The Peter Principle: Difference between revisions

The name comes from the book by [[Trope Namer|Dr. Laurence J. Peter]], which is about this principle and discusses it in about twelve chapters worth of detail.

 

 

The counterpoint is [[The Dilbert Principle]], which states that incompetent workers will always be promoted first, in order to keep them from interfering with the efforts of the competent.

** By extension, Dwight would be a clear example of this too if he ever got promoted, and even Jim Halpert, who is very intelligent but still somewhat immature, has fallen victim to this.

* In ''[[Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan (Film)|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'', Spock reminds Kirk that he is more competent as a captain than as an admiral. "Being a starship captain is your first, best destiny," he explains. "Any other calling is a waste of material."

** Strangely justified for Jack, as [[Real Life]] GE has been known to routinely shuffle upper-level management between unrelated departments.

** As of the 100th episode this is really starting to haunt Jack, who never expected to be stalled on one corporate rung for five years.

* Archie "Snake" Simpson in ''[[Degrassi]]'': competent, well-liked and respected, [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] tech teacher who has the school spiral out of control as principal, [[Took a Level In Jerkass|cracks down hard]], and has already begun capitulating less than five episodes later, in one case to a student who ''covered his car in Post-It notes!''

* The author of the comic ''[[Dilbert]]'' wrote an entire book dedicated to how promotion has changed from this to what he calls the Dilbert Principle, in other words, instead of people getting promoted to their lowest level of competence, any and all incompetent employees are placed in the one place where they can do the least damage: Management.

** It's plausible enough in the high-skilled area he works in, Engineering and similar fields. If you wanted to avoid promoting your most talented workers out of roles in which they could use their talents (averting the Peter Principle) but you were determined to promote internally, you would end up promoting, not the most incompetent employees perhaps, but individuals who have less of a grasp on what is going on than those they supposedly supervise do.

* The title character of [[The Brittas Empire]] is so far above his competence level at this point that people will write him glowing recommendation letters in order to get rid of him.