The Peter Principle – Laurence J.Peter

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his own level of incompetence. This dangerously simple maxim of organisational dysfunction, first spelt out more than thirty-three years ago, has wormed its way into everyday managerial vocabulary. The Peter Principle is rife wherever hierarchies exist – multinational companies, local government, the Civil Service, hospital management, the groves of academe and public transport. There is no escape: promotion, like the paths of glory, leads but to the grave of over-promotion. ‘The Peter Principle’ is required reading for all those now setting their feet on the first rung of the promotional ladder, their starry-eyed gaze fixed on the heights above them. Do they realy want to scale a peak from which their fate can only be a dismal shunting into oblivion? But all is not lost. Those who shrink from the horror of the Final Placement may seek salvation in a deviously cunning strategy. It will demand diligence and a talent for dissembling, but it may just avert the unwanted, ultimate promotion.