What is meant by Peter Principle?How do you stop the Peter Principle? Saving Changes...
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Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
It is when somebody is promoted into a position of incompetence and it happens very often, too often. It usually happens when the promotion crosses over into management levels i.e. a technical team lead will be promoted into a line management position. While the person excelled in the technical lead position he will not need a set of completely different SOFT skill to be able to manage, often these skills are lacking hence they are in a position of incompetence. This can be prevented by not only looking at performance as a single unit but to break it down into the skills required for the next step. Your soft skills might be 0 while you technical skills are of the charts. One way of helping somebody make this transition successfully is to have a transition plan in place. So the person is not just promoted in one foul sweep but they are prepared for the new role and given a chance to grow those skills that are not strong enough. Saving Changes...
It also occurs frequently in companies where they don't provide options for people to progress (financially or scope of responsibility-wise) in a technical role and HAVE to crossover into people or business management roles.
Strategic organization design, good HR practices and holistic performance evaluation systems (e.g. using 360 degree feedback) are a few ways of avoiding this.
