If I were ever asked to give a college commencement address, I would probably not discuss the Peter Principle. Mostly because I would be concerned with being discouraging to those just starting their careers. However, it’s something that I wish I had a better understanding of before starting my career. The Peter Principle basically states that, in a hierarchical organization, people tend to be promoted up to a position that exceeds their competency level. Here’s how it works, what follows from it, and how to work with it:
How It Works
An individual who excels at a position is promoted up until they are no longer productive enough to be promoted. This is the point where the requirements of the position exceed their level of competency.
What Follows
In organizations where the Peter Principle is alive and well, you have the following:
Most people are incompetent at their position.
Those who are competent at their position, are managed by people who aren’t. This often leads to them having to “manage up”, which can be both awkward and frustrating.
Those who aren’t competent at their position, and are managing those who are, feel threatened by them.
Job satisfaction is low.
How to Work With It
Working with the Peter Principle is not easy, as you can imagine. Here are some ways to work with the Peter Principle when it’s working against you:
Empathize with those who are suffering from being promoted beyond their competency. Whether they are admitting it to themselves or not, they are questioning their value to the organization. Do what you can to show them their value. Ask questions, and get advice from them. Eventually, when trust builds up, they will listen to your ideas. This leads to the next piece of advice.
Be open minded. Even when someone is struggling with their position that doesn’t mean that they don’t have valuable insights to give you. Learn from them.
Prepare, so that you don’t become promoted beyond your competency. Don’t just understand your own position well, start to understand the next position you want. That way, when you get there, you won’t be completely surprised by the challenges of the position. Ideally, you’ll want to find mentors to help you with this.
Collaborate. You’re not going to always be the smartest person in the room. So, don’t try. Instead, try to leverage the collective intelligence in the room. When the Peter Principle is strong in an organization, everyone feels threatened. The best antidote to that is constructive collaboration where everyone gives each other mutual respect.
Have a back bone. When a boss or fellow workers feel threatened, they are going to try to pass on the pain. They’ll do this by essentially convincing you that you aren’t doing your job well unless you are taking on some of theirs (obviously not in those exact words). Be helpful, but don’t be taken advantage of. If you have to, explain the challenges of what you are working on and the time that those things take. Explain that you can’t take on further work, but will be happy to help them devise a strategy for doing theirs. This will help you understand things you can do within you own position that will help them with theirs.
Conclusion
Not only am I sure that the Peter Principle is itself an over simplification of what actually goes on out there, but I’m also sure that my understanding of it is incomplete. What I do know is that I’ve had to work with it in virtually every organization I’ve been a part of. As an organization, there are ways to consciously orchestrate a culture that limits the effects of things like the Peter Principle. I plan on exploring those in future posts.
What do you think?
I’m interested in hearing what you, the reader, thinks about this post, and the Peter Principle in general. What experiences have you had with it, and how did you handle the issues that have arisen from it?
I feel like I left this guy out in my last post, and shouldn’t have. Here’s the original:
Here’s the remix:
Let’s just auto-tune everything from now on. I want to see a whole movie auto-tuned. Seriously, take the worst move ever and auto-tune it and it will be awesome.
When I was a kid, I used to pretend that my sister’s horsewhip was a sword and play Highlander by myself. I mostly dueled with inanimate objects…sometimes destructively. I most assuredly looked like a huge dork. YouTube wasn’t invented yet and this paragraph is the only proof (along with some scuffs on the wall in my parents’ basement). So, there was no one to make my antics into something awesome.
Several years ago, a young lad was inspired to do similarly. However, he was inspired by Star Wars, he taped it and it made it on to YouTube:
And, either fortunately or unfortunately for him, it went viral (Ahhh…it was almost me!). Then something cool happened. Someone made his awkwardness into awesomeness.
Recently, this happened again. And, it all started with a double rainbow. A full on double rainbow, and someone who really liked it…a lot.
And, this nice gentlemen became famous, and even went on Jimmy Kimmel.
And, yet again, someone made it awesome.
It’s amazing what an auto tuner can do. I want one permanently embedded in my voice-box so that I can sound awesome even during regular everyday conversation.
But that’s beside the point. The take home message here is:
It turns out that you can crowd source awesomeness without even asking for it, and people are so creative that they can be inspired by literally anything.
Over the course of my career I’ve interviewed a lot of software developers. I’ve also interviewed at a few places myself. Recently I was on the interviewer side of a very bad interview, and it inspired me to share a few hints that I have that I kinda thought were obvious, but evidently are not.
Here they are:
Have the right goal. This is true for almost anything, but here is how it applies to job interviews. The right goal for a job interview is not to get the job. The right goal for the job interview is successful communication between the parties involved such that the right decision is make one both ends concerning the individual coming aboard the team. Most of my advice follows from this.
Understand that this interview is just as much about your decision to come aboard as it is about their decision to offer you the job. If I ask you if you have any questions for me when I’m interviewing you, there are two things you shouldn’t do. First, don’t say “No.” Second, don’t have that look on your face that says, “Oh crap. I should probably ask something.” That communicates to me that you don’t actually understand your role in the interview. It also shows that you aren’t engaged, and probably will need spoon fed your tasks. Something I’m not interested in doing.
Be able to articulate what the companies you worked for did, the role that you played, and how you played that role. In the case of technical jobs, you’ll need to have to explain this both on a technical and higher level business level. The inability to do that communicates to me that you don’t put a lot of thought into your work, and are not going to be an articulate communicator. If the words, “I don’t remember” come out of your mouth I will probably write you off. It’s happened.
Don’t show anger or frustration with the interviewer for asking tough questions. Job interviews are a difficult thing on both ends. You have to make sure this is the right company, environment and role for you and so do I. I can’t have a film crew film you doing your job for a month and make a decision on that. This isn’t The Apprentice.
Not only show interest in the career you chose, but BE interested in the career you chose. If you can’t talk intelligently about the domain and understand its jargon, I have to assume that you’ve simply kept your head down done you specific role and collected a paycheck. As a technologist, that won’t work. Things change too quickly for that. Personally, I don’t think it’s the attitude to take for any career.
Understand that your personality is part of the package and will be weighed into the decision. Most jobs, especially software development jobs, are very team oriented. I need to know that you can work in a team without your ego getting in the way, that you can communicate well with other team members, and that you will know what questions to ask and when to ask them. The team has to be comfortable with you and you have to be comfortable with the team in order to achieve the type of openness required to achieve our goals.
At the end of the interview, you want the decision to be truly about whether you are a fit for the position, not about how you interviewed.
A few weeks ago, an esteemed executive told me that I shouldn’t admit to having someone cut my lawn, because I guess it’s something one should take a great deal of shame in. I believe this man, because he’s an extremely hard working, talented, visionary. Just ask him. Scratch that. You probably won’t need to. He’ll volunteer that information.
So, in my shame, I want to apologize. I apologize for giving a high school student a summer job and allowing him to develop a healthy work ethic. I apologize for paying him more than what he asked for, because we felt that he was under charging for his product (which is, quite frankly, amazing). I apologize for helping him save for college. And, lastly, I’m sorry I made the rash decision to hire someone to cut my grass without making sure that it was the socially acceptable thing to do.
Next time I make even the most minor life decision, I will make sure to ask a high and mighty, over educated, executive. As I lack the social aptitude and intellectual wherewithal to make such decisions on my own.
Career | Nathan | 
July 9, 2011 10:35 pm | 
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