Peter principle

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was explained in the 1969 book The Peter Principle by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull. In the first two chapters, Peter and Hull give various examples of the Peter Principle in action. Chapter 6 explains why "Good followers do not become good leaders." : 60  In chapter 7, Peter and Hull describe the effect of the Peter Principle in politics and government. The Peter principle inspired Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert, to develop a similar concept, the Dilbert principle. João Ricardo Faria wrote that the Dilbert principle is "a sub-optimal version of the Peter principle," and leads to even lower profitability than the Peter principle. The Peter Principle is a British television sitcom broadcast by the BBC between 1995 and 2000, featuring Jim Broadbent as an incompetent bank manager named Peter, in an apparent demonstration of the principle.