3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Staggering Incompetence
The Peter Principle, Riker's Razor & the Solution to Incompetence
I. The Peter Principle
The Peter Principle is a semi-satirical explanation for incompetence in the workplace. It was formulated in 1969 by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull who looked into the nature of hierarchical structures. Evaluating hundreds of case studies the authors concluded:
In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.
In other words, the last promotion someone receives is always to a position of ineptitude. The lesser-known Peter’s Corollary takes this idea to its logical conclusion:
In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties.
If you find yourself wondering who does all the work then, Peter has the answer:
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
According to the authors, Peter’s Parry, that is refusing to be promoted to a position of incompetence, is not an option. The only solution is Creative Incompetence:
The method boils down to this: create the impression that you have already reached your level of incompetence. […]
Creative Incompetence will achieve best results if you choose an area of incompetence which does not directly hinder you in carrying out the main duties of your present position.
In sum, we might say that true success lies in our ability to stay competent rather than becoming it.
I’ve written an in-depth essay about The Peter Principle here.
II. Riker’s Razor
You're incapable of that level of incompetence, Mr La Forge!
Says Commander Will Riker to his engineer extraordinaire Geordi who has been behaving stupidly for far too long.1 Shortly after, Riker unmasks him and the whole crew as part of an enemy simulation designed to extract information from the deceived. It was all a charade.
With this anecdote in mind, I propose a new principle, Riker’s Razor:
If someone’s incompetence is too staggering to be true, they’re most likely faking it and you should find out why.
III. Lorem Ipsum
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—Lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
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Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com
From Star Trek: The Next Generation episode 4x08 Future Imperfect.