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I was pondering on this, so I went out and got a quote for informational purposes of discussion.
I think that it's obvious in its business applications but, on a more serious note, and since our American agenda is more and more one of business interests, it seems that this principle has shown itself in our inability to maintain a higher standard of respectability in the world. I cannot think of any other reasonable or rational explanation for it.
Thoughts?
The Peter Principle is the principle that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence".
It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter. It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. This principle can be modelled and has theoretical validity for simulations.[1] Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence". Managing upward is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly "manage" superiors in order to limit the damage that they end up doing.
I think that it's obvious in its business applications but, on a more serious note, and since our American agenda is more and more one of business interests, it seems that this principle has shown itself in our inability to maintain a higher standard of respectability in the world. I cannot think of any other reasonable or rational explanation for it.
Thoughts?