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posted by martyb on Friday June 15 2018, @02:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-not-competent-enough-to-judge dept.

Three authors at the Harvard Business Review briefly discuss the Peter Principle by dealing with a quantifiable data set. That principle is the one which states that people are promoted to rise to their particular level of their incompetence. At the end they propose several possible solutions or work-arounds.

The Peter Principle problem arises when the skills that make someone successful at one job level don’t translate to success in the next level. In these cases, organizations must choose whether to reward the top performer with a promotion or to instead promote the worker that has the best skill match with a managerial position. When organizations reward success in one role with a promotion to another, the usual grumbles ensue; the best engineer doesn’t make the best engineering manager, and the best professor doesn’t make the best dean. The same problem may apply to scientists, physicians, lawyers, or in any other profession where technical aptitude doesn’t necessarily translate into managerial skill.

[...] While the Peter Principle may sound intuitively plausible, it has never been empirically tested using data from many firms. To test whether firms really are passing over the best potential managers by promoting the top performers in their old roles, we examined data on the performance of salespeople and their managers at 214 firms. Sales is an ideal setting to test for the Peter Principle because, unlike other professional settings, it’s easy to identify high performing salespeople and managers — for salespeople, we know their sales records, and for the sales managers, we can measure their managerial ability as the extent to which they help improve the performance of their subordinates. The data, which come from a company that administers sales performance management software over the cloud, allow us to track the sales performance of a large number of salespeople and managers in a large number of firms. Armed with these data, we asked: Do organizations really pass over the best potential managers by promoting the best individual contributors? And if so, how do organizations manage around the Peter Principle?

[...] Both solutions can be implemented as part of the performance evaluation process. One approach, embedded in evaluation regimes like the ninebox, asks raters to decouple evaluating future career potential from prior job performance. People who score highly on future career potential can be rewarded with promotion to management roles and stock options to retain them until their potential can be realized. People who score highly on prior job performance can be rewarded with bonuses, promotions up an individual contributor track, or recognition. The process should be designed to recognize and reward excellence in one’s role without necessarily changing one’s role.

Incentive pay, dual career ladders, and thoughtful performance evaluations can recognize that people contribute to the success of the organization in different ways. But it seems that, at least in sales, companies nonetheless reward sales talent by promoting top sales workers into management.


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  • (Score: 1) by waximius on Friday June 15 2018, @05:15PM (10 children)

    by waximius (1136) on Friday June 15 2018, @05:15PM (#693589) Homepage

    I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Dunning-Kruger effect yet. That's what seems to be what's missing from every "Peter Principle" discussion I read, and people on SN are generally pretty smart (no, I'm not challenging you to disprove me).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect [wikipedia.org]

    If we consider the Dunning-Kruger effect in conjunction with the Peter Principle where "people are promoted to their level of incompetence", what we see makes far more sense. Promotions are not a 1:1 skill transfer - when you move up in rank you are expected to do more, often different things that you may or may not be very well experienced in. That's effectively what the Dunning-Kruger effect says. You aren't promoted to your level of incompetence, you're just promoted to a point where the skills from your past that got you to where you are, are no longer the key to succeeding in future roles. Reasonably, future roles will have more responsibility and therefore different skill needs.

    Let's use a relatable example. A software developer moves up from entry level to mid level. Great, they're becoming a code expert. Then they move to senior and are expected to not only code, but to help keep the team on track and coach others. Leadership and coaching is not the same as software development. However, with a little work and polishing they can probably promote into management where their coding skills will be completely unused. At that point, the stellar engineer might look like an abject failure as a manager.

    The Peter Principle would state that this person has reached their level of incompetence, when in reality we all can see, quite reasonably, that the skill set is simply different. Coding ability is a non-transferrable skill into management.

    This person should be spending a lot of time developing their leadership and management skills in order to be a success, but, frankly, they may not want to. This is my own personal lesson: if we fail to grow and pursue self-improvement, then we will most certainly be promoted into our own failure. A college degree will not prepare us for every potential future, the burden is on us not to become obsolete.

  • (Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Friday June 15 2018, @05:47PM

    by BsAtHome (889) on Friday June 15 2018, @05:47PM (#693607)

    The Dunning-Kruger effect is about cognitive bias. In essence, someone who is incompetent cannot see his own incompetence and overestimates his abilities.

    Although related to the Peter Principle, they are distinctly different observations. Dunning and Kruger look at how the individual sees himself. The Peter Principle looks at the individuals in an organizational setting.

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 15 2018, @06:10PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Friday June 15 2018, @06:10PM (#693621) Journal

    This person should be spending a lot of time developing their leadership and management skills in order to be a success, but, frankly, they may not want to. This is my own personal lesson: if we fail to grow and pursue self-improvement, then we will most certainly be promoted into our own failure. A college degree will not prepare us for every potential future, the burden is on us not to become obsolete.

    Why is a brilliant coder "obsolete" simply because they'd rather code than manage? Why do you expect that EVERYONE should want to be a manager? I certainly don't want to live in a world where all the best, most experienced coders are managers, and the only people actually writing code are straight out of school with low skills and zero experience.

    The problem isn't people who don't pursue things they aren't interested; the problem is managers who "promote" people without giving any consideration to whether the person actually wants or would be good at that new role.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by waximius on Friday June 15 2018, @08:06PM

      by waximius (1136) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:06PM (#693679) Homepage

      Why is a brilliant coder "obsolete"

      Apologies that my statement wasn't clearer. Anybody can become obsolete in any field if they fail to learn new things: doctors, plumbers, electricians, etc, by not re-learning things as their field changes. Developers don't become obsolete by not choosing to go into management, far from it. Obtaining a college degree should just be the beginning of learning, not the end, and developers need to sharpen their skills like everybody does.

      Maybe a better way of phrasing it is Assembler was great but now we use other languages most of the time (despite there still being a need for Assembler, I can't include every nuance in every sentence or we'd never be able to have a conversation).

      And you're exactly right, people should never be promoted into a job class they don't want. Generally, entry level managers are "higher up" in the hierarchy than entry level developers so it is a type of promotion in that regard despite one's feelings on the matter. I'm not saying this is good, or even preferable to an alternative, just that it's a thing we see regularly.

      Fortunately, I work for a company where technical people can rise through the executive ranks without having to choose a "management" or business oriented career path.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @07:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @07:34PM (#693667)

    The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" has never been formally accepted by peer evaluation, it exists primarily as a grand sounding insult for people one disagrees with.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 15 2018, @09:33PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday June 15 2018, @09:33PM (#693724) Journal

      The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" has never been formally accepted

      And here is a sterling example of it, and thus an argument that peer evaluation would be, um, pointless. The AC parent is clearly an idiot.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 15 2018, @07:35PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday June 15 2018, @07:35PM (#693668)

    This person should be spending a lot of time developing their leadership and management skills in order to be a success

    In my world, avoiding the BS related to management IS success. It has taken me over 25 years, but I'm finally at a place where tech skills can advance to a reasonable level of compensation and recognition without having to collect a flock of direct reports. Direct reports are hell on flexible work schedules.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 15 2018, @07:52PM (3 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Friday June 15 2018, @07:52PM (#693675) Journal

    Different skillset is PART of the Peter Principle. By level, he means within the company hierarchy.

    Not everyone is cut out to be a manager, but they may be capable of becoming the best in their own area of expertise. Would you claim a chef has failed at personal development if he doesn't eventually become an agronomist?

    • (Score: 1) by waximius on Friday June 15 2018, @08:25PM (2 children)

      by waximius (1136) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:25PM (#693690) Homepage

      Not sure if you are arguing for or against my point. A chef and agronomist are different skill sets. A chef who doesn't work on being the best chef they can be has failed at personal development - if being a great chef is what they are trying to do. However, if they want to be an agronomist and must first be a chef to get there, then they need to spend some time learning agronomy. Being a chef will not make them a great agronomist.

      You bring up the point "within the hierarchy" which is exactly what my example was based on, although I didn't explicitly call that out. In most standard corporate hierarchies, managers typically "outrank" technical people (like it or not, I'm not saying that is a good thing or that devs need to aspire to be a manager). A person wanting to "promote" into management needs to spend time learning leadership and management skills or they will be a crappy manager. If they don't do this, then yes, they have also failed at personal development.

      I don't see how changing the words from dev/manager to chef/agronomist changes the argument. Aim at something and develop skills to do it, don't rely on old tricks to succeed in new fields.

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 15 2018, @08:43PM (1 child)

        by sjames (2882) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:43PM (#693694) Journal

        Management and engineering (for example) are also two different skillsets.

        You have fallen into exactly the trap that makes the Peter principle happen, the idea that management is somhow a promotion.

        Without privates, a general is just some old dude shouting at clouds.

        • (Score: 1) by waximius on Friday June 15 2018, @08:58PM

          by waximius (1136) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:58PM (#693706) Homepage

          Management and engineering (for example) are also two different skillsets.

          Agreed.

          You have fallen into exactly the trap that makes the Peter principle happen, the idea that management is somhow a promotion.

          I didn't say that I, personally, felt it was a promotion, it is simply a fact that most corporations define management as a promotion. Thankfully, my corporation is a good one that does not define it this way :)

          Without privates, a general is just some old dude shouting at clouds.

          Absolutely, if everybody is a general or there is no team. A hierachy, by definition, means not everybody can be a general.

          Do we disagree? Still unsure