The business world has now long known about the Peter Principle. This was first proposed by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in his book. This paradox states that people tend to get promoted based on their performances at work, but this simplicity ignores the fact that their new promoted position may have a very different profile. Thus, companies inadvertently keep promoting people up till a point where the employees’ incompetencies rise up the surface. This has been observed to be particularly true for the sales profession. This is because sales persons can be evaluated quantitatively the easiest. So a number of them get promoted to the sales manager’s post. Invariably, most see a decline in performances. Companies are now fighting this Peter Principle through innovative measures. Microsoft for example has highly competent talent management systems in place by which it ensures that even after promotion, the broad line of work does not change too much. Others are trying methods where employees get incentivized by higher pay rather than any positional promotion.

Source:https://hbr.org/2018/03/research-do-people-really-get-promoted-to-their-level-of-incompetence

Uploaded Date:23 July 2019