them
| jerf wrote:
| Finding a reason to echo someone's own opinion back at
| them after a suitable time where they've forgotten they
| voiced it is a very effective test for disagreeableness,
| I've found. You don't need to chase them down about the
| contradiction. Just note it and take appropriate future
| actions.
|
| It can even be a bit amusing, if they are insulting about
| it, to watch them vigorous call themselves stupid for
| expressing their previous opinions.
| n1b wrote:
| Agreed - and you will find not a single living person
| will pass this test over time. Therefore, it's a
| worthless, but deeply amusing, test. Human ignorance is
| so pervasive it even applies to people like you :)
| jerf wrote:
| I can _tu quoque_ right back at you; can you conceive of
| a person who expresses some opinion (and this includes
| technical matters, things within the scope of your job,
| opinions you are being paid to have, not just random
| political things) only and solely because it is their
| real opinion? No, if you came at with me with my own
| opinion two weeks later, you would not find I have
| radically shifted very often, and even less often without
| realizing I 've shifted, and virtually never _insulting_
| whoever held the opinion I held two weeks ago.
|
| I don't base my opinions on whether or not I get to
| contradict someone else. Clearly some people do.
| qup wrote:
| I find many of my previous positions to be stupid.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Right, as should we all. The key question is, when you're
| confronted with one of those opinions, do you defend it,
| deny it, or renounce it?
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I'm probably one of these defiant people, so I want to
| speak in their defense.
|
| I really just want to be heard. I want to be heard and have
| a response from someone who has comprehended my point of
| view and fully engaged with it, but that rarely happens.
|
| At my last job I was defiant because the company was
| storing plain text passwords and PPI in the test database,
| and every developer had access to it (I'm certain there is
| a reader of this comment whose password I had access to
| along with a good amount of PPI). I said this should be
| fixed but nobody really engaged with what I was saying; we
| had important product enhancements to work on. So I got
| defiant and pushed really hard and burned some of my
| political capital, made myself appear a trouble maker in
| some people's minds, and in the end the PPI was removed
| from the test database. This caused the test environment to
| break and some tests needed to be fixed. They still store
| plain text passwords though, because that assumption was
| spread throughout the code. I would have continued pushing
| to do the work and stop using plain text passwords, but I
| was laid off.
|
| If a company prioritizes profit over ethics you will find
| trouble makers who are justifiably defiant. Judge for
| yourself how many companies do that.
| sorokod wrote:
| The bottom line is that you failed to achieve the goal
| you set out to achieve and got laid off.
|
| How is that "speak in their defense"? Can you think of an
| alternative approach that would have delivered the result
| over time without you loosing your job?
| ghaff wrote:
| >I think him being original, not "focusing on the core
| product", and a strong character had something to do with it,
| so of course it happens.
|
| You absolutely have people who are very competent but just
| not interested in what management (rightly or wrongly) thinks
| should be the current priorities. Sometimes things advance to
| the point where there's no longer a good fit. Not necessarily
| anyone's fault but it may be time to part ways.
| yosefk wrote:
| Sounds great! Care to share the places you've seen this at?
| hcks wrote:
| 1/ it's not rational to promote someone competent at their
| tasks
|
| 2/ there are either ways to reward than promote to a higher
| level in the management pyramid
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Hence it's not rational for an employee who wants to get a
| promotion to be competent at their work.
| peteradio wrote:
| I've seen this happen. Start pushing off the work of the
| old job and doing the new job before the promotion.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| And that's why the GP's #2 is so important.
|
| Organizations where it exists tend to work much better than
| the ones where it doesn't.
| hackton wrote:
| My experience is that people being good at the job tend to be
| promoted to managerial positions, but being good at certain
| tasks does not make you necessarily good at managing people,
| even if they just do these very tasks.
|
| I also have been in companies with two career paths: managerial
| and technical, both respected and rewarded, to the point you
| can be paid much higher than your boss if you are senior and
| performing. Might not work in every sector/size though.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| IMO, most orgs believe more in scaling via adding people vs
| scaling via tech.
|
| This doesn't discredit what you say. It does, however,
| explain why it's much easier to move up on the management
| ladder vs the IC ladder.
| gmane wrote:
| I'll add on to your point: moving up the IC ladder is often
| slow because it takes more to both become an expert in a
| field and to prove it to your leadership. Each step up the
| IC ladder is harder to actually obtain those skills, and
| harder to prove that you have obtained those skills to
| management.
|
| On the flip side, the management ladder is more delivery
| focused (though not exclusively): are you getting your team
| to get their work done? It's somewhat easier to demonstrate
| success on the management side, and because you're leading
| a team, it's possible (though not necessarily true in most
| cases) for a manager to get promoted on the strength of
| their team and not their ability as a manager.
| md_ wrote:
| At the risk of seeming like an asshole:
|
| I think for every highly competent person who just lacks a bit
| of social graces and is unfairly punished by a defensive
| bureaucracy, I have encountered many more _incompetent_ people
| who, due to Dunning-Kruger, don 't recognize their own
| incompetence, and instead ascribe the rejection of their
| (mediocre) ideas to the unfair defensiveness of the bureaucracy
| above them.
|
| Or, in meme form: https://imgflip.com/i/8ks5kq.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| > many more incompetent people who, due to Dunning-Kruger,
| don't recognize their own incompetence
|
| You are right of course, I am myself a living proof of that,
| and I would not wish it on my worst enemy organization to
| give me a promotion. That said, this doesn't really explain
| why so many incompetent people end up being promoted, which
| Peter (I believe correctly) documented. His theory is
| admittedly a bit more elaborate than mine, but it obviously
| builds on an endearing naivete regarding the nature of
| organizations, especially large and mature such.
| peteradio wrote:
| How have you ever gotten the full story so many times to know
| that these people exist in such numbers? You'd have to hear
| their bad idea (apparently be intelligent enough to
| understand them completely) and then you'd also be there to
| hear them griping and blaming management and again finding
| their complaints uncompelling.
| md_ wrote:
| Hmm, let me put it this way:
|
| I have often run into people who seem to think management
| is stupid for not accepting their idea, which they then
| explain--and which I also think is a bad idea.
|
| Maybe I'm also just dumb, though!
| g4zj wrote:
| > highly competent person who just lacks a bit of social
| graces
|
| I consider myself one of these people (let's say above
| average competency). I don't think management is stupid
| for not accepting my ideas. I begin to have an issue when
| they disregard the concerns my idea was meant to address.
| Too often, it feels as though they choose the path which
| leads us straight into what I think are clearly
| foreseeable and avoidable problems, and then I'm at fault
| for describing them as such after the fact.
| flkiwi wrote:
| This isn't meant to respond directly to your statement
| because I've seen the same thing. BUT one fascinating
| thing I've learned is how scale plays into things. That
| $50 million project may be a Senior Director's most
| important, career-making project ... but less than a
| rounding error to their EVP.
| nextworddev wrote:
| Dunning-Kruger seems like an overused framework to explain
| just pure "lack of self-awareness due to immaturity / ego /
| lack of intelligence, etc."
| godshatter wrote:
| Not to mention that if someone isn't a psychologist they
| shouldn't be spouting off about the Dunning-Kruger effect
| anyway because arguably they don't have enough competence
| in that particular domain to be able to talk about it
| intelligently.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Hell, I have a PhD in psychology and I don't know enough
| about this effect to talk about it intelligently.
| alecco wrote:
| > Competent people are a source of pain to higher levels of
| management, because they don't just say "yes boss"
|
| Fits the MacLeod/Gervais pyramid of losers / clueless /
| sociopaths.
|
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
| Aeolun wrote:
| Hmm, that's a great summary of what I meant when I recently
| told my coworker I couldn't help him because I'd recently
| burned through all my political capital.
| bedobi wrote:
| the stares at goats principle has been in effect most of my
| career... and this is not me saying "I'm so smart" - I'm really
| not. I do care about doing the basics well. But that's asking
| too much of a lot of organizations.
| hammock wrote:
| At middle management levels that approach may be the way it
| works, because of the incentives.
|
| But once you start presenting to board rooms and people who
| have zero skin in the game of office politics, but 100% skin in
| the game of the firm's profits (and more broadly firm profits
| at large), you absolutely will not succeed unless you are
| delivering value through competence
| lamontcg wrote:
| I've definitely worked for people who violated that rule to
| the detriment of the company. They could _appear_ competent,
| but in my view, corroborated later by the view of the market,
| they were actually not.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| It still works that way for anyone who values anything else
| above profit. If you believe ethics are more important than
| profit, the board won't like you.
| n1b wrote:
| Rational meritocracies do not exist in the present, have never
| existed in the past, and will never exist in the future.
| However, the idea that a meritocracy can or does exist is a
| useful tool for those with leverage over others. It justifies
| their decisions, which in reality simply boil down to a
| combination of their "gut" feeling and what they can get away
| with socially given their position in the hierarchy.
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| I agree, but I think it's even more subversive. Large
| corporations tend to develop internal fiefdoms with rules that
| aren't always aligned with the larger company's objectives.
| These fiefdoms develop unspoken rules, which competent people
| tend to question. "Why are we padding every task by 75%?" "Why
| are we saying X tasks are 'hard' and require additional
| staffing when we know they're easy?" These new unspoken rules
| misalign rewards.
|
| Competent individuals often question practices like these and
| are either coerced into submission or shown the door. This
| leads to a gradual subversion of the corporate culture,
| transforming what was once agile, resourceful, and,
| importantly, truthful into a culture of internal lies and self-
| deception. "Everyone lies on this report, so you must too.
| Everyone exaggerates their evaluations, so you must as well.
| Everyone inflates sales predictions by many multiples; you must
| do the same." Rewards given under the de-facto misaligned
| system favors the incompetent. This further estranges
| competence from leveling.
| nchallak wrote:
| Isn't this just another definition of the original principle.
| People rise to the level where their noise is just enough to
| not worry the people promoting them i.e. the lesser their noise
| is the more they will be promoted. What you are offering seems
| like an explanation rather than a new observation.
| zachmu wrote:
| You're confusing competence with disagreeability.
| Aloisius wrote:
| _> Competent people are a source of pain to higher levels of
| management, because they don 't just say "yes boss"_
|
| This sounds more like they aren't competent at the kind of
| politicking and development of political capital required for
| middle management.
|
| In other words, someone competent is promoted and which they
| are incompetent at because they lack the skills necessary for
| the new job - the Peter Principle.
| asveikau wrote:
| This is true, but it's also subjective. The question of
| competence and correct behavior is subjective. There could be
| validity in the "yes boss" perspective. I say that despite
| having a very strong bias against the "yes boss" personality
| myself.
|
| Ultimately both sides of this need to approach with humility
| and understand how little they can see and influence, and how
| all perception is subjective.
| onthecanposting wrote:
| I want to agree because I see myself in this, particularly the
| conclusion of the career arc, but I try to remember that market
| conditions are beyond my control and aren't productive to dwell
| on.
|
| I had a boss who cut his teeth at one of the largest AEC firms
| in the US. He frequently said, "the two most dangerous people
| are an incompetent that everyone gets along with and the highly
| competent that nobody gets along with. Both can destroy an
| organization." I knew who he had in mind on the former, which I
| thought was pretty callous. I realized that he saw me as the
| latter after I was fired.
|
| I think we should not infer rules about business behavior from
| market forces because management in large organizations have
| enough insulation to develop their own hard to explain customs.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Which competes with the Gervais Principle:
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
| dijit wrote:
| 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
| creamyhorror wrote:
| I'm surprised to find this so far down. The Gervais Principle
| is the cynical cousin of the Peter Principle, and even if it
| isn't actually accurate for some workplaces, it makes for a
| compelling read.
| amelius wrote:
| Can we apply this to Boeing?
| nasir wrote:
| Summary: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his
| level of incompetence."
| 486sx33 wrote:
| 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.
| darkerside wrote:
| So you never asked him why he gave you the book?
| 486sx33 wrote:
| He used to be a pastor and one of his followers had given it
| to him. I did ask him but his answer amounted to "passing it
| along I thought you'd be interested". Of course I spent a
| long time wondering what his deeper message to me may have
| been. Perhaps I'll never exactly know his intent but that's
| ok for me. He quit and took a job at a shoe store , but stays
| in touch with me 5+ years later.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 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.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Sales? You just described engineering management, as well as
| many fields, probably.
| franze wrote:
| 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.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Isn't that more a case of "if you want job security make
| yourself irreplaceable. If you want a promotion make yourself
| replaceable"
| haolez wrote:
| 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 :)
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| 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.
| noodle wrote:
| Fully agreed. IMO its a critical thing to provide engineers an
| IC career path that enables advancement without requiring
| moving into a manager type of job. Otherwise, you get people
| who are shitty managers because they feel they have to do the
| job to continue to grow, and that turns into a team/org-wide
| morale issue.
|
| When promoting engineers into management positions, I'll always
| give them a trial run first in some form to make sure they
| actually enjoy the job, make sure their new team doesn't see
| any red flags, and to give them a graceful path to go back to
| IC without some fanfare company-wide promo announcement locking
| them into the role socially.
| supportengineer wrote:
| So what does this imply if you've never received a promotion,
| ever?
| rapjr9 wrote:
| 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.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Does that mean long time employees are incompetent?
| shsbdncudx wrote:
| 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.
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