The Peter Principle The Peter Principle Library Binding (October 1996) Buccaneer Books; ISBN: 1568491611 Along with Parkinson's Law by C. Northcote Parkinson this is a "satirical sociology" masterpiece. And despite being written before programmers became a mass profession it is perfectly applicable to programming. It's a rather short and easy-to-read book that consists of fictional stories about results of promotions in a typical administrative and business hierarchies. Must read for any programmer or system administrator with more than two year experience :-). Originally published in 1969 it coined the famous "The Peter Principle" In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence. The concept is pretty universal and is related to the regression to the mean. As authors aptly states "Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder. " In reality the performance always has a transitional (random) component. The end result is that stable companies are more likely to have incompetent managers at many levels of the organizational structure whereas younger and fast growing companies may avert some implication of this principle at least temporary.

"Employees", as the author points out, "do not want to be incompetent", but when management offers promotions that put the employees closer to their level of incompetence, the employees have no way of knowing that ahead of time. After all, if the offer is made. it is because management "knows" the employee can do the job competently on his/her present level. But an interesting side effect observable in large and old organizations is that such decision might be made by managers who are already at their level of incompetence (Dilbert's PHBs). This effect can be called large organization Catch 22. Another related phenomenon is called Negative selection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In politics , negative selection is a process that occurs in rigid hierarchies , most notably dictatorships . The person on the top of the hierarchy, wishing to remain in power forever, chooses his associates with the prime criterion of incompetence - they must not be competent enough to remove him from power. The associates do the same with those below them in the hierarchy, and the hierarchy is progressively filled with more and more incompetent people. If the dictator sees that he is threathened nonetheless, he will remove those that threaten him from their positions - "purge" the hierarchy.

Emptied positions in the hierarchy are normally filled with people from below - those who were less competent than their previous masters. So, over the course of time, the hierarchy becomes less and less effective. As this happens relatively often, once the dictator dies, or is removed by some external influence, what remains is a grossly ineffective hierarchy. The Politburo of CPSU of the USSR was the impressive example of negative selection. If Khrushchev was just marginally incompetent, inaptness of Gorbachyov was legendary and his inability to master Russian language rivaled Bush II. Like Bushisms, "Gorbachvisms" make him a laughing stock for most of the population. Some of the short stories in the book are not only funny, they might well be based on true events. Actually the message of some stories is dead serious: pyramid climbing is a dangerous sport and that's is exactly true in computer programming. Incompetent managers is too serious problem to ignore. This book also served as a cornerstone for Dilbert series which became a cartoon classic (but generally overstayed its welcome: you can't milk the same cow for decades and expect a stellar result).

The book might helps students, who just joined the large enterprise environment to withstand the pressure and the absurd of the software development and large corporate IT in general. Finally understand the roots of incompetence in higher ranks, February 10, 2000 Reviewer: A reader from USA The author hit the nail on the head when he discovered this principle! After years of pondering whether it's just me or if there really is such a thing as companies with huge percentages of incompetent managers, I finally feel relieved to know that I was not 'just imagining' things. The book made me take a hard look at myself and question whether I had reached my own level of incompetence, and based on the case studies in the book I started analyzing what WOULD make me reach my level. One thing I would have like to read more about is how those of us who have not yet reached their level of incompetence, can better manage the struggle with those who have reached their level and make our work days miserable. Understanding why we as a nation fail so much, January 22, 2000 Reviewer: Jimmy P Ledbetter (see more about me) from Ridgecrest USA I read the Peter Principle years ago and have read through it frequently ever since.

My first time was while still in the military and it explained to me, a great deal of the things I saw go wrong. It left an impression upon me that lasted throughout my career and which still helps me today. It explained clearly why I was so frustrated with the way things had begun to deteriorate so badly once I was into the second half of my career. And it helped me to make certain career choices that I still believe to day were the most beneficial decision I could have made at the time, and I was glad I had that knowledge to consider. Dr. Laurence and his associates hit the nail right on the head in describing the failing principles, due to the Peter Principle of our Political system, our Judicial System, and much more. On the whole we do promote to incompetence and it is our number one failing. From the military point of view there are quite a few additional contributing factors, all Peter Principle related, which resulted in a decline in the American Military. Which include the radical feminist movement, promoting for gender rather than merit, the radical quota promotions, promoting by race, rather than merit, and our leader's failure to stand firm for core values.

The up or out policy is the epitome of the Peter Principle, as is the guaranteed promotion policy, and the reenlistment bonus program which has been a great failure. Of course this book applies to all walks of life and even applies to our Present White House occupant and many of our congressional members. And will apply to many of those running for political office today. The Peter Principle is a must read for the student of our American social, political and judicial decline and what horror is in store for us in the twenty first century if we do not recognize the beast and kill it before it becomes unstoppable, which it may already be. A great read. On a negative side the book promotes too simplistic understanding of corporate bureaucracy. Unlike its portrait in the book corporate bureaucracy is first and foremost a political coalition, aimed on preserving and maintaining power of members. Top updates [Sep 10, 2011] A New Look at The Peter Principle By Bob Sutton March 31, 2009 | BusinessWeek The Peter Principle came as a revelation to my father, Lewis Sutton. He ran a little company in San Francisco called Oceanic Marine that sold furniture and related equipment, which he installed on United States Navy ships.

His livelihood depended on U.S. government bureaucrats and shipyard managers, who often made him miserable. I grew up listening to his tirades about how these "overpaid idiots" insisted that he produce and procure poorly designed furnishings, how they could barely do their jobs, and how pathetically lazy they were. To make matters worse, senior government officials produced an onslaught of absurd procedures that required him to jump through an ever-expanding maze of administrative hoopsï¿½which wasted his time, drove up his costs, and made him crazy. He concluded: "The morons at the top must be paid to waste as much taxpayer money as possible." My father loved The Peter Principle because it explained why life could be so maddeningï¿½and why everyone around you seems, or is doomed to become, incompetent. The people who ran the U.S. Navy and the shipyards didn't intend to do such lousy work. They were simply victims of Dr. Peter's immutable principle. They had been promoted inevitably, maddeningly, absurdly to their "level of incompetence." Dr.

Peter also taught my father not to expect the few competent bureaucrats and managers he encountered to stick around for long, as they would soon be promoted to a job that they were unable to perform properly. Dr. Peter even showed that such incompetence had pervaded my dad's business for hundreds of years. The book quotes a report from 1684 about the British Navy: "The naval administration was a prodigy of wastefulness, corruption, ignorance, and indolenceï¿½no estimate could be trustedï¿½no contract was performedï¿½no check was enforced." My dad took special delight in the pseudoscientific jargon that Dr. Peter invented to describe the weird and wasteful behaviors displayed by those languishing at their level of incompetence. Peter gave absurd and comedic names to the tragic realities of working life. The root of the entire book, the condition of incompetence that Peter called "Final Placement Syndrome," leads some to develop "Abnormal Tabulology" (an "unusual and highly significant arrangement of his desk"). This pathology is manifested, for example, in "Tabulatory Gigantism" (an obsession with having a bigger desk than his colleagues).

My father's business was especially afflicted with the "Teeter-Totter Syndrome" ("a complete inability to make decisions") and "Cachinatory Inertia" ("the habit of telling jokes instead of getting on with business"). As with so many others who were buoyed by this international bestseller, Dr. Peter's sense of the absurd helped my father combat this tragedy of ineptitude by responding with laughter rather than rage. I have a soft spot for The Peter Principle because my dad loved it so much. Before revisiting it to write this foreword, I hadn't read it since it was first published in 1969 (when I was fifteen). I expected it would be a quaint curiosity, that Dr. Peter's old book would be largely irrelevant to today's workplace. I presumed that the application of business knowledge developed over the last forty years would have stamped out many maladies described by Dr. Peter, that market forces would have eliminated many or most organizations that were riddled with incompetence, and that subsequent writings on the subject would be more useful and engaging than The Peter Principle . I was wrong on all three counts. Yes, the book is archaic in some ways, especially in its use of sexist language and examples.

Yet the book's main ideas remain as pertinent to running and working in an organization today as they were forty years ago. None of this would have surprised Dr. Peter, who depicted his ideas as timeless and immutable facts of organizational life. "Incompetence," he argued, "knows no barrier of time or place." Dr. Peter observed that one reason so many employees are incompetent is that that the skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required do the job itself. The skills required to run a great political campaign have little to do with the skills required to govern. There is nothing about being a great surgeon that prepares a doctor to run a hospital. Learning to be a great litigator in no way prepares a lawyer to run a law firm. Many organizations, from hospitals to law firms, use such standards to select new leadersï¿½yet devote little or no attention to their management skills. They often end up with lousy leaders and lose their best individual performers. These observations remain just as true in 2009 as they did in 1969. Or consider Dr.

Peter's counterintuitive claim that "in most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence." He warned that extremely skilled and productive employees often face criticism, and are fired if they don't start performing worse. Their presence "disrupts and therefore violates the first commandment of hierarchical life: the hierarchy must be preserved." Unfortunately, this pattern persists in many modern organizations. Several fantastic teachers that I know at prestigious universities have been pressured by peers and leaders to do a worse job of teaching because "you are making everyone else look bad." One of these professors insists that he received tenure partly because he worked to earn teaching evaluations that were no better than those of the professors who evaluated his case. Even the youngest super-competent people in our society still face criticism and ostracismï¿½like nine-year-old Jericho Scott, a star little league baseball pitcher in New Haven, Connecticut. Jericho had never hurt an opposing player with his well-controlled, 40-mile-per-hour fastball. But when his coach refused to stop Jericho from pitching, the league hierarchy responded by barring Jericho from pitching and disbanding his undefeated team.

Jericho's coach complainedï¿½to no availï¿½that his young star was punished for being too good. As for Jericho, he told the Associated Press that "I feel sad," and that "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play." If Jericho wants to play in this league, I guess his choices are to play another position (like second base) where he isn't super-competent or to figure out how to become a mediocre pitcher. Another reason The Peter Principle has no peer is that it somehow manages to be devilishly silly yet accurate and useful all at the same time. It reads like a first-rate parody of a business bookï¿½it reminds me of the best stuff in Mad magazine or the Onion. Yet Dr. Peter applies such silliness to describe how and why incompetence happens with dead accuracy. Satire works when it exposes the truth and upends fallacy. The Peter Principle is so funny because it is so true. It is filled with practical ideas that we can all use to limit the damage that incompetence does to our organizations and ourselves. One reason the book is so hilarious is that Dr. Peter was not only an incisive thinker but masterfully creative with words. If Dr.

Seuss and Peter Drucker had joined forces to write a business book, The Peter Principle might been have been the result. Peter invented dozens of strange, stilted, and pseudoscientific phrases and words. I suggest reading the glossary of over 100 phrases and words from "the science of hierarchiology" in the back before turning to the rest of the book. The translations will help you absorb Dr. Peter's ideas more quickly and more deeply. Plus, the silly pseudoscientific jargon (paired with well-crafted definitions) will get you into the right mindset for entering Dr. Peter's strange and wonderful world. Words he invented, such as hierarchiology, structurophillia, and staticmanship, weren't in any dictionary in 1969, and don't seem to have entered the English language some forty years later. And I can't find any behavioral science research on terms such as "Percussive Sublimation" ("being kicked upstairs: a pseudo promotion") and "Peter's Circumambulation" ("a detour around a super-incumbent," who is "a person above you who, having reached his level of incompetence, blocks your path to promotion.").

All these words sound just like the jargon used in well-developed scientific fields. Yet, unlike experts of who unintentionally develop absurd and often incomprehensible jargon, Dr. Peter meant to be silly when he invented the language for a field that did not (and still does not) exist. The silliness persists with the names invented for case studies of employees and organizations. People such as J.S. Minion, G. Spender, and Miss T. Totland, or organizations such as the Excelsior City Special Education Department, are given fake names, and it is often difficult to tell if the stories themselves are real or fictional. The boldness of Dr. Peter's claims also somehow mocks the overconfidence that runs through most self-help and business books, while simultaneously making his arguments more convincing. He states repeatedly that "there are no exceptions to the Peter Principle." This claim is absurd on the face of it because, as he says, "the science of hierarchiology" is based on limited evidence and requires much work to develop. Yet taking such a strong position enabled Dr. Peter to present his ideas in efficient and persuasive ways.

I laughed a lot through Chapter III, which argues that all apparent exceptions to the Peter Principle are not exceptions at all. In rapid-fire fashion, he shows that Percussive Sublimation, the Paternal Instep (promoting a family member several steps above his or her level of incompetence), and a host of other apparent exceptions to the principle, in fact, demonstrate the power of the principle. By the end of the chapter, I suspect that many of the most cynical and logical readers will be convinced by his arguments. That is the wonderful thing about The Peter Principle . It doesn't seem to matter that the jargon, names, and stories are fake. It doesn't seem to matter that many of the assertions are twisted and, at times, seemingly wildly illogical. Somehow, despite (or perhaps because) of all this nonsense, a host of accurate and useful ideas emerge from this masterpiece. The validity of these ideas isn't just supported by Dr. Peter's rhetorical flourish and keen eye. Many of Dr. Peter's ideas are also supported by modern behavioral science research. Stanford Professor and renowned economist Edward P.

Lazear published an academic paper in 2001 called " The Peter Principle : A Theory of Decline." Professor Lazear provides a string of impressive and (to most of us) incomprehensible mathematical formulas to explain why "individuals perform worse after having received promotion." He lends mathematical proof to the truths Peter revealed through close (and cynical) observation. Some of these formulas show that, even if all employees promoted to the next level were competent in their previous jobs, some percentage will be incompetent in their new jobs. Professor Lazear lifts this assertion directly from The Peter Principle . He then calculatesï¿½just as Dr. Peter proposedï¿½that this age-old scenario occurs partly because performance standards get tougher as one moves up the hierarchy. To give you a taste, here is just one of the many intertwined formulas Professor Lazear provides: A + E(ï¿½1 | A + ï¿½1 > A*) > A + E(ï¿½2 | A + ï¿½1 > A*) Got that? Neither do I.

I have no idea what this formula means, but Lazear concludes after this fancy math: "Thus, expected ability falls for promoted individuals from period 1 to period 2." Not all research that supports Dr. Peter's assertions about hierarchiology is so difficult to understand. Professor Lazear summarizes a host of other, simpler studies suggesting that people with stronger skills tend to be promoted more quickly and that people with weaker skills tend to get stuck in their current jobs after just one or two promotionsï¿½as The Peter Principle Authors: Alessandro Pluchino , Andrea Rapisarda , Cesare Garofalo (Submitted on 2 Jul 2009 ( v1 ), last revised 29 Oct 2009 (this version, v3)) Abstract: In the late sixties the Canadian psychologist Laurence J. Peter advanced an apparently paradoxical principle, named since then after him, which can be summarized as follows: {\it 'Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence'}.

Despite its apparent unreasonableness, such a principle would realistically act in any organization where the mechanism of promotion rewards the best members and where the mechanism at their new level in the hierarchical structure does not depend on the competence they had at the previous level, usually because the tasks of the levels are very different to each other. Here we show, by means of agent based simulations, that if the latter two features actually hold in a given model of an organization with a hierarchical structure, then not only is the Peter principle unavoidable, but also it yields in turn a significant reduction of the global efficiency of the organization. Within a game theory-like approach, we explore different promotion strategies and we find, counterintuitively, that in order to avoid such an effect the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are either to promote each time an agent at random or to promote randomly the best and the worst members in terms of competence. [Sep 10, 2011] The generalized Peter Principle In evolution systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence The Peter Principle was first introduced by L. Peter in a humoristic book (of the same title) describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organization.

The original principle states that in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they are expected to do. The evolutionary generalization of the principle is less pessimistic in its implications, since evolution lacks the bureaucratic inertia that pushes and maintains people in an unfit position.

But what will certainly remain is that systems confronted by evolutionary problems will quickly tackle the easy ones, but tend to get stuck in the difficult ones. The better (more fit, smarter, more competent, more adaptive) a system is, the more quickly it will solve all the easy problems, but the more difficult the problem will be it finally gets stuck in. Getting stuck here does not mean "being unfit", it just means having reached the limit of one's competence, and thus having great difficulty advancing further. This explains why even the most complex and adaptive species (such as ourselves, humans) are always still "struggling for survival" in their niches as energetically as are the most primitive organisms such as bacteria. If ever a species would get control over all its evolutionary problems, then the " Red Queen Principle " would make sure that new, more complex problems would arise, so that the species would continue to balance on the border of its domain of incompetence. In conclusion, the generalized Peter principle states that in evolution systems tend to develop up to the limit of their adaptive competence. [May 19, 2003] Talking Shop What the management-level job requires in skills In his bestseller , The Peter Principle, Dr. Lawrence J.

Peter theorized that in a hierarchy, employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence. His view is that you will advance to your highest level of competence and consequently get promoted to a position where you will be hopelessly inept. If you're a proficient and effective tech support pro, you're most likely demonstrating peak competence in your job right now. Very soon, your boss may commend you for your excellence and valuable contribution to your organization, and, to reward you for your efforts, favorably endorse your promotion to an executive position. But is the managerial level right for you? Or are you getting set up to be a statistic supporting the Peter Principle? Before you deliberate on which company car will go well with your new upper management title, consider the career shift tips and insights we gathered from three former-techs-turned-managers. Here are the realities you need to consider, along with steps you need to take, to ensure that your promotion from tech to manager doesn't raise you to your level of incompetence. Magellan's Log The Dick Principle by Harold J. Dick, Ph.D.No. 22 in The Idea Man Series.

In 1969, Laurence Peter set the world of management on its ear by announcing a revelation: "In a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence. Thus, every position will eventually be occupied by someone who is not quite capable of doing the job." The Peter Principle quickly entered the curricula of all with-it MBA programs, but also turned out to have such widespread applicability that it became part of corporate folk knowledge. Everybody immediately grasped the principle because everybody recognized that their own boss was an example of the principle in action. Careers were made and careers were shattered as people reacted, and overreacted, to Dr. Peter's great insight. Having acknowledged my debt to the past, I now suggest it is time we update the Peter Principle. The world that Larry Peter occupied and analyzed so cleverly is one that has come to be labeled the " Old Economy ," the world of stable companies creating value the old-fashioned way: they worked for it. Such was the stability in that world that employees could actually expect to spend their careers with one company. It is a world that is still studied as the norm in the degree programs of economics departments and business schools.

That old working world still has applicability, but the time has come to question its pertinence in the brave new world of dot-coms. For, the Old Economy continues to exist side-by-side with the New Economy, just as various cottage industries hummed along in their quaint medieval ways through much of the 19th century as the Industrial Revolution was rapidly rendering the old ways useless. Brick-and-mortar we shall not always have with us, but probably for a while yet they will continue, including their legions of careers capped off by the unpleasant reality reflected in the Peter Principle. The New Economy of the cyberworld requires a new theory of mismanagement, a new statement of the dizzying reality behind the glitzy career life in the dot-coms, the awfulness of careers spent surfing wave after tumultuous wave of IPO's. The New Economy is a world not of slow accretion, of gradual promotions, but of incessant and rapid job-jumping.

I give you, then, the Dick Principle: In a cyber-economy, BELLACIAO - The Peter Principle and the Bush Administration - villy - Collective Bellaciao Last night on Frontline they broadcast a biting documentary entitled "The Dark Side", which revealed the truth about how the CIA and the Pentagon were at odds about evidence for going to war in Iraq,etc. These guys emerged as the "Gang that couldnï¿½t shoot staight", and reminded me of Lawrence Peters, who created the "principle" IN ANY HEIRARCHY, PEOPLE RISE TO THE LEVELY OF THEIR INCOMPETENCY AND REMAIN THERE. Nowhere can I find better examples of this rule than in the Bush administration. To wit: CONDOLEEZZA RICE: She was a talented pianist, an Oil Executive, a Russian studies expert,etc....but when she was made National Security Chief, she was suddenly clueless. Ditto when she "sidestepped" into her current position as Sec. of State.

COLIN POWELL: Despite having committed criminal acts (Iran-Contra Pentagon arms arrangements), Powell was highly respected worldwide until he buckled under and agreed to make the preposterous UN presentation of "evidence" of WMDs. Now heï¿½s in disgrace and tyring to find someone to blame for HIS inadequacy. DONALD RUMSFELD: A highly successful businessman and experienced government "servant" in past administrations, when he joined the Bush gang he suddenly "lost it", and made a series of absurd errors which fouled things up in Iraq beyond belief.....and heï¿½s still at it. He refuses to resign. DICK CHENEY: A long time politician and businessman, he was successful (if not popular) in most undertakings until he became VP (at his own request). He then got caught rigging energy contracts, feeding Halliburton good deals, and making endless false statements about WMDs and Husseinsï¿½ "connections" to al Qaeda..despite loads of evidence to the contrary. Now heï¿½s among the most despised people in the entire world!

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: The neocon with offices in the Pentagon, Asst. Sec. of Defense, and professional liar once in the administration. He "knew" that Iraqï¿½s prodigious oil output would "pay for the war", and predicted that weï¿½d be welcomed in Iraq "with flowers and chocolate", and that the war would be a "cakewalk"...NOT! GEORGE W. BUSH: I must say that Dubya just doesnï¿½t fit here, but had to be mentioned, of course. Bush was never really successful in his own right, having failed with a sports team (although bailed out), an oil company (bailed out) and as governor of Texas (popular, but what did he actully accomplish?). No, he was just a clown who was a part time drunk and alleged drug user who saw the light and straightened up enough to get "selected" as President...twice. Lawrence Peter would be lost when trying to figure out how one of the dumbest and most ignorant of all candidates could ever have achieved what he did. What does HE know, anyway?

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In case softpanorama.org is down you can use the at softpanorama.info Disclaimer: The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the author present and former employers, SDNP or any other organization the author may be associated with. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. Last modified: October 20, 2014 Peter Principle | Define Peter Principle at Dictionary.com Peter Principle noun 1. any of several satirical “laws” concerning organizational structure, especially one that holds that people tend to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Origin of Peter Principle from the title of a book by Laurence J. Peter (born 1919), Canadian educator Dictionary.com Unabridged British Dictionary definitions for Peter Principle Expand noun 1. the Peter Principle, the theory, usually taken facetiously, that all members in a hierarchy rise to their own level of incompetence Word Origin C20: from the book The Peter Principle (1969) by Dr. Lawrence J.

Peter and Raymond Hull, in which the theory was originally propounded Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for Peter Principle Expand 1968, "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence," named for (and by) Laurence Johnston Peter (1919-1990) Canadian-born U.S. educationalist and author, who described it in his book of the same name (1969). Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper SharePoint Roots: Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence This morning a colleague shared with me a very interesting theory (thanks Steph!). It is called the Peter Principle.

The Peter Principle is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." The Peter Principle is a special case of an ever-present observation: anything that works will be used in more challenging applications until it fails. I gave this theory a lot of consideration and realized that it applies to all aspects of life... I am a D.I.Y. enthusiast. I have a limited range of tools at home and sometimes I will try to use a tool which works perfectly in its own intended application for something which it was not meant to be used for.... because I push a tool beyond its limits it will in many cases fail and pose a risk of damage, setback, additional costs to be incurred or even injury. In an organizational structure, the Peter Principle's practical application allows assessment of the potential of an employee for a promotion based on performance in the current job; i.e., members of a hierarchical organization eventually are promoted to their highest level of competence, after which further promotion raises them to incompetence. That level is the employee's "level of incompetence" where the employee has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching his career's ceiling in an organization.

The employee's incompetence is not necessarily exposed as a result of the higher-ranking position being more difficult — simply, that job is different from the job in which the employee previously excelled, and thus requires different work skills, which the employee may not possess. For example, a factory worker's excellence in his job can earn him promotion to manager, at which point the skills that earned him his promotion no longer apply to his job. Peter's findings states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence". I personally have observed situations from within the organization as well as in social circles where individuals need to face new challenges and responsibilities. It is very interesting to learn how many individual's potential is choked by a fear of such challenge and I have seen them stagnate. In other situations I have seen that an individual are not able manage the stresses and challenges and thereby retract (demote) himself to a safe and comfortable position – and thereafter show fear of such challenges again.

One way that organizations can avoid this effect is by having a policy that requires termination of an employee should they fail to attain a promotion after a certain amount of time. Even in instances where an employee can handle their current job but fail to do any better, they can still cause harm within the company, by way of preventing those beneath them with higher potential of moving up, as well as lowering morale once such employees become aware of this fact. Another method is to refrain from promoting a worker until he shows the skills and work habits needed to succeed at the next higher job. Thus, a worker is not promoted to managing others if he does not already display management abilities. Some organizations recognize that technical people may be very valuable for their skills but poor managers, and so provide parallel career paths allowing a good technical person to acquire pay and status reserved for management in most organizations. References: Posted by Johan Olivier at 3:21 PM Reactions: Incompetence Rains, Er, Reigns: What The Peter Principle Means Today Incompetence Rains, Er, Reigns: What The Peter Principle Means Today {{article.article.images.featured.caption}} Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Full Bio The author is a Forbes contributor.

The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Loading ... Loading ... This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe You may think you’ve heard the Peter Principle before—something to the effect that, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” But the Peter Principle was more than an alarmingly nasty motto. It was an alarmingly nasty book —and a funny one at that, illustrating the efforts of many managers to seem productive when in fact they’re in over their heads. Published nearly a half-century ago, the book is now a refreshing tonic for all the feel-good, impossibly Pollyannaish management wisdom being passed around. The Peter Principle wasn’t titled in honor an incompetent manager named Pete. It was created by Laurence J. Peter, a prominent Canadian scholar of education, who noticed it, began to lecture about it, and was finally egged on to write in more detail about it. Rather than penning a scholarly tract, however, he offered up a straight-faced satirical treatment. It’s as if the book were being narrated by Leslie Nielsen circa “Airplane.” The RMS Titanic, in better days.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia) Here are the core principles of Peter’s bungling world of management: 1. When you’re great at something, you might get rewarded with a promotion … into something you’re terrible at. A typical example, Peter said, is if you’re a great rule-follower who suddenly is placed in charge of making rules and decisions. You may well freeze up in your new role or gum up the productivity of everyone else. 2. Once you’re promoted to your level of incompetence, you probably won’t get fired and replaced with someone more competent. Instead, others will work around you. Why aren’t you fired? Perhaps because you probably know too much about your boss’ business to be booted out too casually. Or because people have sympathy for you because you’re working so many hours. Or because the people who are supposed to judge you have reached their own level of incompetence, and damned if they’re able to realize how unproductive you are. So you now have reached the ominously termed station called “Final Placement.” 3. When you’re competent, even a dummy can see your output. And you’re being rewarded for that output. But once you’re reached incompetence, there’s little or no output from you.

At this point, you’ll be judged by your input—by how early you arrive at the office, by how cheerful you are, by how you’re a good citizen. Rest assured, incompetence is usually not enough to get you fired; only “super-incompetence” is enough to get you fired. And, ironically, “super-competence” will get you fired too, because now you’re just making everyone else look bad. As Peter said, the hierarchy must be protected at all costs. 4. Incompetence is perhaps inevitable. So you have to decide whether you want to rush toward the oblivion of Final Placement (it does have its share of perks and benefits, after all). Or you have to decide whether you want to forestall it as long as you can. 5. If you do decide to rush into a sterile future, Peter said you need to exercise the power of “pull”—by attaching yourself to superiors who can help pull you up quickly. And he offered some unnervingly witty advice on how to manipulate them into a promotion. 6.

If you’re smart enough to realize that you don’t want to be pulled up the ladder to career limbo, you’ll find a happy place where you can be productive and useful, and you’ll fight like hell to avoid getting promoted. You can’t just refuse promotions, Peter said. It creates too many problems. Instead, you have to incompetent fire with incompetent fire, by mastering the art of “creative incompetence.” This magnificent, high art involves preemptively scuttling your chances for promotion. You do this by demonstrating incompetence at something irrelevant, something that won’t get you fired, but which will get you removed from the short list for upper management. Peter offered a few helpful suggestions, such as being marginally rude to the boss’ spouse at the holiday party, dressing just slightly inappropriately, or occasionally accidentally parking in the CEO’s spot. 7. Because incompetence is inevitable, we shouldn’t be trying to fire all the incompetent managers. We’d only replace them with deadwood anyway. And being a social species, we realize these people have families to feed, cars to buy and vacations to take. They’re job-creators, if you will.

Peter argued that incompetent people will do the least damage to competent people’s productivity if we maintain the benign illusion that they’re useful and have a bright future. What to Make of the Peter Principle Today Peter Principle Definition | Investopedia Loading the player... What is the 'Peter Principle' The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies , such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence. The Peter Principle is based on the logical idea that competent employees will continue to be promoted, but at some point will be promoted into positions for which they are incompetent, and they will then remain in those positions because of the fact that they do not demonstrate any further competence that would get them recognized for additional promotion. According to the Peter Principle, every position in a given hierarchy will eventually be filled by employees who are incompetent to fulfill the job duties of their respective positions. BREAKING DOWN 'Peter Principle' The Peter Principle was laid out by Canadian educational scholar, Dr. Laurence J. Peter, in his 1968 book titled "The Peter Principle." Dr.

Peter also stated in his book that an employee's inability to fulfill the requirements of a given position that he is promoted to may not be the result of general incompetence on the part of the employee as much as it is due to the fact that the position simply requires different skills than those the employee actually possesses. For example, an employee who is very good at following rules or company policies may be promoted into the position of creating rules or policies, despite the fact that being a good rule follower does not mean that an individual is well-suited to be a good rule creator. Expanding on the Peter Principle Dr. Peter summed up the Peter Principle with a twist on the old adage that "the cream rises to the top" by stating that "the cream rises until it sours." In other words, excellent employee performance is inevitably promoted to the point where the employee's performance is no longer excellent, or even satisfactory. According to the Peter Principle, competence is rewarded with promotion because competence, in the form of employee output, is noticeable and therefore usually recognized.

However, once an employee reaches a position in which they are incompetent, they are no longer evaluated based on their output, but instead are evaluated on input factors, such as arriving at work on time and having a good attitude. Dr. Peter further argued that employees tend to remain in positions for which they are incompetent because mere incompetence is rarely sufficient to cause the employee to be fired from the position. Ordinarily, only extreme incompetence causes dismissal. Overcoming the Peter Principle A possible solution to the problem posed by the Peter Principle is for companies to provide adequate skill training for employees receiving a promotion, and to ensure the training is appropriate for the position to which they have been promoted. However, Dr. Peter pessimistically predicted that even good employee training is ultimately unable to overcome the general tendency of organizations to promote employees to positions of incompetence, which he refers to as positions of "final placement." Trading Center THE PETER PAN PRINCIPLE THE PETER PAN PRINCIPLE Friday Mar 02, 2012 · 6:00 AM PST 2012/03/02 · 06:00 7 I suppose you have heard of the most famous work by Dr.

Laurence Peter, “The Peter Principle.” It states that in any hierarchy “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”. Well, I have observed a related behavior in human males which I call “The Peter Pan Principle”. Peter Pan was the theatrical boy who never grew up, and my theory postulates that males achieve only that level of maturity they achieve by the age of 12 – after which time they will mature no further. The prime example of such a life long adolescence is Arthur Brown , second cousin to Calvin Coolidge, and a man whose dramatic life reached its pinnacle on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and its nadir ten years later and a block away, on the floor of a hotel bedroom. To put it another way - Arthur Brown slept his way to the bottom. Arthur grew in up in the 1840's on a Michigan farm, with two older sisters - he was a baby Moses floating in an estrogen sea. Family friends generously described him as possessing a “keen intellect” but less perceptive on “moral issues”. When he was 13 his progressive minded parents dragged him to the center of Ohio so that his older sisters could attend the Unitarian funded Antioch College.

As was to be expected given its provenance, the academic standards at this institute of higher learning were high, while the standards of discipline were a bit fuzzy. The students did not pass or fail, they instead received a “narrative evaluation” for each class. It was the perfect environment for Arthur, altho he seems to have been confused as to the advice of the schools first President, Horace Mann; “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” * After graduating from Antioch, Arthur earned a law degree and spent the Civil War years back in Kalamazoo Michigan, building a successful criminal law practice, marrying, and fathering a daughter. And when his mid-life crises came, you might say that Arthur's response was per-ordained. * He fell in love with Ms. Isabel Cameron, daughter of the powerful Republican State Senator, David “The Don” Cameron. Arthur bought his new mistress a new horse and buggy, and rented her a house. Now, no rational person would have expected to keep such a high profile affair secret in a town of just 20,000.

And one night in 1876 Arthur's offended spouse surprised the loving couple in his law offices. Mrs. Brown was armed with a loaded revolver, but luckily she proved a poor marks-woman. The entire town sided with the wife, who threw Arthur out. The man-child Cassanova now moved to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. * Arthur was expecting to be appointed the U.S. District Attorney for Utah, but the pall of smoke from the bridges he had burned in Kalamazoo obscured his prospects. So he opened a law office at 212 South Main Street in Salt Lake City (above), where he quickly duplicated his Michigan success. The local newspaper judged Arthur to be “a good hater,.” and described him as “Gentile in faith, but a Mormon in practice.” * By 1879, when he was rejoined by the still smitten Isabel, Arthur was a millionaire. And the instant his Michigan divorce was finalized, Isabel became the second Mrs. Brown. The happy couple bought a fine house in the fashionable section of South Temple Street, and, in time produced a son , whom they named Max.

In 1894 Arthur was sent to Washington as one of Utah state's first two senators. The New York Times described him as “an intense, bitter partisan...Always pugnacious...” His honorary post ended after only one year, and he did not run for re-election. * Arthur returned to his law practice and his family, in that order. In 1896 Arthur was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in St. Louis. And it was there he met his new mistress, a secretary for the local Republican party, Mrs. Anne Maddison Bradley. He was 53, and she was 23. * Annie was the editor of the Salt Lake City Woman's Club magazine, a member of the Woman’s Press Club and the Poet's Roundtable. She was also a charter member of the Salt Lake City Unitarian Church. She was everything a rich Unitarian might seek in a mistress, if you overlooked her husband and two children. But wouldn't that just make her more likely to be discreet?

The convention nominated William McKinley on the first ballot, allowing Arthur and Anne time to consummate their affair so quickly that Arthur overlooked yet another impediment to his new mistress - a vine of insanity intertwining around several branches of Annie's family tree. * Back in booming Salt Lake City (above), Annie separated from her husband, Clarence. He started drinking to excess, and then gambling to excess. A couple of years later Clarence conveniently ended up in jail. Anne testified later that Arthur then “began coming to my house at very unseemly hours, and I told him it must stop, but he answered. 'Darling, we will go through life together. I want you to have a son' and after several months we did.” Arthur Brown Bradley was born February 7, 1902. * Shortly thereafter Arthur took a suite at the Independence Hotel. He informed Isabel he was going to file for divorce. He even took Annie on a trip to Washington, D.C, staying at the Raleigh Hotel, just behind the Capital, at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th street. * When the divorce papers arrived, Isabel was finally spurred to action.

And when hitting Arthur with a horse whip did not dissuade him from seeing his mistress, Isabel had both Arthur and Annie arrested and charged with adultery - four times in six months. * The Salt Lake City “Desert News" was present at the last arraignment. Said the News, “Arthur Brown On the Rampage...Says He Was Knocked Down By an Officer.” Arthur accused the police of notifying the newspapers, and denounced the arrest of Annie, in a very loud voice. “They dragged her through the streets", he shouted, "one on each side of her. Armed to the teeth. Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!” Judge Christopher Diehl asked Arthur, “How do you expect to keep such things out of the papers when you yell so you can be heard for two blocks?” Eventually the headlines would read, “Arthur Brown Goes Scot Free.” But all the dramatics took a toll on poor Arthur. * His last arrest forced some reflection and re-evaluation upon Arthur. He moved back into the house on South Temple (above) with Isabel. Annie was offered a house of her own and $100 a month to stay a way from Arthur. She turned it down.

And a few months later Arthur slipped away to meet Annie in room 11 of the Pacific hotel in Pocatello, Idaho. So much for reflection. * Their passionate reunion was interrupted by Isabel banging on the door. Arthur admitted his wife, at the same time asking his law partner to please, “Come in, I don't want to be left alone here with them.” * Annie began civilly enough. “How do you do, Mrs. Bradley? I have wanted to talk to you.” But Isabel's instinct was not for conversation. She clamped her hands around Annie's throat and began throttling her. The men separated the combatants, and the women spent the next several hours screaming accusations at each other, while Arthur cringed in the corner, the center of attention. Come the dawn, Isabel returned home and Arthur gave Annie a .32 caliber revolver, should Isabel seek a second confrontation. Annie thought she had won. * But upon Annie's return to Salt Lake City, Arthur's law partner informed her that Isabel and Arthur had “reconciled”. The offer of a house and weekly stipend was renewed, and Arthur pointedly denied his paternity of Annie's son, Arthur Brown Bradley.

And being three months pregnant, Annie reluctantly agreed. She gave birth to her second child by Arthur, Martin Montgomery Brown Bradly, on November 24, 1903. * Despite promises to his wife, Arthur maintained a discreet contact with Annie, at least until August of 1905, when Isabel died of cancer. Abruptly the path seemed cleared for Annie and Arthur to marry. But they did not... that is, Arthur did not. * He was 63 years old now, and already had another mistress, someone closer to his own age for a change, Annie Adams Kiskadden (above, left). She was the mother of Utah's famed actress and creator of the role of Peter Pan, Maude Adams (above, right). * If she did not know about the new mistress, Annie Bradley must have suspected it. She was now 33 years old herself, divorced, the mother of four, and now had no income. Swallowing a little more pride she asked her millionaire boyfriend for $2,000 to start a new life. He ignored that request, but did present her with a one way train ticket to California. Then he left for Washington, D.C.

* This slap in the face snapped something in Annie, just the way something had snapped in the two Mrs. Browns. Annie traded in her ticket to California for one to Washington, D.C * Annie arrived in town on Saturday, December 8, 1906. As she expected, Arthur was registered again at the Raleigh Hotel (above). She registered as Mrs. A. Brown, and took the room next to Arthur's. Conning the maid into opening the connecting door, Annie searched Arthur's room until she found letters from Annie Kiskadden, which discussed marriage plans. No one should be surprised that after waiting for Arthur's return, Annie shot him with the gun he had given her for self defense. * What can you say about a man who keeps inspiring the women in his life to shoot at him? Once might be an accident, twice might be an unlikely coincidence - but three times? When the hotel manager bent down over Arthur (above), he said only, “She shot me.” * It turns out, it was inevitable. Judging by the powder burns on his hands, Arthur was reaching for the gun when Annie pulled the trigger.

The Unitarian giggilo died six days later – December 13, 1906. His obituary in the New York Times noted with faint praise, that Arthur had been “intensely loyal to his male friends.” As proof of his lack of moral character, Arthur's will renounced both of his sons by Annie. “I expressly provide that neither or any of them shall receive anything from my estate.” It almost makes you wish he had lived, so she could have shot him again. * The jury agreed. Annie had entered a plea of “temporary insanity” but almost on the first anniversary of the shooting, and after nine hours of deliberations, the jury instead found Annie simply not guilty. The misdirected Juliet walked out of the court room a free woman. * She went back to Salt Lake City (above) and opened an antique store called “My Shop” And she made a success of it, running her own business, on her own, until her death on November 11, 1950 . * Thus the life of Arthur Brown, who never seemed to get any older than he was at the age of twelve. And don't we all know a guy like that?

- 30 - Looking at The Peter Principle, Dilbert Principle, and Parkinson's Law | I'd Rather Be Writing Looking at The Peter Principle, Dilbert Principle, and Parkinson's Law Feb 15, 2012 • general After my last post about being an individual contributor, a reader asked if I had heard of the Peter Principle or Parkinson's Laws. I hadn't, so I read about them on Wikipedia, as well as a related principle, the Dilbert Principle. The Peter Principle The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." In other words, employees who perform their roles with competence are promoted into successively higher levels until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent. There they remain. For example, let's say you are a brilliant programmer. You spend your days coding with amazing efficiency and prowess. After a couple of years, you're promoted to lead programmer, and then promoted to team manager. You may have no interest in managing other programmers, but it's the reward for your competence. There you sit -- you have risen to a level of incompetence.

Your technical skills lie dormant while you fill your day with one-on-one meetings, department strategy meetings, planning meetings, budgets, and reports. The Dilbert Principle The Dilbert Principle is related to the Peter Principle, but the Dilbert Principle states that "companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing." In contrast to the Peter Principle, which seems to promote competent employees out of good faith (though it works toward the employees' detriment), Dilbert sees management as a place to stuff the incompetent so they are no longer blocking the productive workflow of the company. The Dilbert Principle assumes that " the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people lower in the power ladder." Those in management don't actually do anything to move forward the work. You can see the Dilbert principle play out in The Office, Office Space, and other parodies of corporate culture. (See The Dilbert Principle .) Parkinson's Law Parkinson's Law states that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Although this law has application with procrastination, storage capacity, and resource usage, Parkinson focuses his law on swelling bureaucracies.

Parkinson says that bureacracies swell for two reasons: (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other." [Parkinson] notes in particular that the total of those employed inside a bureaucracy rose by 5-7% per year "irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done". (See Parkinson's Law .) In other words, a bureaucracy may swell not because the workload increases, but because they have the capacity and resources that allow for an increased workload even if the workload does not in fact increase. People without any work find ways to increase the amount of "work" and therefore add to the size of their bureaucracy. My Analysis None of these principles or laws gives much credit to management. Either the wrong person fills the wrong role, the role exists only to minimize damage control, or the role swells unnecessarily simply because it can. I find the whole topic of management somewhat fascinating, not because I think these theories apply to my own manager. In fact, my manager has a consulting background. He negotiates projects and budget, and interacts with other product owners throughout the organization to solicit more work for our group.

He's not a former technical writer, but rather a former developer. These management theories are more relevant with our community volunteer efforts. Lead engineers looking to leverage community IT talent for their projects often find themselves in management roles, without a strong understanding of how to manage a large group of people. Most of the time, these engineer project leaders (I include myself here too, by the way) fail to engage the community. Most volunteers remain "observers," which means they remain waiting for assignments -- indefinitely. The project leaders are usually brilliant at their technical job but don't excel at management. One project manager, however, seemed to find a way around this predicament. The project manager was a lead engineer, a sharp developer who could code an iPhone application all by himself in a matter of weeks. Yet, he suddenly found himself leading a project that involved more than 100 volunteers. Because he was shy, and not inclined to interact with volunteers in an outspoken, engaging way, he found an outspoken community volunteer and designated him as the community manager instead. The project manager interacted mostly with the community manager, giving instruction, assignments, and other critical information to him alone.

The community manager in turn interacted with the scores of volunteers, doing all the interacting and assigning and following up that management involves. Apparently this system worked out quite well, and it's a model we're trying to implement on other projects. The trick is to find an outspoken community manager who can fill this role. However you do it, the key principle to follow should be this: put individuals to work in their core competencies. It makes little sense to take your most brilliant engineer and have him or her manage people and budgets. Likewise, it makes no sense to take a shrewd consultant, one who can negotiate projects and requirements down to the most minute detail, and put that individual into a role involving creative design and content generation. However, to implement this model, you have to allow for reward without a dramatic change in job responsibilities or skills. Last week I was talking with a social media maven in the breakroom. I mentioned how I wished he could take over the Twitter, Facebook, and other social media aspects surrounding the technology blog in our organization. I'd rather just focus on creating content for the blog, I said.

He was clearly intrigued, and if the world were a simple checkerboard that allowed us to move pieces here and there at will, I would already have made the switch. But of course he's in another group, with other responsibilities, and different billing codes and reporting structures. It reinforces how complicated movement can be in large organizations. I realize that these laws and principles -- the Peter Principle, the Dilbert Principle, and Parkinson's Law (as well as Putt's Law, which I didn't mention) -- aren't necessarily founded in reality. It's easy to look at a manager's closed doors and wonder he or she does all day, if anything. But having had a taste of management with my volunteer project, I've come to realize the difficulty and scope of what management entails. It's hard work and requires a certain skillset that I'm only beginning to develop. One should therefore look at these principles and laws with an acknowledgment that they most likely developed from the employee's perspective, not the manager's.

Hillary and the Peter Principle Hillary and the Peter Principle By Rich Galen | March 11, 2009 | 10:24 AM EDT The Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence." At this point last year, Hillary Clinton was still seen by about half the people who voted in Democratic primaries (and about two-thirds of the reporters who wrote about them) as the best possible person to become the next President of the United States. In fact, in a poll taken exactly a year ago by Franklin & Marshall College in the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary the results showed: Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by 16 points among likely Democratic primary voters, 51% to 35%. Mrs. Clinton leads among voters in virtually every demographic group, with the exceptions being non-whites and voters in Philadelphia. Hillary, remember, had gone oh-for-February and under the rules of the Democratic Party it was not likely she would be able to overtake Barack by the end of the primary season, but she refused to get out.

It is now clear to me - although I have absolutely no reason to know this to be true - that Hillary agreed not to blow up the Democratic convention in Denver if she became Secretary of State. Which she is. And she is dreadful at it. Need proof? How about the one paper which Conservatives read when they can't tune in Rush Limbaugh. I speak, of course, of the Washington Post which, in its lead editorial on Monday wrote: “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to devalue and undermine the U.S. diplomatic tradition of human rights advocacy.” The Post reminded us that when Clinton was in China she dismissed its dismal human rights record by saying "'those issues can't interfere' with economic, security or environmental matters." Then, after her State Department wrote that Egypt's "respect for human rights remained poor during 2008," she gave Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the diplomatic equivalent of a wet kiss by saying, "I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family," which, according to the WashPost "will be treasured by al-Qaeda recruiters and anti-American propagandists throughout the Middle East." Wait! There's more!

In Turkey, when she was asked about her Department's giving Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan the diplomatic equivalent of a Special Agent Jethro Gibbs smack on the back of the head for "strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged [government] corruption" she said: Well, my reaction was that … no politician ever likes the press criticizing them." Oh. We're not done yet. This is the best part. When British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited American President Barack Obama last week there were several things which were seen, by diplomats, as slights - but real people wouldn't have noticed. There was no opening press conference in front of the massed flags of the two countries. And WH press secretary Robert Gibbs talked about the "special partnership" between the US and the UK which is not the same, in diplomat-speak, as the previous construct which was "special relationship." But that wasn't the big one. The big one was the exchange of gifts.

According to the New York Daily News: “After Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk), Obama offered up ... 25 DVDs of American movie classics.” How is this tied into Hillary? Well, as it happens the officials responsible for deciding who gets what from the President are the folks in the Gift Division of the Office of Protocol which is in the State Department which is run by … Hillary Clinton. The Brits are understandably miffed by the notion that the people at the highest levels of the US government gave some staffer the State Department VISA card with instructions to go the Borders at 18th and L and find something for about 100 US Dollars, not British Pounds. Brown had thought about this visit and presented a one-of-a-kind gift. Clinton's people … didn't.

Remember that during the campaign Hillary claimed she knew a lot about this stuff because she had travelled around the world a good bit either by herself as First Lady, or as chaperone-in-chief to keep an eye on old Bill while he was on a road trip (if you know what I mean and I think you do). It turns out that Hillary Clinton has reached her level of incompetence as Secretary of State. The problem for the rest of us is that President Obama can't seem to decide whether to be Herbert Hoover or Franklin Roosevelt when he talks about the economy. So, as dismal as she has been in her first months as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton might have been correct: She still might have made a better President than Barack Obama. On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Peter Principle, the Washington Post editorial; a clip from the actual web page of the Protocol office, an explanation of that Jethro Gibbs line and a link to the Daily News coverage of DVD-gate. Also a Mullfoto which made me feel better and a Catchy Caption of the day which did not.

Question: What principle states that 'in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence'?
Answer: Peter principle