The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study (2009)

&gt; 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.<p>Too funny. Ever think your company was promoting without thought or reason, or promoting the worst people? It turns out the corporate HR&#x2F;Management system has evolved to defeat the Peter Principle.

I wonder about a possible opposite principle: a person best suited for a role in leadership is stuck at the bottom of the hierarchy, because he&#x27;s not fully competent at this current role, so he has no way to climb up.

I recall that I first learned about the Peter Principle at the same time that I was reading <i>Lee&#x27;s Lieutenants</i> by Douglas Southall Freeman, and there was a weird synergy between the two.<p>As the war continued, attrition took its toll on the Army of Northern Virginia&#x27;s officer corps, notably after Jackson&#x27;s death at Chancelorsville. The two generals that replaced him, Ewell and A.P. Hill, were very good divisional commanders, but poor corps commanders. That tome is littered with other examples of officers excelling at one level of command, but being ill-equipped to perform at the next level.

A lot of comments here are using word like &quot;promotion&quot;, starting at the &quot;bottom&quot;, powers reserved for &quot;higher ups&quot;, etc. following the standard framing of hierarchy as a vertical pyramid, which I think possibly encourages the view of promotion as status.<p>My favourite reframing of team hierarchy is to change the language to make it horizontal or fully inverted.<p>In the horizontal case, promotion might be &#x27;stepping back a rank to help co-ordinate&#x27;.<p>In the inverted case, promotion might be &#x27;stepping down into a supporting role&#x27; (although that particular language bumps into confusing euphamisms left over by the pyramid framing).<p>I&#x27;m sure some better language can be found but you get the idea.

But promotion is one of the incentives to be best - so unless the other incentives are stronger - promoting randomly or promoting the worst performers will remove a strong incentive and will pull down the productivity of the organization anyway. Or there should be an explicit test for the skills needed at the next level.

Why not just have a configurable threshold (say, 2 years) where if the promoted person is determined incompetent in their new role, they are bumped back down to their previous role (keeping their same pay) where they are more efficient&#x2F;competent.

View the arxiv paper as a webpage: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.arxiv-vanity.com&#x2F;papers&#x2F;0907.0455&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.arxiv-vanity.com&#x2F;papers&#x2F;0907.0455&#x2F;</a>

It should also be standard practice that a person&#x27;s promotion is accompanied by expectation setting and training. Otherwise, no one could ever grow out of their current shell.

The gervais principle is more interesting than the peter principle.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ribbonfarm.com&#x2F;the-gervais-principle&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ribbonfarm.com&#x2F;the-gervais-principle&#x2F;</a>

which is why you shouldn&#x27;t promote by the numbers and instead have a look for who is best at the qualities required for the level above. A good manager shouldn&#x27;t find that hard to figure out and can also probe at it by changing responsibilities more gradually.