Norm’s Corollary

Laurence Peter was a Canadian educator and hierarchiologist (whatever that may be), famous for the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence… [I]n time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties… Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.”

As dismal and discouraging as that may be, it need not apply to you, because you know better. Why? Because you understand the notion that your highest and best place in life is where you live and work in the center of your Giftedness.

As long as you are living and working in the center of your Giftedness, life is good, you are doing what you love and loving what you do. Those who receive the benefit of your work can’t get enough of you. Life is a virtuous circle.

What Peter observed is that hierarchical organizations can’t leave well enough alone, and they don’t understand the Principle of Alignment. The toffs and wizards in charge think that if you are a brilliant glassblower, you would be just the right person to put in charge of all the other glassblowers. In truth, what they are doing to you is taking away all your joy and satisfaction and giving you a job for which you probably possess neither the aptitude nor the personality. A certain recipe for disaster all around.

The flaw in the conventional thinking is that we assume that the best litigator will know how to run a law firm. We assume that the Giftings which make you the most successful sales associate will be the same Giftings which will make you the most successful sales manager. It doesn’t take very deep analysis to see that there is often no similarity in necessary skill sets. Managing and producing are very different animals.

Promoting your best widget maker to Manager of Widget Production is a case of lazy thinking. It sidesteps the necessary effort of thinking through the aptitudes and skill sets that are actually required for the managerial position. The giftings required to make wonderful widgets differ considerably from the people skills and numbers savvy required of the manager of the widget factory.

We should also note in passing that the practice of promoting personnel until they reach their position of incompetence is often seen as a reward system, an acknowledgement of hard work. To leave the shop floor and get a corner office, with more pay, just has to look like a “win”, you’d think.

Well, actually, no. More pay is always nice, but all the intrinsic rewards such as the satisfaction of a job well-done and interaction with grateful clients are hard to replace. It’s for this reason that most of the incompetents who have been elevated to their positions of incompetence are not only incompetent, they’re also not happy, and often grumpy.

Should you be surprised? They’ve been plucked out of a happy place and stuck in an unhappy place for a handful of dollars and a shiny badge. Is that a good deal?

This is not to suggest you should not be looking for opportunities for promotion and advancement. It’s just that you, and your promoters, need to know what advancement truly looks like.

Need to talk about your career path? Drop me a note.