WorkLifeBridge

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the Peter Principle as

the theory that employees within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent.

In the words of its editorial review at Amazon.com, The Peter Principle, written by Dr. Laurence Peter and originally published in 1969, tries to explain why boredom, bungling, and bad management are built into every organization. Dr Peter suggested that employees get rewarded for good work by moving upward until they get promoted into jobs they just can’t do and wind up desperately treading water, driving their colleagues crazy, and dragging down productivity and profit.

HowStuffWorks cites the promotion of Michael Brown to head of FEMA and the resultant Hurricane Katrina debacle as a classic case of the Peter Principle in action. We’ve all seen the Peter Principle and its results many times, at least as embodied by Scott Adams’s Dilbert comic strip and his book The Dilbert Principle. His assertion is that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing. Either way, the sad truth is that many people are in management roles for all the wrong reasons.

In all fairness, there are many managers out there doing a great job. These folks may have been promoted into these roles because some astute manager above them recognized their people skills. Conversely, they may have been promoted for the wrong reasons, but once in management, either developed or discovered within themselves the necessary skills to excel in their new roles. Unfortunately, one can also cite numerous examples where people were promoted incorrectly and were not developed into their new responsibilities. As a result they suffered, struggled, stagnated, and caused damage to those around them and to the bottom line.

So why does this happen? First, people want to move their career ahead, and specifically to make higher salaries, and often the only way to do so is to move into management. Second, managers appreciate the work of the people below them and assume that superior technical performance must lead to superior management performance, which is the wrong assumption. Third, most organizations throw new managers into their new responsibilities with little training, mentoring, or other help in developing the skills they need. Finally, when managers do fail, it’s often in little ways that go undetected, and even when they are recognized as sub-par, most organizations have few mechanisms to transfer these folks back to roles where they can be successful.

So what can be done to prevent the Peter Principle from eroding your organization? First, take care when promoting people to do so for the right reasons, and in particular, for their people skills. Second, create avenues for people to advance their careers and incomes without going into management by creating roles that build on their technical excellence. Third, listen to your employees by doing 360 degree assessments to gauge how managers are faring in their new duties. And finally, support your new managers by fostering open communication so they can discuss the challenges they face, and by providing them with the training and coaching they need to become successful.

If a problem is affecting you at work, chances are you bring the problem home with you at the end of the day.

That works in reverse as well. If something is bothering you at home, you bring it to work with you. Problems are like that — we carry them wherever we go.

Since all of us have personal problems that can affect our ability to focus on our work the way we want, from time to time here at WorkLifeBridge we will feature articles with tips on addressing those pressing home-life problems.

Today’s article tackles a timely concern for many people affected by the current housing crisis: “Using Negotiation Skills to Avoid Foreclosure and Other Calamities”

Like many people today, you’re probably wondering how to survive the real estate downturn and the credit crunch. What do you do when your interest rate has gone up and you can no longer afford your payments? What do you do when the bills have piled up and you have to make tough choices on which to defer and which to try and pay?Tough as these questions are, in principle, they mirror many of the decisions you have to make at work. You’ve made commitments to a customer and are having trouble meeting them. You’re managing a project that is behind schedule and has run into technical difficulties. Your suppliers are hounding you for payments but you have a receivables problem and don’t have the cash…

It’s all the same stuff, the gist of which is that you’ve made commitments, financial or otherwise, that you can no longer sustain. You have two choices - one choice, which a lot of people make, is to try harder, cutting corners, exhausting themselves, and eventually failing anyway. The other choice is to communicate and negotiate, and in the process turn your adversaries into your partners in solving the problem.

A little known fact is that most banks and other creditors would rather get something than nothing. If a bank forecloses on your house, it often loses a lot of money on the sale of the property, and besides, most banks prefer to be in the money business rather than the real estate business. Similarly, if your business creditors bankrupt you, they are often so far down the line on the list of creditors and the bankruptcy process itself takes so long, that they will see only a few pennies of the dollar you owe them.

So your best strategy when you can’t meet your commitments is to communicate with the other party as early as possible and try to set up a meeting to talk. This is true whether this party is a bank or a supplier or a customer. People would generally prefer to know as early as they can if there is trouble down the road. Be clear in your statement of the problem and have some solutions in your mind to discuss with them. Finally, regard the situation as a collaborative negotiation whose goal is to solve the problem to best meet everyone’s interests and view the other party as your partner in making this happen.

Be clear about what you can and can’t do, and be conservative in any new commitments you make so you don’t have to have this same conversation with them over and over again. Try to use objective data to persuade the other party that your limits are real, and at the same time, be open to their concerns regarding your commitments. Pay close attention to what they have to say and make sure you understand them. Listen for clues as to what they need in order to keep working with you on renegotiating a deal that works for both of you.

Keep in mind that the bank, your creditors, and your customers, have a vested interest in your success, because part of their success depends on your success. Besides, most people can relate to someone going through a tough time. Thus, if you communicate often and clearly, and if you make the people you committed to part of the solution, you will be able in many cases to negotiate enough breathing room to get back on your feet.