![]() ![]() Or to put it another way, you can rise and rise and never find the level of your incompetence.The Peter Principle describes situations in which people are promoted based on their current performance rather than the skills needed for the higher job. So there you have it, leaders: Devote yourself to continuous learning while at the same time being mindful of your natural talents and you too can avoid stagnation and self-satire. Hospital administrators and medical office staff are all integral parts to helping people obtain quality care without quite so much fainting. That doesn’t mean that if I had a passion for healthcare, I would be unable to put my aptitudes of writing, organization, and time management to use in some way. But it is not an aptitude of mine at all. Nursing is a fulfilling and well-paying career for many. In fact, simply thinking about blood too long can make the room start spinning. I would remind her I was asked not to donate blood anymore because I blacked out and vomited every time. Any time we would talk about what I wanted to go to college for, she would push me toward nursing. However, nursing is not a good career for me. It’s a career that has been wonderful for her. She’d always wanted to follow in our grandmother’s footsteps in that career. When I was in my gap year between high school and college, my older sister was a newly minted nurse. We often talk ourselves into doing work outside our best aptitudes because “that’s life,” right? Yet there are certain career fields each of us know we are not best suited for. What are you really good at?Īnother way to avoid personifying the Peter Principle should be obvious. And avoiding the Peter Principle requires devoting oneself to continuous learning. This may take some effort, but getting at the knowledge is easier than ever. You can watch or listen to lectures on your phone during your lunch break, commute, or time at the gym. In most cases, you don't have to go to night-school or pay thousands of dollars to attend a semester’s worth of classes. Many lessons are available online for free or for a nominal fee. Thankfully, continued learning is now available at our fingertips. However, heading off to a career thinking you’ve learned all you needed to know for the next 40-50 years is a sure way to find yourself stuck in a position you cannot move beyond, or even ushered into early redundancy. It might be fun to think that once we're done with school that that’s all there is to it. ![]() ![]() One way to avoid the Peter Principle in your life is to commit to continuous learning. But there are ways you can avoid the stagnation and frustration of reaching the level of career incompetence Laurence Peter so clearly defined. If you’ve been in a position where you feel you’ve run into this wall, you know how defeating it can feel. ![]() Hence, stagnation at your level of incompetence. It can also lead to resentment from folks lower in the pecking order trying to make their way up – and from colleagues burdened with some of the workload that you find yourself suddenly unable to manage.Īt the same time, you find that higher-ups who were only too happy to see you succeed before are suddenly dissatisfied with your performance. Peter and his friends are observing real corporate incompetence in action.įor an employee who has always done so well in your positions that you're promoted and entrusted with more responsibility and expectations, bumping up against your own limits is not fun. Office Space is a workplace satire that many people find to be too close to their own reality. This happens because the work consultants brought in to evaluate the company, “the Bobs,” see themselves in him. It's only when he refuses to work overtime, plays games at his desk, and incessantly misses work that he gets promoted to a managerial position. In the 1999 movie Office Space, the main character named – wait for it – Peter works hard but cannot get ahead. It’s become almost a universal inside joke. The underlying truism of the Peter Principle is so pervasive we see versions of it portrayed in movies quite often. This continues up and until the employee is put in a position where she stops performing well and is, therefore, left in a position where she is incompetent. She does well in the new role and is promoted again. The Peter Principle describes what can happen when an employee does well in one job and is subsequently promoted. But as with most effective satire, it points to an underlying truth. Peter wrote those words as satire in 1968. “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Laurence J. ![]()
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