In hierarchies, people rise to their level of incompetence.
Peter's 1969 principle began as a satirical organisational claim. A 2018 study of 53,000 salespeople found firms promoted stronger salespeople even though higher pre-promotion sales predicted worse managerial performance, which supports one mechanism rather than establishing a universal law of hierarchies.
In practice
- A school's most effective teacher is made head of year, teaches four hours a week, and the timetable records this as promotion.
- A hospital promotes its best surgeon to clinical director, losing a surgeon and gaining an administrator nobody appointed on that basis.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- How organisations behave when nobody is steering