Yesterday I mentioned the Peter Principle, by Laurence J. Peter, a prominent Canadian education scholar. It prompted a call from a young (23) friend asking how accurate it is now, considering it was written nearly 50 years ago .

It wasn’t that “Ben” disagreed with the premise, especially considering his boss, he just thought that there should be more current information.

And there is. So for Ben and others who wonder, here are links to more current information and research in chronological order.

First is Bob Sutton’s marvelous foreword written for the Principle’s 40^th anniversary edition in 2009.

My father loved The Peter Principle because it explained why life could be so maddening—and why everyone around you seems, or is doomed to become, incompetent.

Second, in August, 2014, from Rob Asghar, a good, somewhat depressing, overview of the book, along with a few words of hope.

We’re human, in the end. The Tony Robbins types try to sell us the life-hacks, the superfood diets, the meditation techniques and the mantras to transfigure us from mortal to immortal. That only sets us up to fail in a different and delusional way.

Next, in December, an article in HBR looked at the Principle from the other side — and it only took ten years to happen.

This seems surprising since of course every manager is a subordinate as well. And indeed in The Subordinate’s Predicaments, Case Western Reserve management professor Eric Neilsen and then-doctoral candidate Jan Gypen make that point explicitly.

In April this year, Rodd Wagner described research that proved the Principal was indeed real and ways to circumvent it. Although the research focuses on sales, it is applicable to any career field.

Three professors – Alan Benson of the University of Minnesota, Danielle Li of MIT and Kelly Shue of Yale – analyzed the performance of 53,035 sales employees at 214 American companies from 2005 to 2011. During that time, 1,531 of those sales reps were promoted to become sales managers.

I hope this info (and I’m sure there is plenty more for the searching) is useful to Ben and all those like him, who are either struggling with a very real Peter Principle boss or working hard to avoid becoming one.

Image credit: Barnes and Noble

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2018 at 1:15 am and is filed under Hiring, Motivation, Personal Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: HBR, hire, how to hire, peter principle, robert sutton
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