Is there truth to the Peter Principle, the idea postulated by psychologist Laurence Peter and playwright Raymond Hull in 1969 that people in an organization eventually get promoted to the level of their own incompetence?
In a provocative article for the December 17 issue of
The New Scientist, UK-based writer Mark Buchanan suggests that if subsequent academic studies are to be believed, the Peter Principle is quite possibly true. “The longer a person stays at a particular level in an organisation,” he explains, “the more most measures of their performance fall—including subjective evaluations and the frequency and size of pay rises and bonuses. It is a finding entirely consistent with the idea that people eventually become bogged down by their own incompetence.”
Buchanan then cites the findings of experts who have attempted to find an explanation for the phenomenon, particularly Stanford University economist Edward Lazear, who used mathematical models, and University of Catania (Italy) physicist Alessandro Pluchino and his colleagues, who used simulations of promotion dynamics.
Read Mark Buchanan’s “Why Your Boss is Incompetent” in The New Scientist now!
