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The Peter Principle illustration: a confident and competent junior worker gets promoted to a senior level. At the senior level, they appear very happy and excel such that they get a promotion to Director. As a Director, their competence has been exceeded and we see them in a state of stress and disarray. Oh dear.

The Peter Principle

Originally an observation meant as satire, the Peter Principle (book) states that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Someone who is good at their job is likely to get promoted. But the promoted position will likely require different skills. If they’re good they may get promoted again, but if not, there they will stay. Then at some point each employee in an organisation will be incompetent at their position. I like this short take on the Peter Principle by Tim Harford.

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