“Every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence” — Laurence Peter
In 1969, Peter and Hull published a rather tragic realization: In a hierarchy, every employee is doomed to becoming incompetent. This means that you will end your career doing a job you suck at. So much for finding meaningful work!
This stems from Peter’s principle. Since your boss promotes you based on current performance, if you are competent at your job, you will advance to a new role. If you perform well in that role, you will advance further.
Advance — Perform — Advance again.
This cycle will continue until you reach a role in which you don’t perform well. Because you don’t deliver, your boss doesn’t promote you, and you get stuck in incompetence. Given enough time, any company will reach a state of lowest performance.
Economists and management researchers have struggled to find a system that counters the Peter Principle while preserving the self-esteem of employees. Some proposed to establish ‘de-promotions’ and bring people back to a level at which they perform well. Others offered to purely and simply fire people if they get stuck in a certain position.
