[LI] Peter Principle revisited; If your boss could do your job

Two items posted to LinkedIn, relating to job roles and relationships, with particular attention to the “Peter Principle.”

Incompetence Rains, Er, Reigns: What The Peter Principle Means Today,” by Rob Asghar, Forbes, 14 August 2014 (posted June 2019)

Rereading Lawrence Peter’s classic The Peter Principle, & thought I’d share Rob Asghar’s summary (Forbes 2014).

How do Peter’s observations re hierarchy & promotions hold in, say, today’s tech giants?

(my comment)

Here’s an interesting short article by Alex Tabarrok (2019) on an experiment testing the Peter Principle (“looking at promotions and performance of some 40,000 sales workers across 131 firms”). https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/05/the-peter-principle-tested.html

If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work,” by Benjamin Artz, Amanda Goodall, & Andrew J. Oswald, Harvard Business Review, 29 December 2016 (posted July 2019)

Interesting research confirming what might seem like a common-sense finding. But wondering about relationship with the classic “Peter Principle.”

Does this tendency (1) amplify the potential for promoting people based on their current competency to levels they can’t handle (“final placement”), and/or (2) mute attention to shortcomings of a boss in “final placement” (hey, at least s/he knows the work s/he’s supervising)?


Other blogs > LinkedIn > LinkedIn articles & posts, 2019 (Jan-Jul)

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