From the Sunday Times:
BEWARE THE ACCIDENTAL MANAGERPeople are still being promoted beyond their abilities, 40 years after a book highlighted the problem, writes John Cradden
It's hard to view the Zune as anything other than a product of Pointy-Haired-Boss thinking.
The timing is probably a coincidence, but it's remarkable all the same. Just as we are witnessing the fallout from a prolonged period of disastrous financial management, a ground-breaking business book about incompetence has been republished in a 40th anniversary edition. The Peter Principle, written as a satire by Canadians Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull, argued that in a typical workplace hierarchy, most people will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent. The implication of this is that productive work is only ever managed by those who have not yet reached their full potential.
"People have been poking fun at the concept of the worthless boss for a long, long time," said Rowan Manahan, a consultant and founder of career management firm Fortify Services. "I've seen cartoons from the Victorian era in Punch deriding the uselessness of the top-hatted factory manager. Peter's genius was that he took a commonly observed problem, gave it a memorable name, and built a following for the concept on that basis."
Since the book was first published, the corporate world has changed beyond recognition and management structures are far more flexible that the old, rigid hierarchies of the 1960s, but it is widely agreed that the book is actually more relevant today than ever.
... Manahan says the job of management has evolved into a role that also requires leadership, team-building and coaching – skills that are hard to measure. In terms of explaining how financial institutions around the world lost the run of themselves, management experts agree that straightforward incompetence was a factor, but not the only one.
... Manahan says it was likely that many in senior management positions simply did not understand the complex financial instruments that brought about the troubles in the banking sector, but felt under pressure to "join the race" anyway. "The Peter Principle had a role in all this, but greed and fear were probably larger contributor than simple incompetence," he said.
... Manahan says competency-based interviewing techniques can help to weed out unworthy candidates. "Modern behavioural interviewing techniques, particularly when built from the ground up for each defined role, are far better at eliciting a candidate's mindset when it comes to the typical tasks and problems they will face in the new role," he said. "For example, it is amazing how few people provide a good answer to a basic question about how to deal with an underperforming employee."
Although it has stood the test of time over 40 years, The Peter Principle may be in danger of being usurped by The Dilbert Principle, in which cartoonist Scott Adams states that organisations promote their least competent employees into management, "where they can do the least harm."
"I think Adams has taken on Laurence Peter's mantle very comfortably," said Manahan. "He holds up a clear mirror to modern corporate life and I'm sure I could run very effective management seminars using only Dilbert cartoons as my teaching tools." He says the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, seemed to accept The Dilbert Principle because of his 'Rank & Yank' approach to culling middle management. This involved replacing 10% of the employees in an organisation every year as a matter of course. "If those middle managers had been truly competent, GE should have collapsed. Interestingly, it did quite the opposite," said Manahan.
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"People have been poking fun at the concept of the worthless boss for a long, long time," said Rowan Manahan, a consultant and founder of career management firm Fortify Services. "I've seen cartoons from the Victorian era in Punch deriding the uselessness of the top-hatted factory manager. Peter's genius was that he took a commonly observed problem, gave it a memorable name, and built a following for the concept on that basis."
Since the book was first published, the corporate world has changed beyond recognition and management structures are far more flexible that the old, rigid hierarchies of the 1960s, but it is widely agreed that the book is actually more relevant today than ever.
... Manahan says the job of management has evolved into a role that also requires leadership, team-building and coaching – skills that are hard to measure. In terms of explaining how financial institutions around the world lost the run of themselves, management experts agree that straightforward incompetence was a factor, but not the only one.
... Manahan says it was likely that many in senior management positions simply did not understand the complex financial instruments that brought about the troubles in the banking sector, but felt under pressure to "join the race" anyway. "The Peter Principle had a role in all this, but greed and fear were probably larger contributor than simple incompetence," he said.
... Manahan says competency-based interviewing techniques can help to weed out unworthy candidates. "Modern behavioural interviewing techniques, particularly when built from the ground up for each defined role, are far better at eliciting a candidate's mindset when it comes to the typical tasks and problems they will face in the new role," he said. "For example, it is amazing how few people provide a good answer to a basic question about how to deal with an underperforming employee."
Although it has stood the test of time over 40 years, The Peter Principle may be in danger of being usurped by The Dilbert Principle, in which cartoonist Scott Adams states that organisations promote their least competent employees into management, "where they can do the least harm."
"I think Adams has taken on Laurence Peter's mantle very comfortably," said Manahan. "He holds up a clear mirror to modern corporate life and I'm sure I could run very effective management seminars using only Dilbert cartoons as my teaching tools." He says the former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, seemed to accept The Dilbert Principle because of his 'Rank & Yank' approach to culling middle management. This involved replacing 10% of the employees in an organisation every year as a matter of course. "If those middle managers had been truly competent, GE should have collapsed. Interestingly, it did quite the opposite," said Manahan.
Related Posts:
Impostor Syndrome
Michael Wade on 'should' versus 'reality'
Stress due to promotion
5 comments:
Hi Rowan,
I didn't quiet understand your statement about GE? I recently re-read Jack's autobiography "Just Jack" with wry smile.
Jack advocated getting GE out of the business of making stuff (or at least less so in this business), and got them into the financials business. GE's share price is now trading at just a fifth of what it was when passed on the CEO mantle.
I am not saying I disagree with Jack's culture of performance, just the opposite. He just seem to be pretty ruthless about it to me. I can't help feeling that perhaps some of the leveller heads at Irish Banks fell foul of this process over recent years for not "performing" enough.
Regards
Ray Kinsella
Hi Ray,
I agree - JW was utterly ruthless in his approach and did much to propagate the 'staff-as-interchangeable-parts' model of management. As to his apparent ratification of the Dilbert Principle, he used R&Y to cut massive numbers of middle management out of GE - and the company prospered by any measure you care to apply. I heard another line ascribed to him in which he posited that you could take any person, who was more than 2 steps removed from the customer, out of a business and not appreciably harm that business.
Hi Rowan,
Thanks for the response, I do remember raising an eyebrow during "Just Jack" when he talked about about not listening when managers complained that he was cutting too much, that "all the fat was was gone, he was cutting in to bone!". He isn't completely ruthless though, Jack spends time in his book talking about how much people's personal development mattered to him. So there is a contridiction at work here.
I think this was what unsettled me a little, I got the feeling that unless Jack knew and valued me as an employee personally that I was a statisic to the enterprise. To be practical how likely is that in such a large firm I would know the boss?. It just felt cold, I work for a large enterprise now, and even though I work my ass off, it just struck home how your contribution can mean so little from Jack's 10,000 feet perspective.
Regards
Ray Kinsella
Ray - Absolutely! We're back to the "interchangeable parts" model here. When your company is three people in a garage, it's all about the idea and the shared energy of those people. Build it up to a 30 person company and everybody still knows everybody very closely and "we're all part of making this happen together" is the backbone of the thought process. Gladwell touched on this in Tipping Point where he wrote about the still personal nature of the extended cave family group of 150. As soon as you go past that number, impersonality starts creeping in. When you're a giant conglomerate with the world around you changing, and some economist is projecting the future telling you you need to shave $7bn from your "costs" then the people stop being people and they start being "costs." It's easy to cull a ratio, to trim an expense line. It's very hard to visit a neighbourhood afterwards and realise the devastation that your cost reduction exercise has wrought. Like him or hate him, Michael Moore captured that very well with Roger & Me. It's a defense mechanism - no CEO wants to be up close to the carnage that these actions require.
Incidentally, I haven't read Just Jack – I must pick up a copy, it sounds fascinating.
Hi Rowan,
Sorry I don't know where I pulled "Just Jack" from ... the name of the book is "Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut". I "read" it on audible, I have a monthly subscription that lets me buy audio books there at a significant discount. Check it out, its a great service for movers and shakers with limited reading time like ourselves.
After reading the unabridged version of "Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut", I would be inclined to recommend the abridged version if there is one. He name checks far too much, and alot of the time I got lost trying to figure out "who is who", rather than focusing on the content.
Best regards
Ray Kinsella
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