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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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 15 2018, @06:55PM (4 children)
Good management actually is very valuable to an organization - they act as a combination of clear communication and buffer. They keep upper management well informed about the things they need to know, while filtering the noise. Likewise, they keep their flock well informed about what they need to know, while also filtering irrelevant noise. They argue (successfully) for additional resources they need to achieve management's goals and aspirations, they minimize waste by repurposing ineffective resources in more effective roles. They keep everybody above and below happy and satisfied in their current roles and help them to progress as they want to in their careers.
Truly perfect managers are like unicorns, but there are clearly some that are better than others and what they do has real value to the organization, even if they never directly interface with a customer, never lift a finger for product development or support, never have a single thing to do with sales, they do contribute value. If you don't believe me: replace a good manager with a bad one - wait one year and then tell me how much damage has been done.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 15 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)
I'm glad you qualified it as Good Managers.
Yes, they do exist. I've had them. And I've had the other kind as well. Fortunately the other kind didn't last so long.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 15 2018, @07:25PM
You can take the view that all management has negative value: the cost of their salary and benefits. However, the best managers will not cost the company too much more than that, while bad ones can do almost infinite damage. In that world view lack of management also does significant damage, so you hire these people to fill the roles and minimize damage.
I quit a place after 6 months once - at the hiring interview I actually had a chat with the owner about my recent career history, a series of multiple ~2 years and out, and I explained to him how each of them wasn't really my choice but forced by circumstances (which was true...) Amusingly, he lost his temper in a big way one day, took it out on our whole department one by one, myself included, threatening to fire everyone, etc. later that night I got an offer for a "lateral" to what looked like (and turned out to be) a much better job. If "the big man" hadn't just lost his cool, I might have let the other job go as an unknown, but with this "known quantity" going off like that in my first few months on the job.... During my (multiple, highly apologetic and concerned) exit interviews the upper level people there planned to put in an additional level of management and forbid the CEO/owner from approaching his productive workers when he's "in a mood" in the future. Apparently this wasn't his first outburst that was followed by good people leaving.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday June 15 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
Everything you said is true of GOOD managers. It's telling that so many have yet to meet a GOOD manager that they have concluded that managers are worthless to an organization.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 15 2018, @11:42PM
The "big man" I mentioned earlier was quite the psychotic. He would almost never accept suggestions on their face, in meetings he always told people what shit their ideas were and how things were just fine the way they have been up to now. On the flip side, I was only there for 6 months, but after meetings where he either dismissively grunted or actively ridiculed my suggestions, he would later (like within days) implement almost every thing I ever pitch, anything from updating the asset database to collect more complete information to clearly communicating to the workforce that A) he is taking the company public, and B) that will include bonus shares for the current workforce.
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