The Peter Principle (13 page)

Peter’s Remedies

Must the whole human race achieve life-incompetence and earn dismissal from the life-hierarchy?

Before you answer this question, ask yourself, “What is the purpose (output) of the human hierarchy?”

In my lecture,
Destiny Lies Ahead,
I tell my students, “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

Obviously, if the purpose of the hierarchy is total human exfoliation, Peter’s Remedies are not needed. But if we wish to survive, and to better our condition, Peter’s Remedies, ranging from prevention to cure, will show the way.

I offer:

       
1. Peter’s Prophylactics—means to avoid promotion to the level of incompetence.

       
2. Peter’s Palliatives—for those who have already reached their level of incompetence, means for prolonging life and maintaining health and happiness.

       
3. Peter’s Placebos—for suppression of the symptoms of the Final Placement Syndrome.

       
4. Peter’s Prescriptions—cures for the world’s ills.

1. Peter’s Prophylactics—An Ounce
of Prevention

A prophylactic, in the hierarchiological sense, is a preventive measure applied before the Final Placement Syndrome appears, or before Hierarchal Regression sets in.

The Power of Negative Thinking

I strongly recommend the health-giving power of negative thinking. If Mr. Mal d’Mahr had thought about the negative aspects of the chief executive’s post, would he have accepted the promotion?

Suppose he had asked, “What will the directors think of me? What will my subordinates expect? What will my wife expect?”

If Mal had dwelt steadily on the negative aspects of promotion, would he have halted the course of action that destroyed his health?

He was intellectually competent; he could have added up the negatives, including the conflict of codes described earlier, the changed relationships with his friends, the pressure to join the country club, the need to own a dress suit, his wife’s demands for a new wardrobe, the community’s request that he head fund-raising drives, and all the other pressures associated with the promotion.

He might well have decided that life at his old level was actually fulfillment, that he was satisfied where he was, and that his status, social life, avocations and
health
were worth protecting.

You
can apply the power of negative thinking. Ask yourself, “How would I like to work for my boss’s boss?”

Look, not at your boss, whom you think you could replace, but at
his
boss. How would you like to work directly for the man two steps above you? The answer to this question often has prophylactic benefits.

In dealing with incompetence on the civic, national or world-wide scale, the power of negative thinking has great potential.

Consider the merits of a costly undersea exploration program, for example. Contemplate the discomforts and hazards of life on the sea bed; contrast them with the comfort and safety of an afternoon beside the swimming pool or an evening party at the beach.

Consider the stench, bad flavors and perils involved in spraying the entire globe with pesticides: compare them with the simple pleasure, and the therapeutic exercise, of hand-spraying the garden.

The power of negative thinking can help us avoid escalating ourselves to a level of life-incompetence, and so help prevent destruction of the world.

Another Prophylactic—Creative Incompetence

As another approach to the great problem of man’s life-incompetence, let us consider application of creative incompetence. We need not give up the
appearance
of striving for promotion in the life-hierarchy, but we could deliberately practice
irrelevant incompetence
so as to bar ourselves from obtaining that promotion.

(By “irrelevant” I mean “not connected with getting food, keeping warm, maintaining a healthful environment, and raising children, the essential elements for survival.”)

Here is an example. Man has competently solved many problems of transport on and about the world he inhabits. At no great expenditure of time, he can travel to any part of the globe, with no more hardship or danger than he endures in walking the streets of his own town. (With considerably
less
danger, if he happens to live in a major city!)

Promotion in the travel-hierarchy would be expected to advance man from earth traveller to space traveller. But this would be escalation for its own sake. Man has no need to explore the moon, Mars or Venus in person. He has already sent radar, TV and photographic instruments which transmit vivid descriptions of these heavenly bodies. The reports suggest that they are inhospitable places.

Man would be better off without the promotion to space traveller. But, as we have seen, it is no easy thing to
refuse
a promotion. The safe, pleasant, effective way is to seem
not to deserve it:
this is creative incompetence.

Man now has the chance to exhibit creative incompetence in this field of space travel.
1
He has the chance to curb his dangerous cleverness and show a little wholesome incompetence.

T
HE
M
ALADY
L
INGERS
O
N
Let us look at another example. Man has moved up the therapeutic hierarchy, through magic, voodoo, faith healing, to modern, orthodox medicine and surgery. He is now very near to fabricating human beings out of spare parts, natural and synthetic. This step would promote him from healer to creator.

But, faced with a population explosion and with widespread starvation, what need has man to accept that promotion?

Would it not be timely to exhibit creative incompetence at this point, to bungle the creative technique, and so avoid the useless, the potentially dangerous, promotion?

It’s Up to You

By a little thought, you will be able to find other areas in which this creative incompetence—this meekness—might well be applied.

Faced with the possibility of promotion to the level of Total-Life-Incompetence—say through atmospheric pollution, nuclear war, global starvation or invasion of Martian bacteria—we would be well advised to use Peter’s Prophylactics.

If we practice negative thinking and creative incompetence, and thereby avoid taking the final step, the possibility of human survival would be enhanced.
Peter’s Prophylactics prevent pathological promotions.

2. Peter’s Palliatives—An Ounce
of Relief

Although the human race, as a whole, has not yet reached its level of Total-Life-Incompetence, many individuals, as we saw earlier, do reach that level, and fairly rapidly remove themselves from this world.

I have already discussed some palliatives for these people—measures that can enable them to live out their lives in comparative happiness and comfort. Now let us see how such palliatives can be applied on a larger scale.

Hierarchal Regression Stopped!

As we saw earlier, hierarchal regression in an educational system is caused by mass percussive sublimation of pupils who, in olden days, would have been allowed to “fail.”

I propose, instead of using percussive sublimation, to give such students the
lateral arabesque.

At present, a student who “fails” Grade 8 is sublimated to Grade 9. Under my plan, he would be arabesqued from Grade 8 to a year, say, of Freshman Academic Depth Study. He could then repeat his year’s work, preferably with special emphasis on the points that he failed to understand before. The extra experience, his own growing maturity and—with luck—more competent teaching, might prepare him for Grade 9.

If not, his parents could hardly object to his “winning” a two-year Fellowship in Higher Academic Depth Study.

Eventually, if the pupil made no further progress by school-leaving age, he would be awarded a certificate making him a Life Fellow of Academic Depth Study.

Thus the lateral arabesque lets him out sideways. It does not interfere with the education of the pupils who are still moving upward, and it does not diminish the worth of the grades and degrees which those upward-moving pupils achieve.

The technique has proved successful with individuals at work. Why not try it on a big scale in the educational field?
Peter’s Palliative prevents percussive sublimation.

3. Peter’s Placebo—An Ounce of Image

Hierarchiologically speaking, a Placebo is the application of a neutral (non-escalatory) methodology to suppress the undesirable results of reaching a level of incompetence.

I would like to refer again to the case of Mrs. Vender, cited in Chapter 13. Mrs. Vender, at her level of incompetence, did not spend her time teaching mathematics, but in extolling the value of mathematics.

Mrs. Vender was
substituting image for performance.
Peter’s Placebo: an ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.

Now let us see how the Placebo can be applied on the grand scale. Incompetent workers, instead of striving for promotion, would lecture eloquently on
the dignity of labor.
Incompetent educators would give up teaching and spend their time extolling
the value of education.
Incompetent painters would promote
the appreciation of art.
Incompetent space travellers would
write science fiction.
Sexually incompetent persons would
compose love lyrics.

All such practitioners of Peter’s Placebo might not be doing much good, but at least,
they would be doing no harm,
and they would not be interfering with the operations of competent members of the various trades and professions.
Peter’s Placebo prevents professional paralysis.

4. Peter’s Prescription—A Pound of Cure

What might be the results, for the human race, of applying Peter’s Prescription?

Peter’s Prophylactics would prevent millions of people from ever reaching their levels of incompetence. Consequently those same millions who, under the present system, are frustrated and unproductive, would remain, all their lives, happy and useful members of society.

Peter’s Palliatives and Placebos would ensure that those who had achieved their levels of incompetence were kept harmlessly busy, happy and healthy. This change would set free for productive work the millions of people presently employed in looking after the health, and repairing the blunders, of all those incompetents.

The net result? An enormous store of man-hours, of creativity, of enthusiasm, would be set free for constructive purposes.

We might, for instance, develop safe, comfortable, efficient rapid-transit systems for our major cities. (They would cost less than moonships and serve more people.)

We might tap power sources (
e.g.,
generator plants powered by smokeless trash burners) which would not pollute the atmosphere. Thus we would contribute to the better health of our people, the beautification of our scenery and the better visibility of that more beautiful scenery.

We might improve the quality and safety of our automobiles, landscape our freeways, highways and avenues, and so restore some measure of safety and pleasure to surface travel.

We might learn to return to our farm lands organic products that would enrich, without poisoning, the soil.

Much waste that is now dumped might be salvaged and converted into new products, using collection systems as complex as our present distribution systems.

Otherwise useless waste might be dumped to fill abandoned open-pit mines and reclaim the land for constructive purposes.

You Figure It Out

Space permits no further elaboration. You, as a serious reader, will be able to see the application of Peter’s Prescription
2
in your life and work, and in the life and work of your city, country and planet.

You will agree that man cannot achieve his greatest fulfillment through seeking quantity for quantity’s sake: he will achieve it through improving the
quality of life,
in other words, through avoiding life-incompetence.

Peter’s Prescription offers life-quality-improvement in place of mindless promotion to oblivion.

Hierarchiology in the Ascendant

I have said enough to indicate that your happiness, health and joy of accomplishment, as well as the hope for man’s future, lies in understanding the Peter Principle, in applying the principles of hierarchiology, and in utilizing Peter’s Prescription to solve human problems.

I have written this book so that you can understand and use the Peter Principle. Its acceptance and application is up to you. Other books will doubtless follow. In the meantime, let us hope that a philanthropist somewhere will soon endow a chair of hierarchiology at a major university. When he does I am qualified and ready for the post, having proven myself capable in my present endeavours.

GLOSSARY

Alger Complex
—a moralistic delusion concerning the effect of Push on promotion. Chap. 5.

Alternation, compulsive
—a technique for flustering subordinates. Chap. 12.

Aptitude tests
—a popular means of hastening final placement. Chap. 9.

Arrived
—achieved final placement. Chap. 3.

Auld Lang Syne Complex
—sentimental belittlement of things present and glorification of things past: a sign of final placement. Chap. 12.

Buckpass, Downward, Upward and Outward
—techniques for avoiding responsibility. Chap. 12.

Cachinatory Inertia
—telling jokes instead of working. Chap. 12.

Caesarian Transference
—irrational prejudice against some physical characteristic. Chap. 12.

Codophilia, Initial and Digital
—speaking in letters and numbers instead of words. Chap. 12.

Comparative Hierarchiology
—an incomplete study. Chap. 7.

Competence
—the employee’s ability, as measured by his superiors, to fill his place in the hierarchy. Chap. 3.

Compulsive Incompetence
—a condition exhibited by Summit Competents. (See “Summit Competence.”)

Computerized Incompetence
—incompetent application of computer techniques or the inherent incompetence of a computer. Chap. 15.

Convergent Specialization
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Cooks
—makers of broth, some incompetent. Chap. 8.

Co-ordinator
—an employee charged with the task of extracting competence from incompetents. Chap. 9.

Copelessness
—a condition occasionally understood by employees, more often by management. Chap. 9.

Creative Incompetence
—feigned incompetence which averts the offer of unwanted promotion. Chap. 14.

Deadwood
—an accumulation at any level in a hierarchy of employees who have reached their level of incompetence.

Distraction Therapy
—a treatment for relief of the Final Placement Syndrome. Chap. 11.

Edifice Complex
—a complex about buildings. Chap. 12.

Einstein, Albert
—a mathematician and trend setter in men’s fashions. Chap. 9.

Eligible
—any employee who competently carries out his duties is eligible for promotion.

Emotion-laden terms
—not used in hierarchiology. Chap. 9.

Ephemeral Administrology
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 9.

Equalitarianism
—a social system which ensures the freest and fastest operation of the Peter Principle. Chap. 7.

Exceptions
—there are no exceptions to the Peter Principle.

Failure (as applied to school pupils)
—see “Success.”

Fileophilia
—a mania for classification of papers. Chap. 12.

Final Placement Syndrome
—pathology associated with placement at the level of incompetence. Chap. 11.

First Commandment
—“The hierarchy must be preserved.” Chap. 3.

First things first
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Free-Floating Apex
—a supervisor with no subordinates. Chap. 3.

Funds
—needed by Professor Peter. Chap. 7.

Gargantuan Monumentalis
—giant burial park, big mausoleum and huge tombstone syndrome. Chap. 12.

General Purpose Conversation
—stock, meaningless phrases. Chap. 12.

Good follower
—supposedly a good leader: a fallacy. Chap. 6.

Heep Syndrome
—a group of symptoms indicating the patient’s belief in his own worthlessness. Observed by D. Copperfield, reported by C. Dickens. Chap. 9.

Hierarchal Exfoliation
—the sloughing-off of super-competent and super-incompetent employees. Chap. 3.

Hierarchal Regression
—result of promoting the incompetent along with the competent. Chap. 15.

Hierarchiology
—a social science, the study of hierarchies, their structure and functioning, the foundation for all social science.

Hierarchy
—an organization whose members or employees are arranged in order of rank, grade or class.

Hierarchy, Cheopsian or feudal
—a pyramidal structure with many low-ranking and few high-ranking employees. Chap. 8.

Hull’s Theorem
—“The combined Pull of several Patrons is the sum of their separate Pulls multiplied by the number of Patrons.” Chap. 4.

Hypercaninophobia Complex
—fear caused in superiors when an inferior demonstrates strong leadership potential. Chap. 6.

Image Replaces Performance
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Incompetence
—a null quantity: incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence. Chap. 10.

Input
—activities which support the rules, rituals and forms of a hierarchy. Chap. 3.

John Q. Diversion
—undue reliance on public opinion. Chap. 12.

Lateral Arabesque
—a pseudo-promotion consisting of a new title and a new work place. Chap. 3.

Leadership competence
—disqualification for promotion. Chap. 6.

Level of Competence
—a position in a hierarchy at which an employee more or less does what is expected of him.

Level of Incompetence
—a position in a hierarchy at which an employee is unable to do what is expected of him.

Life-Incompetence Syndrome
—a cause of frustration. Chap. 8.

Maturity Quotient
—a measure of the inefficiency of a hierarchy. Chap. 7.

Medical Profession
—a group showing apathy and hostility toward hierarchiology. Chap. 11.

Meekness
—a technique of Creative Incompetence. Chap. 15.

Obtain expert advice—
a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Order
—“Heav’n’s first law”: the basis of the hierarchal instinct. Chap. 8.

Output
—the performance of useful work. Chap. 3.

Papyromania
—compulsive accumulation of papers. Chap. 12.

Papyrophobia
—abnormal desire for “a clean desk.” Chap. 12.

Party
—a hierarchal organization for selecting candidates for political office. Chap. 7.

Patron
—one who speeds the promotion of employees lower in the hierarchy. Chap. 4.

Percussive Sublimation
—being kicked upstairs: a pseudo-promotion. Chap. 3.

Peter Principle
—In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

Peter’s Bridge
—an important test: can you motivate your Patron? Chap. 4.

Peter’s Circumambulation
—a circumlocution or detour around a super-incumbent. Chap. 4.

Peter’s Circumbendibus—
a veiled or secretive circumambulation (see above).

Peter’s Corollary
—In time, every post in a hierarchy tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.

Peter’s Inversion
—internal consistency valued more highly than efficiency. Chap. 3.

Peter’s Invert
—one for whom means have become ends in themselves. Chap. 3.

Peter’s Nuance
—the difference between Pseudo-Achievement and Final Placement Syndromes. Chap. 5.

Peter’s Palliatives
—provide relief for incompetence symptoms. Chap. 15.

Peter’s Paradox
—employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their colleagues. Chap. 4.

Peter’s Parry
—the refusal of an offered promotion. (Not recommended.) Chap. 14.

Peter’s Placebo
—An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. Chap. 13.

Peter’s Plateau
—the level of incompetence.

Peter’s Prescriptions
—CURES for individual or world ills. Chap. 15.

Peter’s Pretty Pass
—the situation of having one’s road to promotion blocked by a super-incumbent. Chap. 4.

Peter’s Prognosis
—Spend sufficient time in confirming the need, and the need will disappear. Chap. 13.

Peter’s Prophylactics
—an ounce of prevention. Chap. 15.

Peter’s Remedies—
means of preventing total-life-incompetence. Chap. 15.

Peter’s Spiral
—the non-progressive course followed by organizations suffering from high-level incompetence. Chap. 10.

Peterian Interpretation
—the application of hierarchiological science to the facts and fictions of history. Chap. 15.

Phonophilia
—an abnormal desire for possession and use of voice transmission and recording equipment. Chap. 12.

Professional Automatism
—an obsessive concern with rituals and a disregard of results. Chap. 3.

Promotion
—an upward movement from a level of competence.

Promotion Quotient
—numerical expression of promotion prospects. Chap. 13.

Protégé
—see “Pullee.”

Proto-hierarchiologists
—authors who might have contributed to hierarchiological thought. Chap. 8.

Proverbs
—as repositories of hierarchiological fallacies. Chap. 8.

Pseudo-Achievement Syndrome
—a complex of physical ailments resulting from excessive Push. Chap. 5.

Pull
—an employee’s relationship—by blood, marriage or acquaintance—with a person above him. Chap. 4.

Pullee
—an employee who has Pull. Chap. 4.

Random Placement
—a cause of delay in reaching the level of incompetence. Chap. 9.

Rigor Cartis
—abnormal interest in charts, with dwindling concern for realities that the charts represent. Chap. 12.

Saints
—good men but incompetent controversialists. Chap. 8.

Secrecy
—the soul of Push. Chap. 5.

Seniority Factor
—downward pressure which opposes the upward movement of competent employees. Chap. 5.

Side-Issue Specialization
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Socrates Complex
—a form of Creative Incompetence. Chap. 14.

Staticmanship
—the timely renunciation of One-upmanship. Chap. 8.

Study alternate methods
—a Substitution technique. Chap. 13.

Substitution
—a lifesaving technique for employees on Peter’s Plateau. Chap. 13.

Success
—final placement at the level of incompetence. Chap. 8.

Summit Competence
—a rare condition. Chap. 9.

Super-competence
—doing one’s work too well: a dangerous characteristic. Chap. 3.

Super-incompetence
—complete lack of output and input: grounds for dismissal. Chap. 3.

Super-incumbent
—a person above you who, having reached his level of incompetence, blocks your path to promotion. Chap. 4.

Tabulatory gigantism
—obsession with large-size desks. Chap. 12.

Tabulology, abnormal
—the study of unusual arrangements of desks, workbenches, etc. Chap. 12.

Tabulophobia Privata
—inability to tolerate the presence of desks. Chap. 12.

Teeter-Totter Syndrome
—inability to make decisions. Chap. 12.

Temporary relief
—results of medical treatment for Final Placement Syndrome. Chap. 11.

Universal hierarchiology
—an untapped field of study. Chap. 7.

Utter Irrelevance
—a Substitution technique common at upper levels of commerce. Chap. 13.