The following book review and excerpt is taken from the publisher of the The Peter Principle.
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence
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 . . . . 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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Editor's notes: in short, this is how the Peter Principle works in the corporate world: take a particular individual and advance him up the ladder, based on his competency at the current assignment. In time, and in most cases, the executive will be advanced into an assignment in which his level of performance is not what it was, previously. The practical theory suggests that at the point of "incompetency," rather than fire the executive, give him another assignment, one that might be described as a "lateral move," based on his previous work.
Point of post: there is no lateral move available for Obama. He is the classic example of the Peter Principle at work in the real world.
Obama mouths off about Qaddafi and the need for him (Qaddafi) to be gone from Libya and, then, does absolutely nothing to help those within the country asking for help. Nothing. He should have just kept his big mouth shut rather than trying to score points with the American audience. In fact, it is clear that he is waiting for other world leaders to take action. I don't know but, maybe, we will find that Obama is a good follower. Maybe not.
At any rate, because of the postulated Peter Principle, don't expect Obama to do a better job the next two years. He is in over his head. He is lacking the very things that make for great leadership: common sense and a value system that fosters freedom and self responsibility. He is not just big government, he is a big government welfare guy, beholding to Big Labor and Big Pharma, with a one world allegiance that is without form but includes increasing alliances to the World Court and the United Nations, a collective allegiance that is beyond anything we saw in Bill Clinton . . . . . . . in fact, not even close.
Understand that we (I) could go on and on with one example after another, but the point is not his specific failures; rather, the point of this post is found in the belief that Obama has been advanced beyond his ability to accomplish the presidency's many demands. In fact, he may have been a good community organizer before he became an Illinois State Senator. He was in over his head with the state Senate job and it has been downhill since.
You disagree? Fine. As great as his "reputation" was, coming into office in 2008, besides the fact that he was black, nice looking (despite his very large ears), and could craft a great speech, what exactly did he accomplish to merit the degree of confidence we witnessed at the time of his election? Make a list. I submit that he had accomplished no more than did John Kerry. Obama is a nothing burger and we have two more years before we can make the change and clean up his mess.
He is the poster child for the Peter Principle and, with regard to his presidential nonsense, we are all petered out.
Final note: understand that some of his ideas for this country are not all that bad. Moving away from fossil fuels to green energy is a good idea. As long as we don't try to accomplish the end game decades before we are ready.
The push to help his own people (using Eric Holders wording) is a good thing. But teach them to fish rather than giving to them out of our welfare coffers. A free and representative democracy cannot work if the population is largely uneducated and/or lazy. Close to 40% of our general population is on federal assistance. While that level of dependency is not sustainable, neither is a quick fix possible. Obama agrees with this, but has no clue how "to get there" in a practical sinse of the world.
Again, the point of this post is simply that Obama is attempting to do what he cannot do.
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