Sometimes during early 2000, while scaling up our operations, I found
a unique phenomenon affecting our organisation. People who were proven
performers were moved up & given additional responsibilities with
larger teams. I found that most of those so promoted, started showing
signs of failing in their performances, either at a personal level or as
managers.
Despite my best efforts at mentoring & guiding my top
team, this phenomenon was becoming something of a a ritual. The results
were extremely surprising & foxing with no credible answer. Around
2007 I came across an article on Peter Principle & I found the
observation very intriguing & interesting. I read a lot on it &
while there had been no research done to prove the truth behind the
principle, the observation made by Dr. Laurence J. Peter & Raymond
Hull and published in their book "The Peter Principle" in 1968, was
actually at work within my company.
Peter Principle is an
observation that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee will
rise or get promoted to his or her level of incompetence. It is based on
the notion that employees will get promoted as long as they are
competent, but at some point will fail to get promoted beyond a certain
job because it has become too challenging for them. Employees rise to
their level of incompetence and stay there. Over time, every position in
the hierarchy will be filled by someone who is not competent enough to
carry out his or her new duties.
Dr Peter clarified that it was not
necessarily incompetence at the new position of the employee. Every new
role requires new competencies & skills, which an otherwise
competent employee may not possess, hence the failure. He succulently
sums up his observation as “the cream rises until it sours”.
While
Peter Principle remains a concept in management theory & there has
been no research done to support this observation, I have personally
seen it at work within my own & many client organisations with
repeated frequency. Managers promoted sequentially over a period of
time, do tend to rise to their “level of incompetence” till promotions
are no longer possible.
This principle is fraught with a catch-22
situation. Performers in any organisation expect growth, both in terms
of role & responsibilities, else stagnation followed by churn sets
in. With each subsequent promotion an employee heads closer to his level
of incompetence. Promotion that leads to a slide in performance has a
collateral damage – loss of a previous good performer.
Not everyone agrees with this principle though. Leigh Steere, co-owner, Managing People Better LLC says "I
personally do not believe in the Peter Principle. The field of
neurolinguistic programming says that any behaviour/skill can be
learned. In other words, if a person does not already know how to do
something, he/she can be taught”.
On the other hand, Ric Morgan, professional speaker and author of “The Keys: The Textbook to a Successful Life” is a firm believer. "This
problem is so diverse and prevalent I have even seen examples of the
founder of the company being a leading example of the Peter Principle. I
know that sounds crazy, but this is exactly what happens despite the
fact that they had two things going for them: an idea that was just too
good to fail, and the ability to hire very competent people to make it
all work.
"I have even, as crazy as this sounds, found this
in people who are running or trying to start one-man shops. In this day
and age of entrepreneurship, everyone believes they can start a business
and make it succeed because they 'have the best idea that will make
them overnight millionaires.' Wrong! It's hard to look into someone's
eyes and tell them they are too incompetent to do what they have set out
to do, even if they have been doing something similar in another place,
where they had actually reached the level of incompetence espoused by
Dr. Laurence. As a business consultant, the minute I find the people who
are living examples of the Peter Principle is the minute I find the
problems in the company”.
There are those who take the mid-path. Marcia Reynolds, PsyD, author of 'Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction' says "I
have been a corporate trainer for 30 years. I don't believe you can
really measure the truth of the Peter Principle without analyzing the
training the person has had for the position they have moved into,
especially if it's a promotion.
"With each promotion the
person has to give up some of the things they have done before and take
on new tasks, responsibilities and perspectives (including work values).
What they did before will not ensure their success in the present.
However, if the person doesn't get good mentoring, training and a
manager who can support the shift, they are not given the tools to
succeed. They could be competent if given the chance."
My
personal experience is that training & mentoring cannot be sustained
over years & subsequent promotions. With experience & age,
mindsets & resistance to learning sets in & I have seen some of
the senior-most & finest professionals being rendered
“un-trainable”. So strong has been their belief in their own strengths
& past knowledge that they fail to see the looming disaster leading
to the sudden end of an illustrious career. I have interacted with so
many such corporate stalwarts, once brilliant but now laid-off, just
because they attained their level of incompetence in their last role.
Can
the Peter Principal be overcome? I believe it can be. Though there have
been many articles written on this I haven’t really found any authentic
answer anywhere. Looking back at my own experience I feel that the
first thing to do before moving on to a new role, is to “act like the
person you want to become”. What is needed is a personal transformation
from who you are to what you have become or wish to become. For a start
one must be willing to give up the person one is, no matter how
successful, because some of the skill sets needed in a new role will be
different from the ones in which the person is finding success
currently. Find out the challenges, drawbacks & skill sets for a new
role & start acting the way you want to be or required to be &
soon enough it is possible to become the person you need to be.
The
biggest challenge to this is the lethargy that most people face to get
out of one’s comfort zone. It isn’t easy to stop being the person you
are at a successful point of time & become another person you wish
to be at another level. It can be done through self-realisation &
actively seeking mentoring, which must begin with a clear motive—a
serious desire to change, learn & imbibe. Unfortunately not many
people remain students for life & start resisting change & that
is when the slide begins when a role change takes place.
As a way of
managing this curious principle within GRASSIK, I advise people looking
to be promoted in the future to mentally tear up their current job
role. I give them the key deliverables for success in the new role &
ask them to mentally switch to the new role & live out the same
under my guidance for a few months before they actually move to the
enhanced role. I usually give them the option to choose the time of
their promotion, at which time they are more attuned mentally to achieve
a better successful transition. But problems always remain, for
managers are never perfect. If they were, management principles would
not exist.
About the Author:
Rajeev is the
Founder Director of Grassik search Pvt Ltd, one of the country’s finest
& oldest search firms, which he established in 1993. He has over 22
years of experience in executive search, executing CXO level searches
across industries. Amongst the pioneers of the executive search
industry, he is a respected career coach, guide & a mentor who has
helped people transition careers successfully across industries &
roles. An expert change & innovation driver, he has been
instrumental in making GRASSIK the most relevant & successful search
firm in the country today, successfully managing the fast changing
client expectations & candidate aspirations.
