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The Peter Principle still resonates
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dang 2y agoRelated: Peter principle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39844104 - March 2024 (180 comments) 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) Employees are promoted based on their success until they are no longer competent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561825 - May 2022 (1 comment) Ask HN: Operational Peter Principle? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30436105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30436105 - Feb 2022 (4 comments) 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: Why Most Managers Suck - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1488442 - July 2010 (1 comment) 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)
- nuancebydefault 2y agoDang's deja vu feeling was triggered correctly! No Peter in sight!
- supportengineer 2y agoLet's give dang a promotion!
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI've made my peace with The Peter Principle. People can surprise you and can "rise to the occasion" — or in the case of employment, rise to the difficulties of the tasks or jobs you give them. Not everyone can, but to deny someone that opportunity is perhaps ... cruel? So we err on over-promotion — realizing our mistake only when it is too late. And I'm fine with that.
- amelius 2y agoSo you are OK with incompetent people occupying positions they should not have?
- frank_nitti 2y agoIf we had a crystal ball to know beforehand, then of course not. How can we know if someone will be incompetent in a role they have never been given the opportunity? If an excellent contributor/leader wants to take on more responsibility, or are forced to because it’s the only way to get a nontrivial salary increase, it seems like that decision leaves middle management with the ultimatum: promote or lose the excellent team member. I’m not the commenter you replied to, just my take. In some tech orgs they are barely starting to expand from Sr Engineer for ICs, many of previous cohorts were forced into management or hit a dead-end on comp
- wizardforhire 2y agoI am. Because by this logic no one save for a select few should ever be employed. Personally I’d rather live in a world where people are doing the best they can and given room to fail then a rigid bureaucratic hegemony of ultra efficiency.
- wbl 2y agoYou don't need to be the best to be worth it. The ok ER doc still saves lives.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI'm presuming that "promoted to their level of incompetency" is phrased that way because it is humorous — but puts too fine a point on the incompetent part.
- cortesoft 2y agoMy issue with the Peter Principle is the idea that each ‘level’ requires more competence… I think the issue is that the levels actually require completely different skills. For example, being a good developer doesn’t mean you will be a good dev manager, but the reverse is also true… being a good dev manager doesn’t mean you would be a good developer. If you only promote good devs into the role of dev manager, you aren’t getting the all the best dev managers.
- Epa095 2y agoI dont tvink your insight, that there are completely different skills at different levels, are at odds with the Peter principle at all. The intro in the Wikipedia article even states: > "employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another."
- paxys 2y ago> If you only promote good devs into the role of dev manager, you aren’t getting the all the best dev managers. You are literally describing the Peter Principle
- BobaFloutist 2y agoAnd you're wasting all your best talent on management, because far too many orgs have a compensation ceiling on talent that can only be surpassed by moving into management.
- debo_ 2y agoMy favorite part of this article: > A 2009 study by Italian researchers offered a more radical approach to the Peter Principle problem. It found that companies may be better served by leaving things to chance and promoting people "at random." The study they linked: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219525918500145 https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S02195259185...
- MoreMoore 2y agoHonestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it worked. I also wouldn't be surprised if it led to better outcomes if that's how we chose political representatives. The way we do it now just seems to select for the most corrupt, greedy and manipulative, who are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with personally and professionally.
- BitwiseFool 2y agoThis process is known as Sortition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
- jll29 2y agoGoodness you read my mind. (Or rather, I should have read on first before commenting!)
- perilunar 2y agoYes. The type of people who seek out political office are least fit for it, and should be deliberately excluded. We should use sortition, not elections. And if we are going to have elections, we should have limited fixed terms — career politicians are the worst.
- cperciva 2y agoJapan, with its rigid schedule for promotions, effectively does this. Westerners often laugh at Japanese companies privileging seniority over demonstrated ability, but maybe they're on to something.
- ghjfrdghibt 2y agoI think this principle likely does not include the public sector which like to promote to incompetence, and beyond; buzz lightyear style.
- TheGRS 2y agoThere's a sort of horror to this concept: you realize that everyone, including yourself, is doomed to incompetence. That every successful business you know of is run at a profit in spite of incompetence. Even more horrifying: Most experiences I've had in my professional career validates this premise. I can think of many projects I was a part of that seemed misguided at best, yet the company continued to succeed by momentum and great decisions that were made in the past (and sometimes decisions that were not even very consciously done). When the stars align and things are successful, its time to celebrate, but maybe don't assume it'll always happen that way. Why this concept is also comforting is that you can kind of relax a bit on some level. I mean do your job of course and make sure things are running, but maybe this new initiative from the CEO isn't quite as important to the success of your company as they may make you believe.
- cpitman 2y agoThis is great. I think there is a tendency to apply the Peter Principle to others (ie the boss), but it applies just as well to ourselves. How long until we are all promoted into incompetence, and how sure are we that it hasn't already happened?
- steve_adams_86 2y agoThe litmus I use to determine if I've been promoted to incompetence is whether my presence improves situations or not. There have been cases where I joined projects and didn't improve things or — unfortunately — made things worse. All you can do is address the problem openly, find strategies to improve the situation, and try to find ways to remedy it. If you can't, well, you've got to regress a bit and restore a role you're competent in. I think a common strategy is to try and shift blame or manipulate situations so it isn't obviously your incompetence that caused the problem. Many people might even do this without realizing it. I certainly did earlier in my career, but I never intended to lie or trick people. It was mostly the conflation of insecurities and imposter syndrome, along with my inability to ascertain my actual skill level. In self-defence I'd try to protect myself from the reality that I was doing a bad job. The only way to get promoted without eventually reaching incompetence is to rinse and repeat that process, as far as I can tell.
- peterldowns 2y agoUnreal that we, as a society, allow this Anti-Peter bias to persist. It's 2025 — time to stamp out hate for good. Instead of referencing the "Peter Principle", consider saying: - I fucking hate my boss - My boss is incompetent - My boss can't do anything right - My boss should be fired for incompetence No need to bring "Peter" into it at all.
- howard941 2y agousername checks out
- pixelmonkey 2y agoReminds me of: "Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks." -Michael Bolton in 'Office Space' Also funny since the main character in Office Space is named "Peter." I now wonder if this character name is, itself, a reference to the Peter Principle. I wouldn't be surprised given that it was written by Mike Judge (same creator as HBO/Max 'Silicon Valley' years later).
- emceestork 2y agoThe Peter Principle is an idea manufactured to suppress wages. The idea the you have to work at a level above your current level for a while until you are promoted only benefits employers. I have only spent approximately 30 seconds thinking about this idea.
- radley 2y ago> The Peter Principle is an idea manufactured to suppress wages. It's a satirical theory, not an applied practice.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dallasg3 2y agoIt also presupposes the necessity of hierarchy.
- moron4hire 2y agoIt's descriptive, not prescriptive
- jbgt 2y agoPlease spend another 30s. It can an interesting bit of philosophy about competence and ambition - and humility.
- indigoabstract 2y agoPerhaps "incompetent" isn't the best word for this? People tend to get "promoted" when they outgrow their current role and need more challenges. But eventually all will reach a point where they stop growing or grow content or complacent and the promotions will also come to a halt. It doesn't necessary mean they are "incompetent" though. Just stopped growing bigger than their current role.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- matwood 2y agoAlso, I don't view the Peter Principle as necessarily bad. How do I know my peak level without going beyond it? And, without going beyond, how do I continue to grow? Will I eventually reach some level that I can't go beyond no matter how much effort I put in? I'm sure I will, but I haven't yet so keep going.
- indigoabstract 2y agoI read this article the other day about Morris Chang, the founder TSMC: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42559052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42559052 4-5 years before founding TSMC, he was forced resign from Texas Instruments after 20 years there and then got fired or pushed out from 2 other companies in a few short years. He finally and unexpectedly hit the jackpot after this, but it could have ended a lot worse. Growth rarely seems to be something linear or predictable. There can be lots of ups and downs, of things that seem like contractions and setbacks, instead of growth.
- musha68k 2y agoI, for one, will welcome our new AGI CEOs
- DoctorOetker 2y agoOmitted from these explanations is that promotions convey 2 things: increased salary and a higher position. A good performer can be rewarded without giving a higher position, simply by increasing their wages. The catch is of course that regularly an employee may earn more than his/her superior.... Perhaps relaxing the last requirement is too much to stomach?
- baazaa 2y agoIt doesn't with me, because it only made sense back when firms hired lots of young people and promoted the most competent. This isn't how most firms work nowadays. I've never even worked at a place that does promotions. Sure if your boss leaves you can apply for their job but it'll be offered to externals as well and then you'll be compared to them as an external applicant, i.e. with resume + interview. Job performance doesn't matter, HR makes no effort to even measure performance beyond PIPing people who don't show up. Weirdly when I mention this to colleagues, who know for a fact that's how things work here, they're surprised because they never noticed. Like everyone has a mental model of 'good workers get promoted' which is seemingly impervious to direct experience.
- supportengineer 2y agoThis matches my experience. I've been working 30 years, I've very rarely ever seen anyone get promoted. Also, I have never been promoted. But, 99% of this wasn't in FAANG companies. There is a "Promo culture" now that didn't exist before.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago> Sure if your boss leaves you can apply for their job I've never considered a move to management to be a promotion.
- SoftTalker 2y agoFor the converse, work at someplace like a university. Open positions are advertised (because legally they have to be) but the vast majority are given to insiders. Qualifications are almost entirely who you know and who they know. I would guess many government organizations are similar.
- baazaa 2y agoI have seen this, but it's still never competence based. I really don't see anything preventing someone who's been catastrophically incompetent at every job they've ever held becoming CEO or heading a department. This might explain why cognitive ability correlates much less with earnings judging by NLSY etc. than in the past. Anyway it's very far removed from the Peter Principle.
- jampa 2y agoI hate this principle. It bases itself on an appeal to nature. It is as if people are born with a hidden upper level of competence that they can never "rise above" while others were born "blessed to be CEO." The worst part is that people frame it as an argument to avoid promoting. The truth is that people only reach their "level of incompetence" due to arrogance or just by giving up on putting in effort. I have never seen someone humble and curious underperforming for long.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI don't take that meaning from it. To me the message is just that in many cases, up is a stupid direction to go. The hierarchies we use to organize the world are a blindness to be overcome, not a set of goals to be pursued.
- numpy-thagoras 2y agoIt's actually embarrassing to Vancouver's organizational culture that this is where the Peter Principle was identified using case examples. In many ways, that prevailing set of attitudes that were identified as deeply problematic and inefficient have exploded into a city-wide culture problem. There are so many firms that just muddle along, it's a miracle they do as well as they do. The upside is that small and efficient firms, grounded in meritocracy, can do a decent job competing with these companies (provided they can get any ins with vendors, clients, etc.)
- coolhand2120 2y agoI work for a FANG level company and when a person is promoted to a higher position and it doesn't work out they'll get let go or moved back to another position, I've seen it happen multiple times and it's happened to me personally. This isn't their decision, higher ups demand performance. This "principle" seems to ignore this completely: that employees are regularly evaluated for performance. I don't see that addressed at all in the telling of this story. Yearly performance reviews and KPIs are a thing for most professionals. When people underperform and performance is the norm the rest of the machine will correct. I'm sure in more dysfunctional or institutionalized orgs are going to work differently, but it only takes a few empirical examples for me to just completely discount this as something to expect. I believe the research that proves this is likely flawed as well.
- rapjr9 2y agoHere's a corrollary to the Peter Principle: Even if you avoid promotion your bosses will continue to heap more responsibility on you without raising your pay so that eventually you'll have more work than it is humanly possible to do and will by definition become functionally incompetent.
- 486sx33 2y agoKind of ironic that this is on the cbc site. The CBC probably has the most people in any facility I can think of which everyone there is incompetent but stays for the pay and the fact they subscribe to the politics and the union of the place.