“This endless desire to fight and win
May give you victory but not within
Once in a while it is good to lose
Happy or sad, sometimes you can choose…”
Peter principle is a book by Book by Laurence J. Peter but you do not have to read the book to know what it is!
Imagine a cricketer who is a great batsman, he or she would be promoted higher up the order and finally may even be made the captain! But it is seen that as he or she gets promoted higher and higher, he or she will finally reach a position where he or she will actually underperform!
Even in an office, you can have a person who is doing a great job at entry level! Then as and when he or she is promoted, he or she will reach a peak and then he or she will get a job in which he or she may not do a good job!
It is like the credit card scam! Your credit limit is at first a very low but easily achievable limit! You are then given an option to slowly and steadily increase your spending limit! Till you reach a point when you can no longer pay the limit! That is when they pounce on you!
Even in government jobs it is seen that a person who has been appointed because of a certain skill is given more and more responsibilities but then finally it will reach a point when the work suffers and how!
A person is good in a job then he is promoted to a better position till he or she reaches a plateau! or actually starts performing worse at the elevated position!
These are examples of Peter Principle which actually notes that every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence! It actually concludes that every job in a hierarchical organization will be filled by a person who is incompetent!
The Peter principle hence states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again.
If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this final placement or Peter’s plateau!
This outcome is inevitable, given enough time and enough positions in the hierarchy to which competent employees may be promoted. The Peter principle is therefore expressed as: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
This leads to Peter’s corollary: “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.”
Now this is not a new thing! In the 1910s one Spanish philosopher told that every public servant must be demoted to his or her immediate lower position or rank so that he or she can do that work most effectively!
The simplest analogy is a juggler! You go on giving him or her a ball to juggle and steadily he or she will juggle them and take one more till the limit is reached and the balls all crumble down! Then the penultimate number of balls is his or her capability or capacity says the Peter Principle!
In fact it has been seen that companies tend to promote their least-competent employees to management roles where they are least likely to interfere with production! So if you want to be a manager then you must become incompetent! Irony is that all the so called managers who get amazing prefixes are actually those who have shown incompetence at various levels of production!
It is like the adage, “Those who can’t do, teach!” and interestingly that quote is by G B Shaw in the 1900s! Of course some exceptional managers are also there who go against the Peter Principle and make for great and talented CEO’s! Talent does not follow any principle! A big bag of talent also was Maharajapuram Santhanam who with his dedication and devotion to Carnatic music will remain in our memories forever!
Now show your competence in the bed…I meant sleep of course!
Shubh ratri!
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