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Organization

Peter Principle

Promotion to Incompetence.

The article

If

In a hierarchy, people are promoted on performance in their current role, not the one above. So everyone tends to rise until they reach a role they are bad at — and there they stay. Competence is promoted away; incompetence accumulates.

Then

Do not promote your best engineer into management as a reward — it removes a great engineer and risks creating a poor manager. Offer a technical ladder, and evaluate candidates for the role above, not the one they already mastered.

Unless

Dual Career Ladders / Role-Specific Evaluation

Source

Laurence J. Peter & Raymond Hull, The Peter Principle (1969).

Go to the source

See also