Peter principle

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The Peter principle (also incapacity principle ) is a thesis by Laurence J. Peter , which states that "in a hierarchy [...] every employee [tends] to rise to his level of incapacity". It was formulated with his own notes together with Raymond Hull in the book The Peter Principle , which was published in 1969 by William Morrow in New York. It is one of the classics of North American management literature .

The Peter Principle

Peter's thesis is that any member of a sufficiently complex hierarchy will be promoted as long as they are successful in their position. However, if the requirements of the new position exceed the skills, no further promotions will be made. Conversely, members whose skills would be suitable for a higher position get stuck in the lower levels where they are less successful: As a result, the personal maximum of the career ladder usually marks the degree of maximum inability within the hierarchy. Peter states: "After a certain period of time, every position is filled by an employee who is unable to fulfill his task."

The only restriction is that the hierarchy is high enough, i.e. it must contain enough hierarchy levels. The book by Peter and Hull describes many examples of hierarchies in business and administration, as well as the incompetence of those employed there. Peter has his concrete experience with hierarchies mainly from the Canadian school administration.

The models of "noiseless sublimation" and the "lateral arabesque" are also described. In the first-mentioned model, an employee who is known to be incompetent is only promoted because an incentive is to be triggered among the other employees that everyone can also be promoted. This stabilizes the hierarchy. With the latter, for example, titles or departments without competencies are created that did not exist before in order to “outsource” an incompetent employee.

Peter depicts the distribution of the levels of incompetence using the Gaussian normal distribution . This raises the question of who is doing the work in a hierarchy. Peter believes that not all of them reach their level of incompetence at the same time: "The work is done by the employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence."

It closes with the thesis that one should perhaps spend more sensibly one's energy avoiding a career.

Significance for sociology

According to their own statement, Peter and Hull developed a new subject with their formulation: hierarchology. This statement must be attributed to the ironic-humorous tone of the work, as it is not based on any further professional statement. Indeed, Peter and Hull highlight a group of human resource problems . Jon Billsberry, professor at the British Open University , lists three points of view that are important “despite the frivolous nonchalance of the formulation” in the professional world.

On the one hand, the consideration opens up the question of why people strive for positions whose demands they are not up to. The question thus touches on the motivational mechanisms that drive individuals to seek unsatisfactory positions. The second question revolves around the weaknesses of personnel selection for promotion in organizations, i.e. who is selected for a position to be filled, and the reasons that are given for this selection or that actually exist (see aptitude diagnostics ). The third approach mentioned by Billsberry deals with the inadequacies of vocational education and training , which are actually supposed to generate the skills that are required to carry out a work task .

example

A gifted teacher is promoted to headmistress because she has done a very good job so far. However, when dealing with colleagues who are now subordinate to her, she cannot shake off the tone she used to talk to her students, which does not go down well with her colleagues. In addition, she is overwhelmed by the administrative work, and she can no longer use her talent in dealing with children.

After Billsberry, three questions can now be formulated:

  • Why did the teacher try to get the promotion? ( Personal goal , income , etc.).
  • Who chose them and what were the reasons for this selection? ( Sympathy , seniority , work performance ).
  • What training was offered to the teacher and for what reasons was not a satisfactory result achieved?

criticism

Karl E. Weick formulated Thorngate's postulate of appropriate complexity in 1979 . He differentiates research results according to accuracy, generality and simplicity. The Peter principle is presented as a typical representative of a simple-general research that lacks accuracy. For an appropriate representation of the entire problem area, additional knowledge would have to be used.

See also

literature

  • Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull: The Peter Principle or the Hierarchy of the Incapable. Translated by Michael Jungblut, 12th edition, Rowohlt-TB 61351, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2001, ISBN 978-3-499-61351-7
  • Laurence J. Peter: It always gets worse. The Peter Principle in the Light of Recent Research. rororo-Sachbuch 9595, Rowohlt-TB 19595, Reinbek near Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-499-19595-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lena Patricia Lindenstruth: Careers Beyond Leadership Basics and Design Dimensions of Expert Careers in Business Practice , Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, page 19
  2. ↑ a b c Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull: The Peter principle or the hierarchy of the incompetent , Reinbek near Hamburg 1972, chapter 1
  3. ↑ English "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
  4. ↑ Peter, Hull, chapter 3.
  5. ↑ Laurence J. Peter; Raymond Hull: The Peter Principle. (Excerpt from LJ Peter, R. Hull: The Peter Principle. Souvenir, London 1994, pp. 19-27). In: Jon Billsberry (Ed.): The Effective Manager. Sage Publications & The Open University, London 1996, ISBN 0-7619-5111-3 .
  6. ↑ a b Jon Bill Berry: "There's nothing so practical as a good theory. How can theory help managers become more effective? ”In: Jon Billsberry (Ed.): The Effective Manager. Sage Publications & The Open University, London 1996, ISBN 0-7619-5111-3 .
  7. ↑ Karl. E Weick: The process of organizing. Frankfurt am Main 1995, pp. 54 ff., ISBN 978-3-518-28794-1