The Peter Principle gained awareness and popularity after Laurence Peter published a book by that name in 1972. The core concept was that people will rise (be promoted) to the level of their incompetency in an organization and therefore many people in their current positions were incompetent to be there. Once one is deemed incompetent, they will not be promoted further so they linger at their level of incompetence creating messes.
There are some serious issues with this concept, notably the pervasive assumption that success means being promoted. Driver and Brousseau at USC presented their work on four Career Concepts each of which had different definitions of success. Linears want to be promoted and view increasing power and status as success. Experts however seek to be craftsmen and artisans and eschew being promoted into jobs they don’t like. Spirals are motivated by constant learning and get bored on the way to the top and will actually give up power and status for the sake of learning and new experience. Transitories only work to support some other love like sailing around the world or climbing the Himalayas. ALL have important and different contributions to make to an organization. Sadly, IME most Linears assume everyone is like them and make the rules to benefit Linears.
Every person in every seminar I’ve ever taught all over the world has seen an excellent Expert ruined by promotion into management. Wise Linears will recognize and reward the Experts who do all the work, the Spirals who innovate, and the Transitories that allow them to expand and contract the workforce during economic variations.
There is a self-assessment tool on my website at Level Three Leadership if you have more interest.
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