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Here's an interesting question for today: Have you seen examples of the Peter Principle in the workplace? We've talked about being held back because you're too good and how to handle an incompetent boss, but we've never specifically discussed the Peter Principle. (A few years ago, though, readers had an interesting conversation in answer to a commenter's question about requesting a demotion.)
While The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong (affiliate link) was presented as satire when it was published in 1969, the concept was (and still is) instantly recognizable to a lot of people. Here's a quick summary from Harvard Business Review:
Everyone in an organization keeps on getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. At that point they stop being promoted. So given enough time and enough promotion levels, every position in a firm will be occupied by someone who can’t do the job.
Evidence that the Peter Principle is real has been highlighted by publications like Harvard Business Review and Forbes. It's even categorized as a pop culture trope on TV Tropes (which, warning, is a rabbit hole of a site!).
An interesting corollary is named “Paula Principle,” and it also has its own book, The Paula Principle: How and Why Women Work Below Their Level of Competence. (The author, an “expert on innovation and work,” is a man.)
The idea, which was explained in this story in The Guardian, could deserve its own post (and it reminds me of our post about applying when you don't meet the job requirements, which is something that men are much more likely to do than women.
Readers, do tell: Have you seen examples of the Peter Principle in your workplace? Do you think some workplaces are more insulated from incompetent managers than others, such as “up or out” workplaces like Big Law?
Have you seen the Paula Principle in your life?
If you've been managed by someone who was the wrong person for the job, how did you deal with it?
Stock photo (mysterious staircase) via Stencil.
Anonymous
As a lawyer, I have worked for dozens of partners and a total of 3 were competent managers of people. These were all partners with whom I worked directly on cases. I have never worked in an office with a good managing partner. We are not trained to manage people and get promoted to management based on metrics that have nothing to do with people management and, in most cases, are negative factors in people management. The people from my law school class who have been made office managing partners were, by and large, the very worst humans in the class.
Senior Attorney
Could not agree with this more.
Also I disagree that The Peter Principle was “presented as satire” when it came out. It is written in a humorous style but it was always intended to present an actual phenomenon. It was required reading when I was an undergrad business major ca. 1980.
Anon
This is so true across many professions, not just law. People get promoted to management because of experience and metrics, not their skills as a manager.
anon
this is certainly very true for academia.
anon
it is also true for government
Anon
Could not agree more that being a good attorney is in no way correlated to being competent to manage a law firm. Oftentimes “the most successful” attorneys in the firm are elevated to the role of managing partner, and they have neither the time, attention, interest, nor skill to manage the business and employee aspect of the firm. This often seems to result in a reactive rather than proactive approach to managing (ie knee jerk piecemeal “solutions” to an immediate problem, rather than a plan to manage the firm or fully resolve a larger issue).
Anon
I felt something similar to this when I was in undergrad. My professors were there because they were academics and researchers and writers – not teachers. It’s unfortunate that professors aren’t taught how to be good teachers! I experienced a lot of poor quality teachers who didn’t care about their students. I did not enjoy my undergrad classes at all (although I had excelled in and enjoyed high school).
pugsnbourbon
+ a million. I was so fortunate that the professors I worked with most closely were excellent instructors. My friends in other departments didn’t fare as well.
Anon
I had heard that small colleges that are largely tuition funded are likely to have good teachers and that the STEM parts of large research universities are likely to have good researchers who are compelled to teach (b/c it is supposed to be a school and do teaching) but are less likely to be good at teaching.
Anon
Am a professor, can confirm I received no training in teaching. Faculty members that spend too much time on teaching or act like they care about it are generally met with lots of snide comments and disdain, even when doing stellar research. If you don’t spent most of your time on research, it makes no difference whether you’re a good teacher or not because you won’t get tenure. Bad teaching won’t stop you from getting tenure unless you’re really, really, really bad. Exceptions to this are small liberal arts colleges, where you can’t get away with bad teaching, but research expectations have increased everywhere and that’s still the main reason you’re hired for pretty much any job.
Anon
Poor teaching evaluations with stellar research and publications will be rewarded with tenure 1000x more frequently than the opposite.
bellatrix
I was Peter! I was asked to manage my peers (not a lawyer – I’m in a semi-creative field) and then given zero instruction on what to do. I knew I was failing, so I went into fight/flight/freeze mode and hoped no one would notice that I wasn’t really managing anyone. It was a bad scene all around, and I wish I’d pushed for more training at the beginning (but I don’t think it would have made a difference). There’s a big difference between being a skilled senior-level employee and being a good manager.
Jen
+1 I had a very similar experience being promoted into a management role. A lot of the reason I was promoted was because not only was I good at my role but I was good at training and mentoring others. Right away in the management role I had some difficult performance management situations to deal with and I didn’t respect or agree with my management on how to handle these, which further complicated things. I’m now in a training role and it’s a much better fit for my skills and interests. I may pursue a management role again in the future, but we’ll see.
Anon Because I'll go to Mod Regardless of Name
I’m in STEM, and people are absolutely promoted based on metrics and experience. Some end up being good managers and some don’t, but I honestly prefer having engineers as my manager over a non-engineering business-school type person. It’s incredibly frustrating when dealing with the legal department in my company and the lawyers don’t understand the technical process or products we create (no offense to anyone here – unless you’re working international compliance for a company that produces CAD models and you don’t know what a CAD model is.) But I want my manager to understand the processes I need to complete and the issues I encounter, so they have realistic expectations and are able to resolve any problems.
I do think my immediate management recognizes the Peter Principle, and they will assign projects to different people to manage, giving that person a small team to lead. Among managers, they also have weekly meetings to go over issues and to make sure the newer managers aren’t floundering. Sometimes they will invite people who may have managerial potential to sit in on the meetings.
Anonymous
Yay! It has a name! I have known about the “promoted to your level of incompetence” idea for decades, but I’m still too young to have known the origin. Just like the “better on the inside, pissing out” thing, it’s nice to know the origin.
My favorite satire-related work principle is promoting somebody to get rid of them, though. Ambassador to the XYZ, anyone?
Anonymous
Question from a new manager here – what can I do to help build me up a great manager? I really care about my people but I want to help them build up their skillset and grow their careers. (I’m 34 and they are all 24)
Meg
Start with Ask A Manager – lots of resources & archives to pull from.
JD
I have absolutely observed this as well as what I think Michelle Obama once described as “men failing up”. I have seen someone create a giant mess and be promoted for being calm and showing leadership as he resolved it.