Why Do Incompetent People Get Promoted?
Have you ever looked at a boss and wondered "Who promoted you?" or "How have you not been fired by now?" or “How have you survived this long accomplishing practically nothing?”
Well, the Peter Principle just may be able to explain that. It states, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
“In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
OK, it’s not named to honor an incompetent manager named Pete. It was Dr. Laurence J. Peter, a former professor, who created and offered it via a satirical book 'The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong,'
So, what is the Peter Principle?
We do a job well, we're promoted. We do that job well, we're promoted again. This happens in succession until we eventually rise to a position that we can no longer do well -- or our level of incompetence. There, we either stagnate, revert back to a lower position, or are fired.
Often though, they don’t get fired. And there’s the rub!
And you can’t blame them entirely either! It’s the fault of whoever promoted them there!
A Forbes article laid down the core principles offered in the book. Here’s a truncated version. But you may click here to access the full article.
1. When you’re great at something, you might get rewarded with a promotion … into something you’re terrible at. A typical example, Peter said, is if you’re a great rule-follower who suddenly is placed in charge of making rules and decisions. You either fail or trample on your people.
2. Once you’re promoted to your level of incompetence, you probably won’t get fired and replaced with someone more competent. Instead, others will work around you. Why aren’t you fired? Perhaps because you probably know too much about your boss’ business to be booted out too casually. Or because people have sympathy for you because you’re working so many hours. Or because the people who are supposed to judge you have reached their own level of incompetence…
3. When you’re competent, even a dummy can see your output. And you’re being rewarded for that output. But once you’ve reached incompetence, there’s little or no output from you. At this point, you’ll be judged by your input—by how early you arrive at the office, by how cheerful you are, by how you’re a good citizen. Rest assured (ADDED: and for you ‘Peters’ out there – you can relax!), incompetence is usually not enough to get you fired…
4. Incompetence is perhaps inevitable. So you have to decide whether you want to rush toward the oblivion of Final Placement (it does have its share of perks and benefits, after all). Or you have to decide whether you want to forestall it as long as you can.
5. If you do decide to rush into a sterile future, Peter said you need to exercise the power of “pull”—by attaching yourself to superiors who can help pull you up quickly. And he offered some unnervingly witty advice on how to manipulate them into a promotion.
6. If you’re smart enough to realize that you don’t want to be pulled up the ladder to career limbo, you’ll find a happy place where you can be productive and useful, and you’ll fight like hell to avoid getting promoted.
So, if you think at this point that it seems hopeless, actually it’s not.
The Peter Principle is very complex and has plagued many companies for ages. It is very difficult to solve or avoid this condition but we must do something.
If you are an HR Business Partner, here’s what you can (and should!) do:
1. Prevent or minimize. Ensure there’s a defined “job requirements” for the position where people are being promoted to. This gives you the “chance” to assess a candidate accurately. It reduces the risk of creating a Peter Principle Promotion (I fondly call ‘P-cube’). This is why I have upset quite a number of managers who wanted their “best performers” to be promoted yet they felt I was being a pain in their a*s. Actually, I’m doing them a great service. They just didn’t know. There were several occasions when they pressed on with their recommendations like bulldozers. People left the organization – either the promoted or those who reported to the promoted. Leaders should understand that this is a SERIOUS situation.
2. Identify and Act.
a. Assess your organization in the usual HR matters but place special emphasis on identifying leaders showing symptoms of the Peter Principle “Syndrome.”
b. Define an action plan to “cure” the situation. Here are your options.
i. Keep the employee in current place. Avoid this as much as possible.
ii. Develop the employee. Train. Coach. Mentor. Guide.
iii. Transfer the employee. Check for job-fit. There are just jobs that are just not “for you.”
iv. Evaluate and re-design the job. You can’t make a square peg fit a round hole. But there are times when you can drill a new hole so the peg can fit. It’s not easy. But it doesn’t have to be rocket science as well.
v. Manage out. When all else has failed it is time to let the employee walk out the door. It is healthy for all concerned in the long-term. Do it with respect and with as much grace as possible. Be as humane as you can. Don't just take away tasks from them and wait for them to feel that they are "unwanted." Tell them that it is most beneficial for the employee and the company that they separate. If you do this with great care, tact and respect - the employee will thank you later for the action and for being candid.
Here's why it(v.) is beneficial for everyone:
1. The organization frees up budget for an employee who turns up results.
2. The employee is freed to find a work that he loves and where he finds satisfaction.
3. Morale is expected to go high for employees in that team. Average performance of the team rises as well. But more importantly, the organization gets a strong message that it will not tolerate incompetence.
4. Finally, HR benefits from it as well. (1) We get fewer grumblings from people who complain about the incompetent employee; (2) If the employee plays a leadership role, we will get fewer problems from the team and thus, less headaches – and better sleep.
Let’s end this with an excerpt from the introduction to Peter’s book which is also what we can teach to all employees. But which we must teach ourselves first.
“If man is going to rescue himself from a future of intolerable existence, he must first see where his unmindful escalation is leading him. He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence.
Man must realize that improvement of the quality of experience is more important than the acquisition of useless artifacts and material possessions.”