...from a cell phone bill I was sent a few years ago

When Dr. Laurence Peter was born in Vancouver, Canada during the year of 1919, the world was not prepared for his revolutionary doctrine. Today we suffer the consequences because few have heeded his warning, we all think we are the exception to his principle. I’m not talking about a prophet or spiritualist, I’m talking about one of the most brilliant analysts of modern society.

With this simple phrase on p.15 of my edition of The Peter Principle he explained nearly every problem the human species has faced as we have entered increasingly complex organizations in the development of our civilization,

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence given enough time and enough levels in the hierarchy

And the more I’ve thought about it, internalized it, experienced corporate hierarchy… the more I’ve realized that it explains everything.

A housing bubble caused by artificially low inflation rates? Some blame Greenspan but the reality is that he was just serving above his level of competence. It makes sense. America’s colony in Iraq flubbed? Some blame Bush or his subordinates but the reality was that they were serving above their level of competence. We all do from time to time. We all think we are the exception.

As acquaintances enter the work force and through my own witness to the mindset of the low level employee, everyone seems to be focused primarily on ascending to the higher levels. Why? I think it is what we do as a species. It is our fate. I don’t mean to dissuade blame from individuals, removing responsibility from personal action. I only intened to explain that we shouldn’t expect success, we should expect blindingly stupid failure and then be pleasantly surprised when things aren’t flubbed up. That’s not being cynical or “realist”. It is just recognizing human nature. Incompetence knows no boundaries of time or place.

The Peter Principle when published in 1969 raised a storm because many did not want to accept that they existed at their level of incompetence. Business people didn’t take it seriously because it was written tounge-in-cheek with full blown laugh out loud moments. Far different from the bland, dry language they were used to while obtaining their MBAs.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book because it is an opportune time for me to examine if I have already achieved my level of incompetence.

While the explanations of the Principle could easily be redundant… (the plot is summarized at the beginning as Dr. Peter states the principle) this book isn’t redundant,  like a Dilbert cartoon with some acute wisdom. Dr. Peter describes, through various case studies and examples, that every perceived exception to the Principle isn’t really an exception at all. Complex hierarchies will see its members achieve the ominous final placement. Someday I too can reach this level.I can get stressed out while making poor decisions.  I too can wear the badge of administrative “success”: the ulcer.

This might all seem a bit pessimistic. A little defeatist. But not at all. The solution is to focus our species on moving forward instead of upwards. We see our cohorts in groups struggling for status on a, “treadmill to oblivion.” But Dr. Peter clearly states that we can rescue ourselves by seeing where this unmindful escalation is leading us. If we focus on the quality of our situation we can achieve previously ignored success without obtaining a literal or figurative promotion.

By applying this principle to our everyday experience, we witness many byproducts. For example, the applied Peter Principle approximates that employees in a hierarchy, “do not truly object to incompetence, they merely gossip about incompetence to mask their envy of employees who have pull.” … with pull being the ability to develop a relationship with someone above you in the hierarchy who can pull you up  with them. How poignant. We decry good ‘ol boy networks but rarely focus on the one thing that could break them up, changing our focus from output to input. I can put in a 40-50 hour work week but would I be more productive if I worked 30-35 hours? We may never know because a full-time job insists that I work 40-50 crushing and life imbalancing hours. Society has focused on input in this situation. Can we think of a better solution to this situation? I’ll apply Peter’s Bridge to this question: if you can’t think of a better solution you have already reached your level of incompetence.

Although the observations made in the Peter Principle are obviously applicable to corporate environments, Laurence Peter made some other candid observations of society in these pages. Such as, exposing our modern caste system on p.64 and p.83 of the 2009 edition:

…we have a class system, it is based not on birth but on the prestige of the university one has attended. The graduate of an obscure college does not have the same opportunity for promotion… but as college degrees become the prerequisite for more jobs, soon everyone will have access to his or her level of incompetence.

…with incompetent handling, the test system is only a disguised form of random placement. The purpose of testing is to place the employee as soon as possible in a job which will utilize the highest competence level on his profile. Obviously, any promotion will be to an area of less competence.

Brilliant stuff that has played out over the last 30+ years just as Dr. Peter predicted.

Lasting happiness can only be obtained by avoiding the ultimate promotion, by choosing at a certain point in one’s progression to abandon one-upsmanship and to practice staticsmanship. Don’t ascend, celebrate your competency. Thwart promotion with creative incompetence. Demonstrate to your superiors that you aren’t quite material for the next level. If you are a business: don’t expand your markets globally so that you become too big to fail, celebrate your contribution to the community with sustained profits. If you are a species: don’t try to conquer space, pay attention to everything you can fix on your home planet.

The Principle is, on the surface, a critique against bloated governments and corporations but in actuality it is a deeper critique of society, exemplified in Chapter 15: The Darwinian Extension. Humans have ascended to the top of the Earth’s species hierarchy but questions whether our cleverness allow new levels of success or impending incompetent failures.

Hope is little alluded to. As diplomas and degrees are losing their values as measures of competence. The modern certificate now proves that the recipient was competent to endure a certain number of schooling. Our only measure of academic achievement has lost all value. Additionally, we’ve tried to outsource intelligence to machines, that we are incompetent to operate. In summary,

…those who achieve their levels of incompetence could be kept harmlessly busy, happy and healthy. This change would set productive work free for the millions of people pleasantly employed in looking after the health and repairng the blunders of all those incompetents. The net result? An enormous store of man-hours, of creativity, of enthusiiasm would be set free for constructive purposes. We might… develop safe… efficient rapid-transit system for out major cities. We might tap power sources… which would not pollute the atmosphere. We might improve the quality and safety of our automobiles, landscape our freeqays … and restore some measure of safety and pleasure to surface travel. We might learn to return to our farm lands organic products that would enrich without poisoning the soil.

In summary: we can choose life-quality-improvement in place of mindless promotion. And on a larger scale we can choose prosperity instead of growth.

I hope we embrace the message of The Peter Principle as we begin to re-organize in the face of peak oil, scarce energy and monetary system alternatives.