The Peter Principle: Why People Are Promoted Beyond Their Competence

I used to believe my parents and believe my teachers and how that you should have respect for your elders and betters and that the men upstairs knew what they were doing.

And I was taught that the more I would know, the further I would go.

So I stayed in school. I got a degree, eventually got a teaching certificate. I went out to teach.

And the first school I taught in, the principal was primarily concerned that the children did not step on the rose beds.

And education seemed to be the furthest thing from his mind.

I saw teachers and administrators that seemed incompetent, and I started to question some of these ideas I had.

And as I looked around me, I saw a sign on the door that said, "Emergency exit.

Authorized personnel only." I wondered who'd written that.

But then later I saw another sign that said, "Emergency exit.

Not to be used under any circumstances."

I went to a library looking for a book, and I noticed that all the books on pregnancy were stored on a shelf down by the floor.

Probably the people that needed them most couldn't even see And then as I looked around, I saw that very often competent people, a competent individual, was promoted to something he couldn't do.

I saw a competent mechanic where I used to take my car.

He was terrific. He was very responsible, very precise, knew exactly what he was doing, so they made him foreman.

Now he's no longer fixing cars, and he's trying to manage other, the other mechanics.

And he's very incompetent. He doesn't do this well.

He's really a competent mechanic and an incompetent foreman.

I saw competent engineers getting promoted to supervisory positions. They were great at dealing with things and incompetent at dealing with people.

And over and over again, I saw this, this phenomenon, and I called it the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle states very simply that in any hierarchy, an employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence, and that's where he stays.

And one of the biggest problems in United States, the problem that most psychiatrists are dealing with today, is a problem called the identity crisis, where people have lost themselves in the hierarchy. They've done what they've been told.

They're following the rules. They're being promoted.

And then all of a sudden they find themselves wondering, "What am I?

Who am I? Where am I?" But mainly, "Who am I?"

And they're, they're lost in the process, the process of being promoted and trying to conform to what the hierarchy expects. They've lost their own identity.

This is a major problem.

I think I'd like to make it clear that I'm not saying people shouldn't accept promotions.

Some people should. Some people enjoy power, enjoy authority, enjoy responsibility, and others find it a burden.

It drags them down. It makes them feel that they're responsible for more than they should be. Any, any boss, manager, or chief executive who spends a lot of time reminiscing about the good old days, complaining about the quality of his employees,

complaining that the competition is too strong and so on, is not really enjoying the challenge of that job.

Should we go throughout life being conditioned to keep on accepting that next reward, to keep on running like a squirrel in a cage, to keep on striving for that carrot on the stick?

Or should we use our ability to be rational and think about, "Where am I going?

What is the purpose of my life? Is reward through promotion the reward for me, or are there other rewards through other aspects of living?"

This is the question. I can't answer for you.

I try to answer it for myself. Each individual can use his ability, his rational ability, to analyze his situation.

This is where the Peter Principle, written as humor, as satire, to help people laugh at the problem, can actually help people make some of these very important decisions in their own lives.