What exactly is the Peter Principle?

The Peter Principle describes how workers who excel in bureaucratic systems are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Learn more about the Peter Principle in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know?
Front House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. There's Chuck Bryant about fall Asleep and I'm
Josh Clark. This is stuff you should know. How's it going?

(00:22):
You just went on? He Hall, I totally did. Didn't
I get the price tag? I'm a little hat. Did
you watch that as a kid? No, I never did.
That was more solid gold guy, Yeah, see that now
Big Time and Muppets. Muppets Actually I think came on
before after solid Gold, cal Burnet schell. Yeah. Yeah, My
mom was a big tribe. Me too. I thought Tim
Conway was the funniest human being. You're gonna bring up

(00:43):
to Tim Conway. Chuck always talks about Tim Conway's assess it.
It's always about Tim Conway. Tim Conway, This Tim Conway
that you know what? Never happened to Tim Conway. He
never got promoted to a job he wasn't qualified for.
We've been doing this way too long, Chuck, way too long. Together.
You can predict my every move. He can just point

(01:05):
and he knows what I'm about to do. Sometimes I
wonder if I actually do things because he's telling me
to with his mind. Yeah, tell me that power, dude. Oh,
I'd be in big trouble, he would. Yeah, so chuck, Um,
let's talk about the Peter principle. Have you ever heard
of this before? Well, I've read your article when it
was initially published a while ago, But I mean, were

(01:26):
you disappointed with it then too? I actually thought it
was better than I do now. But I see, I
grew up with this, Like my dad had this book
and it was like it was like sixties kind of
like intelligent ha ha ha kind of joke, you know,
like hotail party humor. Yeah, and I grew up around
that kind of thing, so I you know, intelligence. So uh,

(01:49):
this was like the Peter principal to me is something
that like I've known forever. So it's odd to meet
people who don't who hadn't really heard of it before. Well,
my parents were both educators and maybe, um, like I
knew nothing about business in corporate life and that kind
of thing. My dad was an engineer, a train engineer. Yeah, dude, dude, no, no, okay,

(02:09):
Now he's a mechanical engineer. For untrained. Yep. Okay, so, Chuck,
that what we're talking about is based on a uh,
let's see, I think it's a nineteen sixty nine book,
nineteen sixty seven, nineteen sixty nine, we'll say, somewhere in there,
and it's called the Peter Principal Why Things Always Go Wrong?

(02:32):
And it definitely was based on an article written by
a guy named Dr Lawrence J. Peter who was a
an educator, and apparently it was an Esquire magazine initially
in January nineteen sixty seven. Yes, there was a huge
response to it, right uh. And basically what it was
it was tongue in cheek. It's an unnatural law like

(02:53):
Parkinson's law, which we'll get to, right sure, or Murphy's law,
which we won't get to. We've already done that one,
I think. Or was that pre Chuck. I think it
was pre Chuck. Those days don't exist in my mind.
Uh yeah. So anyway, Chuck, it's a it's a kind
of tongue in cheek, but it actually does reveal, um,
kind of this this rye observation that you know, all

(03:15):
of us have seen at one time or another that eventually,
if you promote somebody based on good work, you're going
to promote them to a point where they're no longer
they're so far out of their field they've become incompetent
in their current job. That's pretty funny. There's one stertling
example that comes to mind. Oh, I don't know, back
in the heavy days of two thousand five, maybe late

(03:37):
August early September two thousand five, a little thing called
Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans with a vengeance. And there's this,
um I think it's a federal agency and it's charged
with handling natural disasters or disasters of any kind that
occur in the US. That would be the Federal Emergency
Management Agency a FEMA. Uh And um, it just so

(04:00):
happened that in late August of two thousand five, FEMA
was headed by a guy named Michael Brown who you
may know and love is Brownie. So Brownie was running
the show when herr Kane Katrina hit and basically it
took days for the FEDS to respond. I remember reading
an article or several maybe where Bush was questioning whether

(04:24):
it's even the federal government's role to help out in
this kind of disaster. Right, Well, sure enough, FEMA finally
gets around to helping. I think they got a few
bottles of water down there and truck some people out.
That kind of thing. Uh. And amid this complete cluster
of a rescue humanitarian mission, mismanagement totally and in every

(04:47):
form of the word. Yeah, the good people of FEMA,
and we want to say we're probably working very hard,
but it was missing. It was a top down day
and and just ease off. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm
gonna bail Brownie out here in a second. Um. But
amid this this bungled crisis rescue mission, Bush goes down
to New Orleans and says, Brownie, you're doing a heck

(05:08):
of a job, which he wasn't now and he even
knew he wasn't. No, this is not judgment on our part, right,
I think even while the the rescue operation or the
crisis alleviation operations going on, Brownie famously said, can I
quit now? Why made me feel bad for the guy? Yeah? No,

(05:29):
I agree, he's in over his head. I feel bad
for him. Two And he was in way over his
head why because of the Peter principle, because he was
promoted to a position he was not qualified to manage correct,
he period he was formerly his job right before the
head of FEMA. He was in charge of the Commission
on Judges for the Arabian Horse Association. He's good at

(05:53):
it too. Yeah, he excelled in that position, right. That
was part of the reason why I think, you know,
maybe a little bit of helping your buddy out I
had to do with it. So, which which everybody does?
I mean, I got this job because of a friend,
So that did you? Really? I got this job by
my own blood sweat and tears, pal, blood sweat and tears, Josh,
great band agreed, So is earth wind and fire right,

(06:14):
But earth wind and fire won't get you a job.
Blood sweat and tears as well, agreed? So well, cool
in the gang. Okay, so Chuck um, you're right there.
There is a certain level of nepotism or I'm not
sure what it's called when you get friends jobs. Is
it still nepotism relatively familiar? Yeah? Yeah, I'm not sure
that we'll figure it out. Um so yeah. So, but

(06:37):
Brownie doesn't fit the classic definition of the Peter principle
because he got his job in large part because he
knew the president right, Is it usually someone who's promoted
from within? Is that the distinction? Yes? Okay, yeah, So
what happens is you, I use the example in this
article of a web designer. Think of when a guy's

(06:57):
in DEBV right, right, So you're just excelling at your work.
You're you're you're working your tail off. Everything you do
is just golden. You're born developer. Right. Well, if you
do that long enough, and you get to know the
people around you long enough, you'll probably get promoted to
a position of of manager where you're still over the

(07:19):
dev department, but you're now telling the dev department what
to do. Conceivably, if you're of a certain ilk, you
you would be able to kind of carry that out. Yeah,
if if you're capable of doing that. But let's say
that you are kind of good at that, and you
excel at that, but you're still really you're doing you're

(07:40):
walking behind other people and fixing their mistakes, that kind
of thing. You're still doing developing. Let's say you excel
in that managerial position and you get promoted eventually out
of development, and maybe you're over development like you're the
ct O R, but you're no longer developing. Oh, you're managing,

(08:00):
You're working with budgets, you're hiring people, you're firing, completely
different skill set. You're likely going to be incompetent unless
you're a born manager and you're good with budgets, you know, um,
dealing with CEOs and CEOs and stuff like that. Right,
that actually happened, same exact scenario at my last job,
a web developer, and he was great at that. They
promoted him, and um, he was not a good manager

(08:23):
of people. No, I think. I think it takes a
certain kind of person. It's like sales, right, I can't
sell anything. Come on, come on, I think dude. Uh no,
I I can't. Like I'm no good at sales. Um,
I also suck at serving. I was a terrible waiter. Yeah,
I was a decent waiter. I sucked at it. That's good. Thanks, Um,

(08:46):
so thanks? Why is that good? Well, because that means
you don't have to be a waiter. That's true. Well,
you were good at it, and you're not a waiter.
Well true, I'm a writer. It's only one letter different. Agreed. Um.
So let's say you you you do get promoted to
CTO and you're doing hiring and firing. Now here's where
the Peter principle, which has just occurred because you've been

(09:09):
promoted to your level of incompetence, Here's where it becomes
a vicious cycle. Right, right, do you want to take where?
Because okay, uh, the the since you're hiring and firing people,
you're probably also likely promoting people. So if you're an
incompetent manager, then you are probably going to make terrible
decisions on who to promote. So the problem with it

(09:31):
is that eventually, in a hierarchy which all businesses are
based on, or it's a top down, top down process
for pyramid, most of the work is being done by
the lower levels the base of the pyramid, and then
you go further and further up, and the least amount
of work is being done by the people at the top. Supposedly,
I hear. Uh, So eventually the top of the hierarchy
becomes populated exclusively by incompetent people in a worst case

(09:55):
Peter principal scenario. But if this is what I found
most interesting is that it um unless you are what
he called uh super incompetent quote unquote, then you won't
get fired. No, you'll just continue along and basically what
happens is is mediocrity takes hold. Doesn't mean you're awful
and that you're gonna make decisions that will destroy the company,

(10:17):
but your mediocre. And since there isn't a process of
demotion in this country, or maybe there isn't in any country. Uh,
and the corporate structure at least you, you can't be
demoted without it looking like failed, defailed exactly. Yeah, Like
they can't just say, you know what, this is quite right,
you're you're better at your other job, so why don't
we just put you back there? Um, And you'll even

(10:38):
make more money doing so well that that's a real
solution to the Pewter principle. Is number one, installing a
mechanism where you if it if you're not working out,
you get to go back to what you're doing, but
without the stigma failure. The other the other, this is
the one I subscribed to, is UM offering increased compensation
without promotion. I subscribe to that as well. Think about it,

(11:00):
I mean, like most people accept promotions and uh be
based on the increase in salary, right right. I just
really want to manage somebody. Usually I really want to
go make more money. Yes, but those are probably people
who are born managers. Yeah, but I would say the
prestige and the title and the money is even above that. Yeah,
the money's at the top, right, Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. Um. So,

(11:23):
if you could, if you could set up your business
in such a way that you are paying people, you're
giving them increased pay, vastly increased pay, like the kind
that you would get if you got a promotion without
promoting them, then you're going to avoid the Pewter principle altogether.
The problem is that that you basically create a a

(11:44):
class structure where there are just people out there who
are you know, executives and that's what they do, and
then you have people out there who are just developers.
It's actually very socialistic in nature, it is, you know,
uh Parkinson. Yeah. So there's another dude, an English historian.
His name is C. Northcote, c Northcote Parkinson, great name,

(12:10):
thank you, uh. And he wrote in the Economist magazine
in nineteen fifty five his first law, which was work
expands so as to fill time available for its completion.
I think most people have heard this, and I think
I might agree with the guy. Oh yeah, if you
give somebody a week to do a project, they'll take
a week. If you give them two days, they'll get
it done in two days. Same project too, Yeah exactly. Yeah,

(12:31):
so like Murphy's law. Yeah, it's an unnatural law. Exactly. Um.
So yeah, what the white chuck just mentioned that is
because um, one of the there's actually a contrary theory
to um, the Peter principle. It was this lazare. Yeah, okay,
that's the he wrote, I'm sorry, an article not a book,

(12:52):
called the Peter principal a theory of decline, and he
put the uh the onus uh for responsibility onto the
employee rather than an incompetent manager who incompetently promote somebody
who shouldn't be right. He said that what happens is
you have your average employee who's looking for that promotion,

(13:12):
probably because they want more money, right. Probably, so they're
they're working, work and work and working like you know,
eighty hour weeks and um, just putting in all this time,
neglecting family, all that. Um. And once that, once that's noticed,
after a certain amount of time, usually they will get
a promotion. The thing is, it's not that's not sustainable. Behavior. Right, Well,

(13:32):
that's when the trouble hits. You rest on your laurels
once you finally hit that promotion. Yeah, and once you've
gotten the salary. Because again, businesses don't have any kind
of fail safe put into knock you back down. When
you do do that, right, you either get fired or
you just keep doing the same job. And most likely
you're not gonna get fired, just gonna do a mediocre job.
But Lazarre Lazier said that it was the employees basically

(13:54):
creating a deception that made people who shouldn't be promoted
promoted because they're being promoted based on their work ethic.
That was actually an artificial work ethic. Right. That's kind
of cool too. I like all this stuff. I thought
you hated this article. Oh, I was just pulling your leg.
You shouldn't toy with me. It's much it's much more
interesting when we talk about it than when I read it.

(14:16):
To be honest, I agree. I agree, Chuck. We've taken
some kind of fluffy articles and done some things we
should you know we should do. We should start a podcast.
What a good you like talking about? I don't even
know what a podcast is, dude. Uh, you know, the
Peter principal also doesn't just apply to employees, right, it

(14:36):
applies to innovation as well, right buddy, Yeah, it's it's
the same exact principle. And this was an essay called
the Peter Principle of Innovation by Nitton. I've never heard
that word. Nitton Bore Bore one car. Yeah, what a
great name. And um he basically said, the same thing
applies to innovation young he or she um proposed as

(14:59):
the a young company has room to innovate, producing new ideas,
advancing old ideas, and the same thing happens. At some point,
the innovation turns stagnant. Yeah, but then the reason why
it turns stagnant is because eventually you hit a home
run and you say, okay, well this one thing we
just did just made us a billion dollars, let's keep
doing it over and over again, and everything else kind

(15:20):
of falls to the wayside. So yeah, innovation becomes stagnant.
What happens is the people who are still innovators go
off found their own company and do the same thing,
and it just keeps happening exponentially, this cycle of innovation
and stagnation. Like I think Google will probably a good example.
It's like they've completely mastered search on the Internet at
this point, seemingly, and they've innovated their company structure in

(15:42):
their company model to a point where people have left
Google and started their own company. Sure, I I don't.
I don't know that it's a lack of innovation, though
they do a lot of I don't think they've hit
stagnation yet. You don't think so? No, man, They're throwing
so much money at new ideas, and um, They've got
like the Google Reader, where they're trying to scan every

(16:03):
book in existence and right on the web for free.
There's the Google take Over the Planet project, where in
they're all going to put microchips in our brain while
we're sleeping. Star Yeah, the Death Star. Yeah. Um, so yeah,
I think they're still innovative now, they are in different directions.
I think I was probably just thinking of the base

(16:24):
Google basement. But yeah, you're totally Chuck. We were talking
about ways to fight the period principle, and there's actually
one more way and that's actually, uh the up to
the employee what to just have to go get them
to uh to do good work. No, No, it's to
have the smart and wherewith all to actually say, you

(16:44):
know what, this guy is about to promote me into
my level of incompetence and I'm not gonna do it.
Think again, buddy, So you can just turn down and promotion. Yeah,
but it's so unheard of in the state. It goes
back to the money thing. Now, if it was the
kind of thing where they would give someone raises with
out the promotion, I think people might be more inclined
to do that. Well, yeah, he has to go hand
in hand with the companion piece, which is living without

(17:08):
as much money as you could have did. I'd be
all over that more money and less responsibility. I think
that the Peter principal actually did speak to my debt
because he loved drafting. He loved drawing h V A
C aspects right, that was his thing, and actually towards
the end of his career he got tired of h
V A C. So he went over and learned refrigeration,
which was apparently totally different. I would have thought that

(17:30):
had fallen and fall into the same category, but I
guess not um. But he after like thirty forty years,
he got bored with h V A C. But he
didn't try to move up. He just went to refrigeration.
And he actually I don't know if he ever turned
down a promotion or not, but he made it very
well known that he was quite happy doing what he
was doing. He did well for himself. Um, and he

(17:50):
never became an executive. He he just didn't want to. So,
I mean, it can be done. And I'm wondering just
how much of an effect or impact the Peter principal
reading the book had on. But yeah, this is called
Peter's perry, which is basically turning down a promotion. If
you don't have the guts to turn out promotion um,
or if your spouse would murder you if if he

(18:10):
or she found out that you turned down to promotion, UM,
you can actually self sabotage. Yeah. Do you want to
hear a couple of examples that Peter gives, Yeah, I'd
love to. One is, um, basically wearing too much Perfumer cologne.
Really nobody wants to be around you like that, you know,
but it's not so it's not such an obvious uh

(18:31):
social miss grace, disgrace. They're gonna say anything I love. Yeah,
I know what you're gonna say. Go ahead, parking in
the company president's reserve parking space. Yeah again, you're you're
just showing like I don't really care. I'm not going
to look out for you unnecessarily. My favorite one is
to kind of subtly give the impression that you lead

(18:54):
a morally questionable personal life. Yeah, which we do every
week twice a week. Actually, I might have a bit
of self sabotage and you think me too, So, Chuck,
either one of us want to manage anyone. You know.
I was avoiding that because you know, I I the Perry.
I fell on one side. I did I go to

(19:15):
the self sabotage side. I don't want to manage anybody either, Chuck. Now,
I have a hard hard time managing myself and you.
So there you got Peter principal. Peter principle. It's done.
If you want to learn more about it, or if
you basically want to read the article, Chuck it I
just covered a hundred and ten percent. You can go
to how stuff works dot com, our beloved website and

(19:37):
type Peter principle into the handy search bar, which means,
since I just said handy search bar, that it's time
for listener mail. Listener mail, Josh, I'm gonna call this
one frightening listener mail. Oh yeah, I don't know if
you've read this one, because you usually email me and
say did you read this one? And I didn't get

(19:57):
that on this one, Okay. I I'm writing to share
an experience I've had in this related to the Dejabu episode.
And this is from Drowsy Doug and his Dreadful Dreams
in Portland, Oregon, Grove Doug So Doug says, at times
when I'm sleeping, my mind wakes in the middle of
the night, but my body does not. My eyes open,
and I can see the bedroom from a sideways angle,

(20:18):
the dark shadows of the dresser, of the tree outside
the window, of my arms and legs curled up below me.
Yet I cannot move. The frightening thing it's already frightening,
to ask me. The frightening thing about this is that
though my mind is aware of the reality of my situation,
it vacillates in and out of the subconscious, creating visions.
It seem all too real. So he goes on for
a minute here, but I'm gonna skipped down one particular moment,

(20:40):
which stands up my mind is this. I opened my
eyes in the middle of the night. I was lying
in my bed on my back, paralyzed, watching the image
of someone standing at the foot of my bed in
a pig suit. What yes, in a costume animal. I
was waiting for that, because he actually put that in parentheticals.
I know that I had my eyes open because I
slowly came to consciousness the pig man fading into the

(21:02):
darkness like a blurry image, and I hadn't closed my
eyes the whole time. It was as if my mind
just projected and imagine image onto what I was actually seeing.
Once I even got up from my own bed, walked
into the bathroom, and in the darkness, the reflection of
my own face was stretched and contorted, and I was
bleeding black liquid out of my mouth. But then I

(21:26):
woke up and I was fine. So drowsy Doug says, Now,
I'm sure you get lots of weirdos writing you, but
I assure you I'm a pretty normal guy all except
for this terrifying waking nightmare syndrome. I don't believe in
possession or ghosts or anything like that, so I'm not
supposing the supernatural yet. The occurrence of these dreams both
fascinates and terrifies me. I've come to recognize the exact

(21:46):
creeping feeling of it coming on. Yet by that point
there's nothing I can do but try to talk myself
in the waking. Is this common? Have you ever heard
of this? And why can't they be about Hollywood hotties
and not strangers and pig suits? So like, why can't
I see Giselle at the Yeah? Some he actually does
suffer from a recognized condition, and sadly I don't know

(22:08):
what it is. Yeah, it sounds called but when you
when your mind wakes before your body does, this is
pretty bad conscious of of your surroundings. It is a
recognized condition. Seeing first suitors, um is, I don't know
what that is. And seeing yourself bleed like black ooze. Yeah,
it sounds like there's a lot of self loathing. It's frightening.

(22:30):
Such your arm chair psychotrop Yeah, I literally have my
arm on a chair right now. Um. And then I
asked him if you've seen the movie Donnie Darko, because
I don't know if you saw that, but it was
very reminiscent of that. So a guy in a rabbit
suit and Frank the Rabbit, which is one of my
favorite movies. That's a great movie, is so well done
and so drowsy. Doug, dude, good luck. Wish we could

(22:50):
help you. I wish we could help Doug too. If
anybody out there has any clues to Doug's mystery, any
suggestions on maybe what Doug do eg drink Balerian root
key and hope for the best, that kind of thing, um,
just email us at stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

(23:17):
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