Forty years ago, Canadian psychologist Laurence Peter (shown above) promulgated The Peter Principle. In a nutshell his maxim was this: Organizations will promote competent people to their level of maximum incompetence. In other words, if you're good at juggling, you'll get promoted to fire-eating, something you may have no aptitude for.
Well now some researchers at the University of Catania in Italy have gone Peter one better. They suggest you can promote people randomly and it will neither improve or worsen the organization's level of competence.
Read the whole thing here:
http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/foiling-the-peter-principle/?hp
3 comments:
It's all from the top. Messy, incompetent management makes for a messy, incompetent company.
Before taking on a new assignment, try looking into upper management's vehicles.
stash of unopened mail- bad accounting
fast food bags, cups- always in hurry, cuts timing close
pair of lace panties hanging from rear view mirrow - excellent fastrack program for interns
I suppose you could write a whole brief on these ideas.
I like the sound of the Italian findings. It means Peter was wrong. We are all incompetent, or, competent enough. Imagine the annual promotion lottery? What a great party that would be. Put your name in the hat and you may be the CEO. Sounds pretty fair to me. Way better than the inbreeds that run the world's biggest and clearly flagging corporations right now.
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