The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle is this:

“In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

Though it is intended to be humorous, it is an interesting idea. It describes how people rise through a hierarchy until they can no longer excel in their position and cannot rise to the next level. At that
point, the individual has risen to the level of their incompetence.

Let’s say this principle is true and apply this to a fictional company. After a few decades, it would seem that nearly all of the upper management that have put in a significant amount of time at this company will have risen to their level of incompetence. Where does this leave the worker bees who could almost certainly do a better job if given the opportunity? It would be tempting to say that the worker bees would have also risen to their level of incompetence, but I doubt this would be the case. Instead, the thoroughly incompetent upper management would probably be completely unable to recognize any real competence surrounding them. This would mean that the same aloof dolts at, and near, the top of the hierarchy would keep getting shuffled around laterally or even moved up by their incompetent superiors while good, knowledgeable senior staffers and managers get left in the lurch.

I think this is why Dilbert is funny and, in some ways, sad.

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What prompted this post was my first viewing of the American version of “The Office”, now in syndication. The original, British version is far superior.

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