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ANNOTATION:
Incorrect observation
Having worked for the old AT&T monopoly which had more levels of management than any other bureacracy in the world, with an employee-managment ration of 2:1, I can say that the Peter Principle is not based upon sound observation. Then having worked for the second largest employer in the USA, the Federal government, I also observed that the Peter Principle is unsound. No employee is ever promoted because that employee was competent or good at the position to which they were initially hired. No one is promoted up the hierarchy because of good job performance. Promotions are based solely upon sexual activity within the managerial group in control and nepetism. Problems are solved by contracting the issue with consultants who simply charge an arm and a leg to give back suggestions from the employees, which the management could have gotten for free if they ever bothered to talk with those employeed within the problem area. The Federal bureacacy has a slightly different approach depending upon the agency/department. Competent persons are hired from the Office of Personell Management (OPM) register with a 12 month probationary period. The competent probationay employee then proceeds to resolve the problem and bring order to the chaos. However, when the work is done, usually before the end of the 12 month probationary period, the employee is then fired with the Federal agency alleging "poor job perforance." The supervior with the problem area keeps his/her job, which is no more than a prostitute on-call for their superior managers, and the probationary employee is stigmatized as a poor unproductive employee and their career is ended. Even where the lives of the public and employees are endanger from the company or Federal agency, this is how bureaucracy really works. L. Peter must have been wearing rose-colored glasses when he made his observations.
Author: Unknown
Date: Dec 2, 2001REPLY: Is incompetence an aim ? Dellīs example.
In some companies incompetenece does not only exist , but is encouraged to obtain low quality low cost mass production.
Dell Computer for example promotes and mantains incompetent people in management or higher positions, and tends to hire incompetent people and fire or not promote competent people.
Is Dell therefore taking into consideration the Peter Principle ?
No not at all, because they mob on the remaining people, untill they stop doing a quality work and focus on low quality quantity work.
They think their low cost modell is so good that it works without the consideration of who does the job.
By hiring incompetent and potential incompetent people who may fit in their structure, they want to keep costs low and preserve the structure or hierachy.
In reality they are spending millions in indirect costs related to inefficient hiring.
One thing they do well is to promote incompetent people who do not pose problems into manager positions.
As the sistem works, they do not need change.
To promote change somebody has to describe the problem in order to search for a good solution.
Normally problems are not desired and leave the incompetent management unprotected.
So managers fire the competent people who are able to identifie problems and find a solution.
If there is no identified problem, there is no problem, and so the managers incompetence is hidden.
Competent people are hard to manage when you are incompetent.
So , you fire them or change them by incompetent ones.
The effect of this is that the future will be very unstable, and the company will reach itīs level of incompetence.
Most probably at the same time the merge of HP and COMPAQ may reach a new horizon of competence.
The Peter principle fits perfect into Dell and icompetence becomes an aim.
Author: thomas_vn (thomas_vn[ at ]hotmail.com)
Date: Aug 14, 2002REPLY: So do you wanna be incompetent to be placed in the management position?
Let say in an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank.
So maybe the ones who in the higher rank may be incompetent (or not competent enough to surpass that level to go to a higher level), but they are the MOST COMPETENT ones for those places compared to other ones in the company. If you are not talented enough, the incompetence of you will be shown in an early time when you are still at a rather low position, you will stuck in that position have no chance to promote.
Author: thomas_vn (thomas_vn[ at ]hotmail.com)
Date: Aug 14, 2002REPLY: So do you wanna be incompetent to be placed in the management position?
Let say in an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank.
So maybe the ones who in the higher rank may be incompetent (or not competent enough to surpass that level to go to a higher level), but they are the MOST COMPETENT ones for those places compared to other ones in the company. If you are not talented enough, the incompetence of you will be shown in an early time when you are still at a rather low position, you will stuck in that position have no chance to promote.
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