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The only solution that I have seen working to solve the "Peter Principle" problem, is re-org. Once in a while, parts of the org chart, get re-organized. People

by Murkin 16y ago

The only solution that I have seen working to solve the "Peter Principle" problem, is re-org. Once in a while, parts of the org chart, get re-organized. People moved vertically and horizontally. Carefully moving the "newly incompetent" to a horizontal position that suits their competence level (ie remove the responsibilities that they handle badly and increase those they handle well).

hapless 16y ago
I realize that anecdotes make for very poor data, but I have never seen a re-org work. I've survived dozens of reorgs at my own employer and at client firms, and I have never, ever seen a successful one. The best you can hope for is to see incompetent management pushed into do-nothing positions, such that the damage they do is contained. More often, the shuffle creates new fiefdoms, new dotted line bosses, and not one substantive improvement in function. (It's usually too painful to make the necessary horizontal changes to push "peter principle" types into harmless positions. These people are the re-organizers' friends, vassals, or patrons. What inhuman manager could bear to throw his friends under the bus to no immediate advantage for himself?) For example: when you have turf war between two managers, a re-org creates the opportunity for turf war between three or more: the old empire-builder who was ejected, the new empire-builder brought in, and the manager who was already encroaching on the old fief.
- rwolf 16y ago
  I find this whole vocabulary for describing your office environment (empire-builder, fiefdom, turf war, etc) to be incredibly negative. Thinking or your peers as bumbling warlords has got to make your time at the office a pain. That said, I have not worked at a large company before, so I might think the same way in your shoes.
  - PakG1 16y ago
    The problem is that in large companies, that is the way it works. Politics are an unfortunate fact of life just due to human nature. In my opinion, the biggest reason why those upper management folks in big companies make those mistakes when they reorg is because they don't have a view of what happens in the trenches. The details are critical when determining whether a specific service can be provided by a specific group and be tracked by a specific system. They don't get that a system's order database has a data structure that can't accommodate a new category of product types and a new way of doing work. They crunch the numbers, but the inefficiency lost from poor processes due to lack of understanding at the ground level makes those numbers meaningless in the end.
- microarchitect 16y ago
  I agree with this and would like to add that a culture of frequent re-orgs just brings out a different form of the Peter Principle. Instead of regular people getting promoted to their level of incompetence, the organization now optimizes for politicians getting promoted to their level of incompetence. I've seen my current and former employers lose extremely good engineers because they felt they'd been screwed over by bosses who were optimizing their careers to take advantage of the next re-org. You can't really prevent politics from rearing its ugly head in a large organization, but the best you can do is make sure that you hire extremely competent, honest and straightforward employees and treat them absolutely fairly. One of my bosses had a really great rule for making decisions on new hires. Besides being technically competent, committed and stuff like that, you need to ask yourself whether you'd like to have dinner with this person every single week. If the answer is no, you probably shouldn't be hiring that person.
- Murkin 16y ago
  I have seen this happen three times so far, on small scale (~50 people departments and 150ppl company). It was very successful on all 3. I can see how a huge organization will turn this into a committee that will end in disaster.
- gaius 16y ago
  The thing is, getting promoted is a full-time job in its own right. You can't do real work and get promoted, you won't have time, because you will be competing for a very limited number of positions with people who do make getting promoted their full-time jobs. At my present employer, I have been very explicit: I do not want promotion, I do not want to be management (there is no tech career track). Which has the interesting side-effect of making me basically unmanageable by their rules; there's neither carrot nor stick that can be used on me. So I get left alone to get on with real work. I've never been more productive!

by Murkin 16y ago

hapless 16y ago

I realize that anecdotes make for very poor data, but I have never seen a re-org work. I've survived dozens of reorgs at my own employer and at client firms, and I have never, ever seen a successful one. The best you can hope for is to see incompetent management pushed into do-nothing positions, such that the damage they do is contained. More often, the shuffle creates new fiefdoms, new dotted line bosses, and not one substantive improvement in function. (It's usually too painful to make the necessary horizontal changes to push "peter principle" types into harmless positions. These people are the re-organizers' friends, vassals, or patrons. What inhuman manager could bear to throw his friends under the bus to no immediate advantage for himself?) For example: when you have turf war between two managers, a re-org creates the opportunity for turf war between three or more: the old empire-builder who was ejected, the new empire-builder brought in, and the manager who was already encroaching on the old fief.

rwolf 16y ago
I find this whole vocabulary for describing your office environment (empire-builder, fiefdom, turf war, etc) to be incredibly negative. Thinking or your peers as bumbling warlords has got to make your time at the office a pain. That said, I have not worked at a large company before, so I might think the same way in your shoes.
- PakG1 16y ago
  The problem is that in large companies, that is the way it works. Politics are an unfortunate fact of life just due to human nature. In my opinion, the biggest reason why those upper management folks in big companies make those mistakes when they reorg is because they don't have a view of what happens in the trenches. The details are critical when determining whether a specific service can be provided by a specific group and be tracked by a specific system. They don't get that a system's order database has a data structure that can't accommodate a new category of product types and a new way of doing work. They crunch the numbers, but the inefficiency lost from poor processes due to lack of understanding at the ground level makes those numbers meaningless in the end.
microarchitect 16y ago
I agree with this and would like to add that a culture of frequent re-orgs just brings out a different form of the Peter Principle. Instead of regular people getting promoted to their level of incompetence, the organization now optimizes for politicians getting promoted to their level of incompetence. I've seen my current and former employers lose extremely good engineers because they felt they'd been screwed over by bosses who were optimizing their careers to take advantage of the next re-org. You can't really prevent politics from rearing its ugly head in a large organization, but the best you can do is make sure that you hire extremely competent, honest and straightforward employees and treat them absolutely fairly. One of my bosses had a really great rule for making decisions on new hires. Besides being technically competent, committed and stuff like that, you need to ask yourself whether you'd like to have dinner with this person every single week. If the answer is no, you probably shouldn't be hiring that person.
Murkin 16y ago
I have seen this happen three times so far, on small scale (~50 people departments and 150ppl company). It was very successful on all 3. I can see how a huge organization will turn this into a committee that will end in disaster.
gaius 16y ago
The thing is, getting promoted is a full-time job in its own right. You can't do real work and get promoted, you won't have time, because you will be competing for a very limited number of positions with people who do make getting promoted their full-time jobs. At my present employer, I have been very explicit: I do not want promotion, I do not want to be management (there is no tech career track). Which has the interesting side-effect of making me basically unmanageable by their rules; there's neither carrot nor stick that can be used on me. So I get left alone to get on with real work. I've never been more productive!