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Peter principle

• supportengineer 3y ago
  So what does this imply if you’ve never received a promotion, ever?
• nextworddev 3y ago
  Hmm dunno, I have seen 1) people rising >2 levels above their level of incompetence, as well as 2) people staying <2 levels below their worth. What’s definitely true is that actual level / title don’t match perfectly with “competence” which itself is a nebulous concept in many companies.
  • 082349872349872 3y ago
    An argument for discrimination is that one then gets highly talented people from the discriminated-against class who stick upon their glass ceilings; I first heard this hypothesis as the British empire having been headed by English but run by Irish, Native, Scots, and Welsh administrators. (alternative to avoid relying on discrimination: apply "up or out"?)
    • rocqua 3y ago
      What about up or down? If someone has reached their level of incompetence, bump them back to the previous level with their current pay. Apparently they were excellent at that previous level, and don't have room to grow right now. So put them to use at that previous level.
      • 082349872349872 3y ago
        that's also found in the military, as a "brevet rank"
  • sorokod 3y ago
    I believe that example 1) is addressed in the article as "percussive sublimation".
• Jimmc414 3y ago
  The peter principle assumes that competence in one role automatically translates to less competence in a higher role. If you follow this logic and reverse it, then it would be safe to assume that Steve Jobs would have been one of the best data entry clerks ever employed by Apple.
  • seb1204 3y ago
    I always understood that a person being competent in role A is being promoted because of being good paired with maybe personal or/and corporate development goals. Once in the new role, with likely higher pay, it is very unlikely to go back. Instead of going back the person will try to stay afloat in the new role. Some will rise to the challenge others not.
  • jmholla 3y ago
    > The peter principle assumes that competence in one role automatically translates to less competence in a higher role. No it doesn't. It just says that if you're good at your job, you'll get promoted. If you're not, you'll stay where you are. So you either are good at your job and can be promoted or you're bad at your job. You can be good at your current job and other forces outside of competence are preventing that advancement. And so, there is no logic to reverse and make that assumption. Also, for your reversal, Steve Jobs would've needs to start as a data entry clerk. Reversing this doesn't mean any job below you is where you came from.
    • Jimmc414 3y ago
      > No it doesn't. It just says that if you're good at your job, you'll get promoted. Respectfully, that's exactly what it says. Why else would someone get promoted "until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent" if one's competence increases with a promotion? e.g. Some people are intuitively better at managing people than they are at programming.
      • TheCoelacanth 3y ago
        And those people who are good at management will get promoted to directors. The ones who aren't remain incompetent managers.
• habitue 3y ago
  Biggest constraint on this principle is that you can get promoted to a level where getting promoted again requires someone else quitting. That doesn't really imply anything about your competence. Usually if you're blocked from advancing though, you'll move on to another company that needs someone in the higher role
  • kovezd 3y ago
    > getting promoted again requires someone else quitting. I can imagine this being true for 80% of high-mamager positions. But there's also a good portion of leadership positions that get created with new lines of business. That is blue ocean thinking. Generally, it will give you more ownership about the outcome of your career.
• mattgreenrocks 3y ago
  There’s a Freakonomics podcast about this topic that’s worth a listen. It helped me work through what it felt like to be in this position. I’d class myself as a reluctant staff eng at this point who has no wish to progress further at this time. Most interesting part of the podcast is how it talks about how companies know this happens but let it happen anyways because it’s the least of all evils on their eyes. One suggestion to beat it is wild: random promotions. As I’ve gotten older and seen how titles/pay are tied closely to experience and age I’ve started to see that maybe it isn’t the worst idea. It does, however, absolutely murder the method of meritocracy.
  • Willish42 3y ago
    https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-there-so-many-bad-bosses/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-there-so-many-bad-b... link for the lazy
  • random99292 3y ago
    I just listened to the episode and I am not sure I buy their premise why bad managers exists. There are many reason why someone get promoted into a managerial position, but saying it's because they were good at their current job seems simplistic and a broad generalization. I am also skeptical of their claim about sales numbers and how effective their managerial skills are. Correlation is not causation, and averages is a horrible way to judge if a person will be a good manager.
    • mattgreenrocks 3y ago
      > I am also skeptical of their claim about sales numbers and how effective their managerial skills are. That's exactly the issue: there's no causal link. They could be good at both; indeed, this is what the org is banking on. But it's just as likely you're good at sales and not as good at management.
      • random99292 3y ago
        I probably misunderstood it, but what I heard it as you can be a good manager even if you don't have knowledge on what you are managing.
• wrp 3y ago
  Since first hearing about the Peter principle, I've wondered whether it would work to just make all promotions probationary.
  • influx 3y ago
    Most places I've worked require you to be operating at the level you're going to be promoted to before you get actually promoted.
    • helpfulmandrill 3y ago
      But you can't e.g. prove your ability to manage without being given a team to manage...
  • Willish42 3y ago
    Some big tech organizations basically do this without the pay. Essentially in some FAANG corps, you have to prove having worked at L+1 while still at L to get promoted to L+1. In my biased / personal experience, the veracity of such a bar kinda deteriorates over time and the short average tenure makes most promo processes corrupt B.S. when folks are more incentivized to just quit and join somewhere else for more money. Also, this process and your suggestion at a "probation" tends to motivate working harder for the window being measured, regardless of how actually adept or well equipped the person is at the level for which they're trying to illustrate competence.
    • ghaff 3y ago
      The problem is the step function differences. Someone may be an exceptional individual contributor but a lousy manager even at a relatively low level. A manager of a small team may not be great at handling a big team that may need to be realigned. Some of it's about a company having reasonable tracks for people depending upon their preferences. But people may also have preferences they're just not suited for.
    • makeitdouble 3y ago
      > You have to prove having worked at L+1 while still at L to get promoted to L+1. Yes, and this line of thinking has spread to many orgs. And as you point out people tend to just move elsewhere instead. The length of the observation window is one thing, and more fundamentally employees are asked to work above their pay grade in hope for it to be noticed/recognized, which is never a fun thing to do. Then comes the responsibility problem: If a dev want to become a manager, there's no way to let them deal with HR, write performance reviews and do 1 on 1s including private information as a trial. They need the actual role inked in their contract, have people treat them as a manager. They can't be doing it as a role playing exercice. A probation period could work, but I think it would be pretty awkward to have them step down after 3 months.
• everly 3y ago
  A good scene in 30 Rock is when Tracy is told about the Peter Principle and responds "but my incompetence knows no bounds!"
• jacknews 3y ago
  The assumption here is that being good at a job is what 'earns' a promotion. In fact, it can be the opposite; why risk promoting someone to a new role, when they are doing great at the current one? What actually marks someone for promotion is clear potential for the target role, sometimes despite a not-so-good current performance, indeed sometimes because of it.
  • CobrastanJorji 3y ago
    That's the "Dilbert Principal:" Promote incompetent employees to management to minimize their ability to harm productivity.
• BobbyTables2 3y ago
  This is all fine for lower levels. For executives, there are only a few paths: - take over your boss’s job when they retire/get fired. (One can slowly go from individual contributor to vice president this way!) - fit non-competence based corporate goals and have the polish to visibly demonstrate such (industry track record not required!). More about fluff than stuff… - have strong corporate political alliances with higher leaders None of this has anything to do with vision, ability, or merit.
  • ranger207 3y ago
    If promotions are based on metrics (and they always are, even if the metric is "how much do I like this guy"), then you can either try to increase your score in that metric as much as possible, or you can game the metric as much as possible to make it look like your score in the metric is high. Most of the people at the executive level have been doing the latter so long that the former just isn't really considered at that level
  • mellosouls 3y ago
    This is all fine for lower levels More likely the other way round; if there are more options at lower levels - as you imply - then there are more ways for the principle to be countered or defeated. None of this has anything to do with vision, ability, or merit. Unfortunately, if you take the principle seriously, that's pretty much exactly what it has to do with.
• OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  George Marshall who was, among other things, Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII was lauded for his policy of yanking commanding generals if they didn't adapt to new positions quickly. But he lessened the stigma of being relieved by transferring them to other commands, still at flag rank. Several commanders early in '42 were removed from commanding infantry divisions, but were given commands of units in combat support or material support or training where they went on to deliver stellar service. So it was like finding the right guy (and it definitely was a guy back in those days) for the right job. This is in contrast to continental armies with aristocratic baggage who found it difficult to fire flag grade commanders (looking at you, monty.) But the political risk to his own career was enormous and the only way he got away with it was with the full support of FDR and his reputation earned partially as Pershing's Chief of Staff in WWI. He is also the only person in the US Army to be considered for the rank of Field Marshall, mostly because FDR thought it would be funny to have Field Marshal Marshall. Which is to say... you might be able to cheat the Peter Principal, but the amount of effort seems great and you would have to work very hard to sooth the egos of those demoted or reframe the demotion as a lateral xfer.
  • tivert 3y ago
    > He is also the only person in the US Army to be considered for the rank of Field Marshall, mostly because FDR thought it would be funny to have Field Marshal Marshall. According to Wikipedia, he got an equivalent rank that was named "General of the Army" It was not called "Field Marshal" because having a "Marshal Marshall" was considered undignified (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_marshal#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_marshal#United_States:)
    • OhMeadhbh 3y ago
      _considered_ for the rank of field marshal. i did not imply he was promoted to field marshal. and even then, it was very likely just a joke.
      • fsckboy 3y ago
        well then you should have implied it because he was promoted to a rank equivalent to field marshall, 5 star general. (neither rank existed at the time, and when the rank was created, "field marshall" was eschewed as a name for it)
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• spott 3y ago
  The peters principle makes an assumption about the convexity of competency that I’ve never thought was great. Essentially someone could get promoted to their level of incompetence, when if they were promoted again they would actually get better at their job. There is an implicit assumption that competence at job a is less than competence at a job b above job a, which isn’t necessarily true.
  • abadpoli 3y ago
    I don’t think there is that implicit assumption. My understanding of the principle is that a person would never get “promoted again”, because their incompetence at their level prevents it. Essentially: if you’re good at a job, you get promoted out of it. If you’re not good at a job, you don’t get promoted out of it. So the end state for everyone is that they remain in jobs they are not good at.
    • lifeisstillgood 3y ago
      That’s brilliant … Or a brilliant restatement if the original peter principle (to gives props eleswwhere :-) So we just stop promotions … I think ???
      • the_cramer 3y ago
        Where i work the only way to get a noticeable jump in salary is promotion. I call this "horizontal scaling" of salaries. I believe the "vertical scaling" of salaries would be a better fit. Some already have it in tariffs, most of the time there are tough limits to what you can earn as "simple developer/project manager/sales clerk". So yes, probably promotions are not the right action often, but the other options need to be improved. edit: i lacked the explanation of vertical scaling: rising salary in the job you are currently doing and building expertise and experience. Opposed to being horizontally moved to a whole different job where your expertise is probably worse.
    • mare5x 3y ago
      So people that are good at their jobs should be kept on the brink of promotion for as long as possible?
• dang 3y ago
  Related threads below. The 1974 video is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM. Peter Principle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33855815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33855815 - Dec 2022 (5 comments) The Peter Principle (1974) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32627396 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32627396 - Aug 2022 (39 comments) The Peter Principle: Are you at your level of incompetence? (1974) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32243969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32243969 - July 2022 (1 comment) The Peter Principle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24433059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24433059 - Sept 2020 (1 comment) The Peter Principle Tested - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19797375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19797375 - May 2019 (47 comments) The Peter Principle is a joke taken seriously. Is it true? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17845289 - Aug 2018 (108 comments) The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study (2009) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17301215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17301215 - June 2018 (50 comments) The Peter Principle Isn't Just Real, It's Costly - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16972249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16972249 - May 2018 (48 comments) The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270053 - Feb 2011 (2 comments) The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1121507 - Feb 2010 (1 comment)
  • smilingsun 3y ago
    It's very interesting with this perspective of internet popularity of the concept. I remember the Wikipedia entry from a long time ago as much shorter than the current version, so went back in time. In 2018, the article was much shorter: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_principle&oldid=838042843 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_principle&o... But I really like the visualization in the 2018 version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peters_principle.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peters_principle.svg. And as I can learn from other HN comments below, there was indeed real studies conducted in 2018, so the comical/logical hypothesis has been further developed and empirical evidence is now also there.
  • 3y ago
• jensenbox 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39wzku9KIEM
• amackera 3y ago
  People aren't static, nor are companies or roles within them. Treating every person as unchanging and treating the requirements of each level in the hierarchy as unchanging are just plain bad assumptions to make. People grow. Companies change. This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning.
  • gpuhacker 3y ago
    From the wiki page: "In 2018, professors Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue analyzed sales workers' performance and promotion practices at 214 American businesses to test the veracity of the Peter principle. They found that these companies tended to promote employees to a management position based on their performance in their previous position, rather than based on managerial potential. Consistent with the Peter principle, the researchers found that high performing sales employees were likelier to be promoted, and that they were likelier to perform poorly as managers, leading to considerable costs to the businesses.[15][16][2]"
    • kbolino 3y ago
      The Peter Principle might be downstream of the Monotonic Pay Scale, where it is expected that a person who manages others must be paid more than any of them. Conversely, no matter how good you are or how much money you are making the business, you will reach a point where your pay is effectively capped unless you transition to management. The government suffers from this especially, despite an ostensibly very different incentive structure. The explosion in government contractors (by which I mean, individuals indirectly employed to do jobs in lieu of direct hires) seems to be driven in no small part by this problem.
  • bowsamic 3y ago
    > This book was meant as satire, and the fact that so many people take it as fact is honestly quite concerning. The article says it was satire but it also says it was based on their real research. Also satire doesn’t necessarily mean something is meant to be untrue
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  I know the book is satire, but I’ve never actually witnessed this concept at play. What I have witnessed, many times, are people who always were incompetent rising because they are good at the social and political aspects of the workplace.
  • ipaddr 3y ago
    You've never seen a great developer turn into an awful manager after a promotion and then stay at that level?
    • datascienced 3y ago
      Most of the time no, they self select out of it and “go back to coding again”.
  • hackable_sand 3y ago
    It sounds as if they are competent then.
• lordnacho 3y ago
  It's astonishing how many people come to me with a Peter Principle story from their own work. It's also incredible just how many people from all walks of life experience that they are working with incompetents. What I'd throw in there as well is competence noise. The people who are sitting with someone day-to-day can tell whether they are competent. But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind to this.
  • greyman 3y ago
    >But the person who decides who gets promoted is somehow blind to this. Sometimes yes, but I also observed that sometimes it was necessary to do, since no other suitable person showed up. Also, I would add that what surprises me how slowly many people can improve.
  • pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    Actually it's not universally true that people working closely together know who is competent and who is not. Because you yourself need to be competent to know if others are doing a good job or not. If you are surrounded by incompetent morons you as likely might be labeled as incompetent by them and since they are the majority you lose the battle. It doesn't even have to be done on purpose by the morons, they just don't know they are bad at what they are are doing and create a kind of a circlejerk re-assuring themselves
    • peteradio 3y ago
      Yes! Incompetent manager: "Hey uh can you pop open that firewall for me?" Me: "That's against corporate policy. You'd need to follow procedure xyz." Incompetent manager: "My good friend, J could open that firewall in 15 mins flat. J opened the firewall for me 4 times last week. He could show you how if you don't know what you are doing, its no problem." Me: Facepalming "Didn't you hear what I just said?" Of course the above happens in a meeting with a congregation of people.
• zmmmmm 3y ago
  I am a living example of this principle! They should use me as an example in the textbook.
• jongjong 3y ago
  I think the Peter Principle actually doesn't apply to hyper competent people because we get the "You're too valuable in your current position" treatment and therefore aren't given the opportunity to rise at all. By some interpretations, it sounds like it means that people who are incompetent used to be competent before they were promoted into their current position... But in fact, because the super-competent candidates are locked into their low positions, it ensures that the pool of candidates who are selected for promotion consists mostly of moderately incompetent people... Kind of like "I like this person and they are OK in their current position but maybe if we promoted them, we'll get that spark going..." But, surprise surprise, they never attain excellence.
  • wccrawford 3y ago
    I don't know that it's about being "hyper competent" so much as it's about being competent in a niche position that is incredibly hard to fill. I think after a while you could argue that that person is indeed "hyper competent", but the situation actually starts before that point.
• stareatgoats 3y ago
  The "Peter principle" rests on the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies, and will reward people that are competent at their given task. And those organizations may (still) exist, but they are not the norm, at least not in my experience. I propose another, more important, principle as an explanation for the obvious incompetence of many managers: Competent people are a source of pain to higher levels of management, because they don't just say "yes boss", they will tend to point out the risks of flying blind, offer a better solution than what was recently clubbed at the board of directors meeting, and have ethical guardrails regarding what chemicals to put in the product, how to treat coworkers, etc. They are brilliant at their tasks, but have opinions that go beyond their designated area, they are expensive and demanding. And they usually end up getting the can, with or without a severance pay. And the incompetent, but "yes boss"-employee gets the promotion instead. There you have it.
  • aftoprokrustes 3y ago
    This is, fortunately, not my experience. In all of my jobs, the most highly regarded people, including by management, were/are those who have an informed opinion and are confident enough to voice it, and potentially take responsibilities outside of their job description in order to steer the business in the direction they are convinced is the right one. Note that this handful persons I am referring to _also_ accept criticism and correct their understanding when new information ia given to them: they are not dogmatic jerks. Actually, all my managers were this kind of person, with crazy ideas and not affraid to disagree with anyone. I also had one colleague who was brilliant and had strong opinions about the product, which were expensive and demanding, and was affected by a lay off wave. I think him being original, not "focusing on the core product", and a strong character had something to do with it, so of course it happens.
    • stareatgoats 3y ago
      > This is, fortunately, not my experience. I'm happy for you. I have also had such workplaces, healthy and dynamic organizations. Are they in the majority, or somewhere in the middle in a normal distribution? Not sure, but my guess is not.
• m0llusk 3y ago
  Which competes with the Gervais Principle: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
• dijit 3y ago
  I'm much more compelled by the "Gervais Principle" from 2009: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... Basically, instead of people being promoted to incompetence; the IC level is thought of as "economic losers"; IE: the exploited. People who are exploited and throw a lot of effort in are considered "the clueless" and occupy most middle management, and the high leadership of every company is considered sociopathic. It's a much more compelling ideology to me as it maps unfortunately well into real life; at least as described (maybe the particular chosen words for the classifications evoke the wrong assumptions though). 9 minute video: https://youtu.be/jJYa68AnECY?t=29 https://youtu.be/jJYa68AnECY?t=29
  • creamyhorror 3y ago
    I'm surprised to find this so far down. The Gervais Principle is the cynical cousin of the Peter Principle, and even if it isn't actually accurate for some workplaces, it makes for a compelling read.
• amelius 3y ago
  Can we apply this to Boeing?
• nasir 3y ago
  Summary: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
• 486sx33 3y ago
  I had an employee give me this book one morning. He wasn’t a direct report, he reported to his manager who reported to me. Anyway he came in my office one morning and gave me the book. I hadn’t heard of it so I smiled and thanked him for thinking of me. I had an interesting wave of thoughts reading it… I still don’t know if he thought I was incompetent or what, but, in any case, it was enlightening.
  • darkerside 3y ago
    So you never asked him why he gave you the book?
    • 486sx33 3y ago
      He used to be a pastor and one of his followers had given it to him. I did ask him but his answer amounted to “passing it along I thought you’d be interested”. Of course I spent a long time wondering what his deeper message to me may have been. Perhaps I’ll never exactly know his intent but that’s ok for me. He quit and took a job at a shoe store , but stays in touch with me 5+ years later.
• TrackerFF 3y ago
  My own observations: A) Some places, the only way to land a leadership position, is by simply outliving your competition in the firm. Some firms put way too much emphasis on seniority, and are afraid to not promote senior employees in a predictable fashion, in fear of them leaving. These types of places also compensate purely based on your seniority and job title - which is why everyone wants to land such positions. B) The Peter Principle is rampant in sales. Good salespeople get promoted to leadership positions, and are bogged down with tasks they do not enjoy, or want to do. C) Places with a strong focus on "up or out" can also end up with a system where the Peter Principle is rife. Employees will do anything in their power to reach tenure, and once tenured, they might lose all motivation to perform their leadership duties - other than to work their subordinates to the bone, because they know there's a endless supply of them, and that all of them are equally motivated to reach promotion / tenure.
  • P_I_Staker 3y ago
    Sales? You just described engineering management, as well as many fields, probably.
• franze 3y ago
  counter example, the peter principle is used to disguise the lack of a career path. when I started my career I was working at a national news agency as "Business Development Web" this was from 1998 to 2004 and everything "internet / cyber data highway" was my job. from website to api-s to product design to design to code, frontend backend and project management and well product management (feeds, stream, ...) . seperation of work in the online space did not exist then. as at one point i told them that i want to develop further and not relaunch the website next year again the hold me back 'cause of the fear of peter principle - ans that they need me cause there was nobody else who could ever do my job. so i quit. so i think the peter principle exists, yes. there are incompetent managers which were very competent in another position. but applying the peter principle for decision making is harmful. for the individual and the organisation. i would say the sum pf applying the peter principle in an organisational is more harmful to promote people and see of they will be valuable, even if some of them will suck eventually.
  • wodenokoto 3y ago
    Isn’t that more a case of “if you want job security make yourself irreplaceable. If you want a promotion make yourself replaceable”
• haolez 3y ago
  I've been promoted up to CTO as a former developer (CTO of some big companies now!) and I feel I'm a pretty mediocre CTO compared to my dev performance. I can attest to this principle :)
• mattgreenrocks 3y ago
  Worth noting: Charity Majors' blog on management and tech: https://charity.wtf/ https://charity.wtf/ She says several things I've always thought were taboo to even think, including the fact that management shouldn't be viewed as a promotion, it's a completely separate job and some people are better at it than others. My limited experience: it's a separate job, it's a lot more things to juggle and carry, and it mostly makes sense that they get paid more. I have zero experience on director/c-level jobs, so I'm not going to speculate there.
  • noodle 3y ago
    Fully agreed. IMO its a critical thing to provide engineers an IC career path that enables advancement without requiring moving into a manager type of job. Otherwise, you get people who are shitty managers because they feel they have to do the job to continue to grow, and that turns into a team/org-wide morale issue. When promoting engineers into management positions, I'll always give them a trial run first in some form to make sure they actually enjoy the job, make sure their new team doesn't see any red flags, and to give them a graceful path to go back to IC without some fanfare company-wide promo announcement locking them into the role socially.
• rapjr9 3y ago
  People can learn. So I've often wondered if the Peter Principle is more of a recognition that people stop learning as they get older. Seems like the data could fit either scenario. People rise until their job requires more skills than they have, or people rise until they stop learning (or learn to stop learning, or until their learning capacity is reduced.) There's this thing that is called "growing up". Does growing up entail not being naive and an end to accepting what you are told (i.e., learning)? "They" say that when you're over 30 you are "over the hill". Has anyone ever tried to measure that? Maybe it's not a physical change in the body, maybe it's a consequence of getting hurt and learning not to be naive and accepting less teaching, being less open. If you've watched children grow up you can see them becoming more reticent and adopting postures.
• 1-6 3y ago
  Does that mean long time employees are incompetent?
• shsbdncudx 3y ago
  I’ve always found it a little naive. Sure, day 1 of a new job you are not going to be as good as you are 2 years later. Seems like a normal part of growth.
• lupire 3y ago
  This is a negative view on human growth. If you don't promote incompetent people, then you promote no one, and the job doesn't get done, and no one learns to do the job.
• fsmv 3y ago
  This is a great excuse to not pay you as much as you deserve because you haven't demonstrated competence at the next level yet