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The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
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Sales rank 196,019
Customers rating (based on 28 reviews)
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This book caused a storm when first published in 1969, battering up the bestseller list to #1, charming readers from Topeka to Timbuktu, and finally, brilliantly, blessedly giving the world an answer to a question that nags us all: Why is incompetence so maddeningly rampant and so vexingly triumphant? The book and the phrase it defined are now considered comedic-yet-classic cornerstones of organizational thought, and in honor of the book's fortieth anniversary, Robert I. Sutton has written a foreword introducing the book to a new generation of readers. The Peter Principle, the eponymous law Laurence Peter coined, explains that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Everyone—from the office intern to the CEO, from the low-level civil servant to a nation's president—will inevitably rise to his or her level of incompetence, if it hasn't happened already. Dr. Peter's glorious revelation explains why incompetence is at the root of everything we endeavor to do—why schools bestow ignorance, why governments condone anarchy, why courts dispense injustice, why prosperity causes unhappiness, and why utopian plans never generate utopias. With the wit of James Thurber or Mark Twain, the psychological and anthropological acuity of Sigmund Freud or Margaret Mead, and the theoretical impact of Isaac Newton or Copernicus, Dr. Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull's brilliant book explains how incompetence and its accompanying symptoms, syndromes, and remedies define the world and the work we do in it.
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| Publisher | HarperBusiness | | Release date | 04/2009 | | Availability | Usually ships in 24 hours | | Edition | Hardcover |
| | List price | $19.99 | | Our price | $13.59 (you save 32.02%) | | Used price | from $2.49 |
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 Sad, but true.
I read The Peter Principle many years ago, saw the effects, and tell people about it, but some don't believe me!
It is really sad that the problem has not been addressed and will only get worse with the resurgence of Socialism and bigger government. :(
Must read for anyone wanting to understand how incompetence occurs.
Everyone should read this book as it will provide serious insight into incompetence. Not just in the workplace but in everyday life. The book details that everyone has a certain competence level at which they might excel but at some point their abilities will not provide what is needed without something additional. Ex; why does a successful high school football coach fail as a college coach. Ex; why does a successful salesman fail as a sales manager. This book can not only prevent you from attaining your level of incompetence but it can provide you with insight on how not to promote someone into their level of incompetence.
I read the negative reviews and completely disagree with them. The book does not promote the power of negative thinking, it promotes the power of thinking. It teaches one to understand one's strengths and weaknesses and use that knowledge to determine if one is qualified to move to the next level or whether more learning and/or more skills are required. I would rather be a successful salesperson than a failed sales manager but if I know that I would fail as a sales manager, I can stay where I am at or determine and study what it would take for me to be a successful sales manager.
If the "Peter Principle" were not so valid, why are there not millions of examples available to support it. Simply look around at individual failures of people that were previously successful. And look at those who continued to become successful. The difference will be that those that continued, knew what would be required (personally and corporately) to achieve success at each next level. If you do not understand what is required then you will fail. If you do not have the necessary skills and do not or cannot obtain them, then you will fail. To me that this the overriding tenet of this book.
This book provides an outstanding look into the failings of individuals and companies and how to prevent it. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
 REFLECTIONS FROM THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINES...
Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull's book, The Peter Principle, is an oldy but a goody. First published in 1969, this satirical book explains incompetence in all human organizations with one very simple adage: "People always rise to the level of their own incompetence, and then stagnate there, preventing all useful work from being done."
To back up their theory, the authors demonstrate time and again how the skills that lead to promotion actually have nothing to do with the skills necessary for successfully accomplishing the job. For example, a great machinist may get promoted for being good with manual and spatial tasks. Seeing his ease and skill in his initial functions, he is quickly promoted to shop foreman. The reality, however, is that the skills required to be a good foreman (organizational, social and so on) are nothing like the abilities needed to cope effectively with work as a machinist. Not only does our company, then, risk losing a good machinist, it also risks gaining a poor foreman.
And on and on - Peter and Hull spare no expense in illustrating the principle of promotion beyond ones level of competence.
And then their book gets really funny. There are two chapters near the end of the book, enumerating the medical- and psychological symptoms of what the authors term "Final Placement" at the level of ones own incompetence - a level at which one is doomed to live out the rest of ones career, given that promotion is not longer possible when one blatantly doesn't have the skills to be successful at ones present placement.
Hull and Peter enumerate spurious and hilarious syndromes such as "Phonophilia" (the desire for many different telephones in a vain attempt to remain constantly connected to ones inferiors) and Papyrophilia (the belief that vaste accumulations of paper will somehow protect one from work-related errors).
These chapters I recommend reading quietly when one is home alone - if you risk reading them in a public space, prepare for questioning looks. While reading these chapters, spectators at the French unemployment office were wondering whether I was laughing or crying.
From my vantage point as a "chomeur" I now have the time and liberty to contemplate human incompetence from a very safe perch indeed, at least for the next year until my "allocations" run out !
THE PETER PRINCIPLE
GREAT BOOK EVEN IF I'M READING IT BY THE SECOND TIME AFTER 30 YEARS PLUS.
THIS RE-EDITION MUST BE READ BY THE CURRENT CEO'S THAT WERE STILL IN DIAPERS WHEN THE BOOK WAS FIRST PUBLISHED.
A prophet of the most unlikely kind
With this simple phrase on p.15 of my edition of The Peter Principle he explained nearly every problem the human species has faced as we have entered increasingly complex organizations in the development of our civilization,
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence given enough time and enough levels in the hierarchy
And the more I've thought about it, internalized it, experienced corporate hierarchy... the more I've realized that it explains everything.
A housing bubble caused by artificially low inflation rates? Some blame Greenspan but the reality is that he was just serving above his level of competence. It makes sense. America's colony in Iraq flubbed? Some blame Bush or his subordinates but the reality was that they were serving above their level of competence. We all do from time to time. We all think we are the exception.
As acquaintances enter the work force and through my own witness to the mindset of the low level employee, everyone seems to be focused primarily on ascending to the higher levels. Why? I think it is what we do as a species. It is our fate. I don't mean to dissuade blame from individuals, removing responsibility from personal action. I only intened to explain that we shouldn't expect success, we should expect blindingly stupid failure and then be pleasantly surprised when things aren't flubbed up. That's not being cynical or "realist". It is just recognizing human nature. Incompetence knows no boundaries of time or place.
The Peter Principle when published in 1969 raised a storm because many did not want to accept that they existed at their level of incompetence. Business people didn't take it seriously because it was written tounge-in-cheek with full blown laugh out loud moments. Far different from the bland, dry language they were used to while obtaining their MBAs. I thoroughly enjoyed the book because it is an opportune time for me to examine if I have already achieved my level of incompetence.
While the explanations of the Principle could easily be redundant... (the plot is summarized at the beginning as Dr. Peter states the principle) this book isn't redundant, like a Dilbert cartoon with some acute wisdom. Dr. Peter describes, through various case studies and examples, that every perceived exception to the Principle isn't really an exception at all. Complex hierarchies will see its members achieve the ominous final placement. Someday I too can reach this level.I can get stressed out while making poor decisions. I too can wear the badge of administrative "success": the ulcer.
This might all seem a bit pessimistic. A little defeatist. But not at all. The solution is to focus our species on moving forward instead of upwards. We see our cohorts in groups struggling for status on a, "treadmill to oblivion." But Dr. Peter clearly states that we can rescue ourselves by seeing where this unmindful escalation is leading us. If we focus on the quality of our situation we can achieve previously ignored success without obtaining a literal or figurative promotion.
By applying this principle to our everyday experience, we witness many byproducts. For example, the applied Peter Principle approximates that employees in a hierarchy, "do not truly object to incompetence, they merely gossip about incompetence to mask their envy of employees who have pull." ... with pull being the ability to develop a relationship with someone above you in the hierarchy who can pull you up with them. How poignant. We decry good `ol boy networks but rarely focus on the one thing that could break them up, changing our focus from output to input. I can put in a 40-50 hour work week but would I be more productive if I worked 30-35 hours? We may never know because a full-time job insists that I work 40-50 crushing and life imbalancing hours. Society has focused on input in this situation. Can we think of a better solution to this situation? I'll apply Peter's Bridge to this question: if you can't think of a better solution you have already reached your level of incompetence.
Although the observations made in the Peter Principle are obviously applicable to corporate environments, Laurence Peter made some other candid observations of society in these pages. Such as, exposing our modern caste system on p.64 and p.83 of the 2009 edition:
...we have a class system, it is based not on birth but on the prestige of the university one has attended. The graduate of an obscure college does not have the same opportunity for promotion... but as college degrees become the prerequisite for more jobs, soon everyone will have access to his or her level of incompetence.
...with incompetent handling, the test system is only a disguised form of random placement. The purpose of testing is to place the employee as soon as possible in a job which will utilize the highest competence level on his profile. Obviously, any promotion will be to an area of less competence.
Brilliant stuff that has played out over the last 30+ years just as Dr. Peter predicted.
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