The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
by Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laurence J. Peter, Raymond HullForeword: Robert I. Sutton
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-04-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: HarperBusiness
Book Reviews of The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
Book Review: Must read for anyone wanting to understand how incompetence occurs.
Summary: 5 Stars
Everyone should read this book as it will provide serious insight into incompetence. Not just in the workplace but in everyday life. The book details that everyone has a certain competence level at which they might excel but at some point their abilities will not provide what is needed without something additional. Ex; why does a successful high school football coach fail as a college coach. Ex; why does a successful salesman fail as a sales manager. This book can not only prevent you from attaining your level of incompetence but it can provide you with insight on how not to promote someone into their level of incompetence.
I read the negative reviews and completely disagree with them. The book does not promote the power of negative thinking, it promotes the power of thinking. It teaches one to understand one's strengths and weaknesses and use that knowledge to determine if one is qualified to move to the next level or whether more learning and/or more skills are required. I would rather be a successful salesperson than a failed sales manager but if I know that I would fail as a sales manager, I can stay where I am at or determine and study what it would take for me to be a successful sales manager.
If the "Peter Principle" were not so valid, why are there not millions of examples available to support it. Simply look around at individual failures of people that were previously successful. And look at those who continued to become successful. The difference will be that those that continued, knew what would be required (personally and corporately) to achieve success at each next level. If you do not understand what is required then you will fail. If you do not have the necessary skills and do not or cannot obtain them, then you will fail. To me that this the overriding tenet of this book.
This book provides an outstanding look into the failings of individuals and companies and how to prevent it. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
Summary of The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
This book caused a storm when first published in 1969, battering up the bestseller list to #1, charming readers from Topeka to Timbuktu, and finally, brilliantly, blessedly giving the world an answer to a question that nags us all: Why is incompetence so maddeningly rampant and so vexingly triumphant? The book and the phrase it defined are now considered comedic-yet-classic cornerstones of organizational thought, and in honor of the book's fortieth anniversary, Robert I. Sutton has written a foreword introducing the book to a new generation of readers.
The Peter Principle, the eponymous law Laurence Peter coined, explains that "in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Everyone?from the office intern to the CEO, from the low-level civil servant to a nation's president?will inevitably rise to his or her level of incompetence, if it hasn't happened already. Dr. Peter's glorious revelation explains why incompetence is at the root of everything we endeavor to do?why schools bestow ignorance, why governments condone anarchy, why courts dispense injustice, why prosperity causes unhappiness, and why utopian plans never generate utopias.
With the wit of James Thurber or Mark Twain, the psychological and anthropological acuity of Sigmund Freud or Margaret Mead, and the theoretical impact of Isaac Newton or Copernicus, Dr. Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull's brilliant book explains how incompetence and its accompanying symptoms, syndromes, and remedies define the world and the work we do in it.
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