Most “bosses” in my previous company were selected by elimination. Competent people were promoted and moved to other parts of the organization and whoever was most senior got to be the next boss. Then when they failed at the job the next most senior person replaced them.
The Peter Principle: People rise to their level of incompetence.
Let’s say you’re a great salesman, the best in the company, so they make you a Sales Manager. Unfortunately, that’s not your strength, and you do a mediocre job, so you don’t get promoted beyond that position, where you stay for years, being mediocre.
Eventually, all the middle manager positions, and maybe even the upper management positions get filled with people who were great in past jobs, but only mediocre in this one, and the entire company settles into mediocre business management.
Most “bosses” in my previous company were selected by elimination. Competent people were promoted and moved to other parts of the organization and whoever was most senior got to be the next boss. Then when they failed at the job the next most senior person replaced them.
The Peter Principle: People rise to their level of incompetence.
Let’s say you’re a great salesman, the best in the company, so they make you a Sales Manager. Unfortunately, that’s not your strength, and you do a mediocre job, so you don’t get promoted beyond that position, where you stay for years, being mediocre.
Eventually, all the middle manager positions, and maybe even the upper management positions get filled with people who were great in past jobs, but only mediocre in this one, and the entire company settles into mediocre business management.
That’s the Peter Principle.
We could call it the Intel Principle. ;)
Thank you for explaining, today I learned
Failing upwards. Everyone rises to their optimal point of incompetence.
So I should stop doing a good job and I can fail up?
Man, I feel like a chump.
Unfortunately, that’s not what it postulates. Bedsides, it probably doesn’t work when all of upper positions are occupied for any foreseeable future