Peter Principle

The Peter Principle is a thesis by Laurence J. Peter, stating that " in a hierarchy [ ... ] each employee to [ tends ] to rise up to his level of incompetence " (English: "In a hierarchy every employee Tends to rise to his level of incompetence. "). It was with their own notes, formulated together with Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle, which appeared at William Morrow, New York 1969. The book is a classic of North American management literature.

The Peter Principle

Peters 's thesis is that each member of a sufficiently complex hierarchy is conveyed until it has reached the measure of his absolute inability, which is usually the maximum of the personal career ladder marked and can fail other promotions. Peter: " After a certain time each position will be occupied by an employee who is unable to do its job. "

The only restriction is that the hierarchy be high enough to say, must contain sufficient hierarchy levels. In the book of Peter and Hull many examples of hierarchies in business and administration and the inability of working there, are described. His experience gained in hierarchies, Peter primarily from the Canadian school administration.

Furthermore, the models of the " silent sublimation " and described " lateral arabesque ". In the former, a promotion of a known unfit employee is only therefore carried out in order to trigger an incentive among the other employees that you yourself also it can create, thereby stabilizing the hierarchy takes place in the latter about titles or departments be created without skills, which previously did not exist to virtually " outsource " an incompetent employee. In Germany such a non-functional representation function is called " Frühstücksdirektor ".

The distribution of the levels of incompetence is Peter on the basis of Gaussian distributed: This raises the question of who does the work in such a hierarchy. Peter is of the opinion that not all at the same time reach their level of incompetence. Due to the employees who have not yet climbed its highest level, something is done: " The work is done by the employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. "

It concludes with the proposition that one should perhaps use more useful on the avoidance of a career, his energy.

Importance for the sociology

In his own words Peter and Hull developed with their formulation a new subject: the Hierarchiology. This statement must be attributed to the ironic and humorous tone of the work probably because it is based on no more professional statement. In fact, Peter and Hull illuminate a set of problems of human resources. Jon Bill Berry, a professor at the Open University in Britain, lists three perspectives that are " frivolous, despite the permeability of the phrase" in the professional world of meaning.

Firstly, the observation opens up the question of why people seek positions whose requirements they are not grown. So the question touches on the motivation mechanisms that drive individuals to seek an unsatisfactory position. The second question is about the weaknesses of selection for promotion in organizations, so about who is selected for a vacant position, and the reasons are mentioned for this selection or really exist. The third called by Bill Berry viewing approach deals with the shortcomings of vocational education and training, which actually should produce the skills that are required to fulfill a work item.

Example

A gifted teacher is promoted to principal, as he has done a very good job. However, it now calls for the administrative work, his talent for dealing with children he can barely use.

After Bill Berry three questions can now be formulated:

• Why did the teacher put the emphasis on promotion? ( Personal motives, income, etc. )
• Who chose him, and what were the reasons for this selection before? ( Sympathy, seniority, results, ...)
• What training or education has been tendered to the teacher and why no satisfactory result was achieved?

Criticism

Karl E. Weick formulated in 1979 Thor Gates postulate of reasonable complexity. In this he differs research results on accuracy, generality and simplicity. The Peter Principle is presented as a typical representative of a simple general - research, lacked accuracy. For a reasonable representation of the entire problem area would therefore additional findings are used.

Effect story

Directed by Ulrich Gerhardt 2008, production of the Hessischer Rundfunk was The Peter Principle with the speakers Hans Peter Hall wax, Graham F. Valentine and Dagmar Manzel.