The Peter Principle

[booyalab]

Reading the "people not doing what they're supposed to" thread in the rants and raves thread reminded me of this book. Has anyone else read it? It's fairly old, but it's a pretty good (if imperfect) framework for understanding bureacracies and their cultural ramifications. Here's a summary. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PETERPR.html If anyone wants to bring up arguments with it, I have the book so I can reference his anticipated rebuttals and explanations.

[SensEye]

Alas, I find Peter to have been a bit of an optimist. I think Dilbert has a more accurate view. At least that has often been the case in my experience.

For example, from the link:


This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. I've seen employees climb the ladder where they had no competence for the task at hand whatever. By this I mean they had competent ladder climbing skills (dress well, schmooze well, avoid blame well, take credit for other people's efforts well, etc) but no particular gifts for either their chosen trade or leadership.

[Birdsnest]

Oh, so true. I've seen that too, its not necessarily competance and work that is rewarded, its simply the person who demands or threatens the boss for the position that gets it most often.

I read the summary, and found it interesting, and somewhat true. There are people in positions that function competantly, and others that you wonder what they did to pay the piper, as they surely don't belong. I guess supervisors have to pick what their conscience decides on, and the person that threatens to quit if they aren't promoted. (in my office at least).

[mgb]

I would disagree with this. Having worked in a few organizations I have noticed that the cream does not rise to the top. Most of the competancies I have seen involve mediocrity rather than meritocracy. People that excel at politics and not necessarily at the tasks they are given seem to rise faster through most organizations.

For example. I worked in an outdoor store this year. It was faily large compared to most. My manager successfully spent most of his day not doing any work. The results of this were that I handily beat him at every sales contest we had. More than beat him I made him look bad because I did work hard. Far from beating down my door to make me manager I was pretty much outcast and subject to my managers violent mood swings.

I would say that he, like many others, rise to their positions of authority in a battle of attrition rather than exemplary or even "competent" performance. I also find this to be more pronounced the larger the company gets.

To hide their incompetence a large beauracracy is built to manage the people below and "make shit roll downhill". In the example of the outdoor store, poor sales would become my problem and not my managers even though he spent 90% of the time reading and re-reading emails he got 6 months ago.

[purple13]

Interesting about the red queen principal and sub-optimization.

"In sum, in a competitive world, relative progress ("running") is necessary just for maintenance ("staying put")."

The key words being "in a competitive world". I've often wondered what the consequences would be of a different approach that was not based on competition. Better or worse?

[mgb]

I'd say that competition is inherent in our nature. Most corporations and organizations feed on this and encourage it. To a manager it means power over the competition and as small as that is, and they love it.

[purple13]

It just seems there is much duplicated (wasted) effort in a competitive world, instead of working together for maximum good for all.

[SheepDog]

I've called it "up and out" in businesses where I've worked. I'm not certain that the up part is always about merit, in agreement with mgbradsh, above. But I've seen many people get promoted until they do a horrible job, then they get canned. This is in private industry.

In the quasi-government (bureaucratic) organization I'm in now, it's called seniority. Nobody gets fired, but the promotions are about the same.

[xavierd]

There is nothing wrong with competition unless it is taken to an unhealthy extreme, which is true of anything. Competition is what stimulates progress. If there was no competition, i.e. reward for doing something better than another, than why improve anything? Why would I work harder at something, gain skill and knowledge about something, if it doesn't matter? Why would I build a better, safer, more reliable vehicle if I did not have to worry about someone building it first and taking the credit/profit/whatever?