Why do companies get the worst of every employee? [Part 1 of 2]
With sufficient time and levels in the hierarchy, all positions would be occupied by incompetents.
Imagine a conventional company. It has a hierarchy represented in an organization chart, it has different needs in the form of responsibilities and roles that need to be performed, usually in the form of various positions.
To work, she hires people to fill those vacancies. Let’s imagine that a person, at the beginning of his career, fills a low position in the company. Usually it requires some basic ability of execution.
If the person is competent in what is required and succeeds in his/her role, this performance tends to be recognized. And just as it happens in all conventional companies, people are promoted to a position according to their outcome in the previous position.
Let’s assume that in this new position this person needs to have advanced task execution capabilities. And by being able to perform, and having its result recognized, he/she continues to be promoted. Now, for a position that also requires basic planning capabilities. Then to another position, which asks for negotiation skills. The person continues being promoted while being capable in what is demanded.
Imagine now that, by being competent in all positions, the person is promoted to a position that requires leadership, people and conflict management. But that person does not master these competencies. It has reached its level of incompetence, according to Laurence J. Peter, the creator of Peter’s Principle.
“Every new member in a hierarchical organization tends to climb the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence.” — The Peter Principle
This example is extremely common, and the reader is probably able to recognize cases with whom he/she has worked, or has even seen him/herself in that position. And the frustration that emerges is completely coherent: incompetence is inevitable. No one will be competent in all activities, just as for any position there will be someone who is not competent to fill it. Each person’s profile will favor different skills. Not being competent in another position does not mean that the position is more difficult, but that it requires abilities that the person does not possess.
The big problem is that the operation of conventional organizations today leads to this trap. Not climbing the hierarchy means not being recognized, successful, well-paid and even seen as a bad professional. Refusing a promotion, in many companies, is seen as a lack of motivation and can lead to dismissal shortly thereafter. And once he/she reaches his/her level of incompetence, the person in question can no longer advance in the hierarchy, but is also not “demoted” — something rare to do in any company. So he/she gets stuck in a job where he/she performs poorly and is most likely frustrated.
The other alternative to get out of this limbo is the dismissal. But if the person is competent in his/her position, he/she is analyzed by its result. If he/she is not competent, he/she is analyzed by his/her effort. The person will be judged by how soon he/she gets to work, how nice and proactive he/she is, by being a good person, etc. The reader probably agrees from personal experience, that only incompetence is not enough to dismiss a person.
The truth is that there are several reasons why the organization does not simply discards the incompetent employee, either by firing or excluding. Each reader who has ever been inside such a structure can no doubt imagine a list of examples, but some of the most common ones are:
- Lots of accumulated knowledge on the operation of the company;
- High investment in the person’s formation;
- Good relationship with the people responsible for the decision;
- Good relationship with other employees;
If there is a resignation from the organization or from the person himself, it leaves him/her with a bad impression among others, as if he/she is not as capable as he/she was during his/her career. But, in fact, the real cause of the appearing of this incompetence is the change of capacities required of the person and created by the hierarchical structure.
The books of Laurence Johnston Peter explore various reflections and observations on Peter’s Principle that go beyond what I am bringing here. But the basic idea is that everything that works tends to be tested until it fails. Even people. Which is great. Innovation comes from there. The problem comes when, after testing, we can not choose to put people in the role they perform best. The problem is the hierarchical organization.
In part 2 of this text, I invite the reader to reflect on some possible ways to break the cycle of incompetence and frustration generated by this form of organization.
Every document deserves and should be problematized. Analyzed to whom it was destined, as well as the social conjuncture in which the author lived. No writing is neutral, regardless of the ideology that permeates it. I advise that the attentive reader does not disregard this observation, as it will ensure that no anachronisms or any other possible confusion is committed.
I’m an experiential educator, group facilitator, and organizational designer. Supporting cooperation and anti-hierarchy.
