5 ms·

I wonder about a possible opposite principle: a person best suited for a role in leadership is stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy, because he's not fully comp

by folli 8y ago

I wonder about a possible opposite principle: a person best suited for a role in leadership is stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy, because he's not fully competent at this current role, so he has no way to climb up.

nerdponx 8y ago
How far up in the hierarchy do you have in mind? It's hard for me to believe that you could be a good senior engineer without having been a good junior engineer.
- sejtnjir 8y ago
  A mediocre individual contributor could be a competent project manager.
  - carlmr 8y ago
    I'd agree with this, there is some overlap, but mostly these are distinct skills (people skills vs. technical skills).
    - nerdponx 8y ago
      That could be the reason for it. Mediocre engineer finds that they have a better head for managing people and schedules than lines of code. Either they talk to management, or management notices and offers the transfer.
    - lloeki 8y ago
      > these are distinct skills (people skills vs. technical skills) I believe most people here will agree with that statement; nonetheless the problem is the ludicrous situation some people view the world through and consider that "junior techie moves to senior manager" as a fact of life†. There is real social pressure on that front and lots of belittling of tech. Basically every time I meet some new person and say that I'm a software engineer, I get asked "But you still code at your age? Surely you'd rather manage people! What have you even achieved in life?" or any variation thereof and have to explain, justify even, that designing, planning, architecting, maintaining, and developing software is a real expertise domain in and of itself. The situation extends even in the workplace, where it is mostly expected of you to raise to management positions, and you won't get any raise if you don't "move past" "coding", as coding is largely considered a menial task by many, a sort of weird heritage of/transposition from an industrial culture. † This has a vicious side effect of creating an ecosystem with mostly zero-quality software, since somehow only juniors and unskilled seniors code, because either skilled coders raise up the management hierarchy to get some raises, just leave for places/countries with a better mindset, or are overwhelmed by their unskilled peers.
    - watwut 8y ago
      You cant manage project on people skills alone. That just don't work all that well and is likely to lead to crappy product and massive crunch. You cant manage project without at least some technical skills. You don't need to know all details, but you need to know enough about tech to understand general concepts, what is possible, what is risky, what technical debt means, when people lie to you about tech. In order to be good project manager you need both, but you don't need to be super genius in either. And there are also skills (or attributes) that makes you both better programmer and better manager: being organized, systematic, being responsible, willingness to do also boring tasks, understanding what people say when they talk to you, ability to explain yourself, good memory, etc.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    Sure, but mediocre does not imply "not fully competent", at least not to me. Maybe it was just bad wording in the GP. But I also don't consider a product manager higher in the hierarchy, at least not explicitly. Does a PM get paid more than a mid-level engineer?
    - sejtnjir 8y ago
      I believe project managers/product owners get compensated better than engineers in my environment. They may or may not have a technical background. I'm not sure if this is generally true. More thoughts on the semantics of mediocrity (the author was also referred in a sibling comment) https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/04/24/survival-of-the-mediocre-mediocre/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/04/24/survival-of-the-medioc...
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I'm not sure "project manager" per se is necessarily the best example because that's at least in part a different task. But there are certainly individuals who are good people leaders, protecting their reports from distractions, giving them opportunities, etc. who aren't necessarily particularly brilliant engineers.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Isn't that the point of the Peter Principle, you're good at your current tasks so you get promoted to do other tasks that you're not good at; as you're not good at those then you don't get promoted further, but you also don't get demoted to the tasks you excelled at. The problem is viewing the company as hierarchical. Just because less managers are required doesn't mean it's a more important role.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        The Peter Principle would be if a good engineer, in order to be promoted, had to become a manager--even though they didn't want to manage people and aren't good at it. It is rather based on traditional hierarchies which good companies offer ways around, e.g. individual contributor advancement tracks. What I was saying was that just OK engineers can get promoted to management and actually be quite good at it.
- Mikerad1979 8y ago
  I had a boss that worked in Continuous Improvement. As a manager he was great because he was very good at coming up with the nucleus of an idea. He was terrible about implementing the idea, but had a crew that was great at implementing his vision (think George Lucas). Left to his own devices, he had some horribly implemented ideas that really messed with our manufacturing floor. He was then moved to supervise a couple of manufacturing departments, which also resulted in disaster. He was moved to another facility shortly thereafter.
sejtnjir 8y ago
It's hard for me to think of an opposite to the Peter principle as formulated in the article: "Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence" Every new member moves down in the hierarchy? That doesn't happen in the real world.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  "Every new member rises to their level of competence" is also an opposite. As would be "every old member is demoted in the hierarchy until they reach a level in which they are competent".
stephengillie 8y ago
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Albert Einstein
- DonaldFisk 8y ago
  There's no evidence Einstein ever said that: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ And some fish can climb trees: https://www.thesprucepets.com/some-fish-can-climb-trees-3969450 https://www.thesprucepets.com/some-fish-can-climb-trees-3969...
  - andyidsinga 8y ago
    he misattributed - it was actually Mark Twain :) :) :)
    - stephengillie 8y ago
      Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Albert Einstein - Mark Twain (How Twain predicted Einstein to say this, I'll never know.)
chapium 8y ago
This is why horizontal movement is necessary in an organization. Also, changing to a management role should not be considered vertical movement in some cases.

by folli 8y ago

nerdponx 8y ago

How far up in the hierarchy do you have in mind? It's hard for me to believe that you could be a good senior engineer without having been a good junior engineer.

sejtnjir 8y ago
A mediocre individual contributor could be a competent project manager.
- carlmr 8y ago
  I'd agree with this, there is some overlap, but mostly these are distinct skills (people skills vs. technical skills).
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    That could be the reason for it. Mediocre engineer finds that they have a better head for managing people and schedules than lines of code. Either they talk to management, or management notices and offers the transfer.
  - lloeki 8y ago
    > these are distinct skills (people skills vs. technical skills) I believe most people here will agree with that statement; nonetheless the problem is the ludicrous situation some people view the world through and consider that "junior techie moves to senior manager" as a fact of life†. There is real social pressure on that front and lots of belittling of tech. Basically every time I meet some new person and say that I'm a software engineer, I get asked "But you still code at your age? Surely you'd rather manage people! What have you even achieved in life?" or any variation thereof and have to explain, justify even, that designing, planning, architecting, maintaining, and developing software is a real expertise domain in and of itself. The situation extends even in the workplace, where it is mostly expected of you to raise to management positions, and you won't get any raise if you don't "move past" "coding", as coding is largely considered a menial task by many, a sort of weird heritage of/transposition from an industrial culture. † This has a vicious side effect of creating an ecosystem with mostly zero-quality software, since somehow only juniors and unskilled seniors code, because either skilled coders raise up the management hierarchy to get some raises, just leave for places/countries with a better mindset, or are overwhelmed by their unskilled peers.
  - watwut 8y ago
    You cant manage project on people skills alone. That just don't work all that well and is likely to lead to crappy product and massive crunch. You cant manage project without at least some technical skills. You don't need to know all details, but you need to know enough about tech to understand general concepts, what is possible, what is risky, what technical debt means, when people lie to you about tech. In order to be good project manager you need both, but you don't need to be super genius in either. And there are also skills (or attributes) that makes you both better programmer and better manager: being organized, systematic, being responsible, willingness to do also boring tasks, understanding what people say when they talk to you, ability to explain yourself, good memory, etc.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- nerdponx 8y ago
  Sure, but mediocre does not imply "not fully competent", at least not to me. Maybe it was just bad wording in the GP. But I also don't consider a product manager higher in the hierarchy, at least not explicitly. Does a PM get paid more than a mid-level engineer?
  - sejtnjir 8y ago
    I believe project managers/product owners get compensated better than engineers in my environment. They may or may not have a technical background. I'm not sure if this is generally true. More thoughts on the semantics of mediocrity (the author was also referred in a sibling comment) https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/04/24/survival-of-the-mediocre-mediocre/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/04/24/survival-of-the-medioc...
- ghaff 8y ago
  I'm not sure "project manager" per se is necessarily the best example because that's at least in part a different task. But there are certainly individuals who are good people leaders, protecting their reports from distractions, giving them opportunities, etc. who aren't necessarily particularly brilliant engineers.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    Isn't that the point of the Peter Principle, you're good at your current tasks so you get promoted to do other tasks that you're not good at; as you're not good at those then you don't get promoted further, but you also don't get demoted to the tasks you excelled at. The problem is viewing the company as hierarchical. Just because less managers are required doesn't mean it's a more important role.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      The Peter Principle would be if a good engineer, in order to be promoted, had to become a manager--even though they didn't want to manage people and aren't good at it. It is rather based on traditional hierarchies which good companies offer ways around, e.g. individual contributor advancement tracks. What I was saying was that just OK engineers can get promoted to management and actually be quite good at it.
Mikerad1979 8y ago
I had a boss that worked in Continuous Improvement. As a manager he was great because he was very good at coming up with the nucleus of an idea. He was terrible about implementing the idea, but had a crew that was great at implementing his vision (think George Lucas). Left to his own devices, he had some horribly implemented ideas that really messed with our manufacturing floor. He was then moved to supervise a couple of manufacturing departments, which also resulted in disaster. He was moved to another facility shortly thereafter.

sejtnjir 8y ago

It's hard for me to think of an opposite to the Peter principle as formulated in the article: "Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence" Every new member moves down in the hierarchy? That doesn't happen in the real world.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
"Every new member rises to their level of competence" is also an opposite. As would be "every old member is demoted in the hierarchy until they reach a level in which they are competent".

stephengillie 8y ago

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Albert Einstein

DonaldFisk 8y ago
There's no evidence Einstein ever said that: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ And some fish can climb trees: https://www.thesprucepets.com/some-fish-can-climb-trees-3969450 https://www.thesprucepets.com/some-fish-can-climb-trees-3969...
- andyidsinga 8y ago
  he misattributed - it was actually Mark Twain :) :) :)
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Albert Einstein - Mark Twain (How Twain predicted Einstein to say this, I'll never know.)

chapium 8y ago

This is why horizontal movement is necessary in an organization. Also, changing to a management role should not be considered vertical movement in some cases.