The Peter Principle (4 page)

CHAPTER 3
Apparent Exceptions

“When the case goes bad, the guilty man Excepts, and thins his jury all he can.”

J. D
RYDEN

M
ANY PEOPLE TO
whom I mention the Peter Principle do not want to accept it. They anxiously search for—and sometimes think they have found—flaws in my hierarchiological structure. So at this point I want to issue a warning:
do not be fooled by apparent exceptions.

Apparent Exception No. I:
The Percussive Sublimation

“What about Walt Blockett’s promotion? He was hopelessly incompetent, a bottleneck, so management
kicked him upstairs
to get him out of the road.”

I often hear such questions. Let us examine this phenomenon, which I have named the
Percussive Sublimation.
Did Blockett move from a position of incompetence to a position of competence? No. He has simply been moved from one unproductive position to another. Does he now undertake any greater responsibility than before? No. Does he accomplish any more work in the new position than he did in the old? No.

The percussive sublimation is a pseudo-promotion.
Some Blockett-type employees actually believe that they have received a genuine promotion; others recognize the truth. But the main function of a pseudo-promotion is
to deceive people outside the hierarchy.
When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.

But the experienced hierarchiologist will never be deceived. Hierarchiologically, the only move that we can accept as a genuine promotion is a move
from a level of competence.

What is the effect of a successful percussive sublimation? Assume that Blockett’s employer, Kickly, is still competent. Then by moving Blockett he achieves three goals:

       
1) He camouflages the ill-success of his promotion policy. To admit that Blockett was incompetent would lead observers to think, “Kickly should have realized, before giving Blockett that last promotion, that Blockett wasn’t the man for the job.” But a percussive sublimation
justifies the previous promotion
(in the eyes of employees and onlookers, not to a hierarchiologist).

       
2) He supports staff morale. Some employees at least will think, “If
Blockett
can get a promotion,
I
can get a promotion.”
One percussive sublimation serves as carrot-on-a-stick to many other employees.

       
3) He maintains the hierarchy. Even though Blockett is incompetent,
he must not be fired:
he probably knows enough of Kickly’s business to be dangerous in a competitive hierarchy.

A Common Phenomenon

Hierarchiology tells us that every thriving organization will be characterized by this accumulation of deadwood at the executive level, consisting of percussive sublimatees and potential candidates for percussive sublimation. One well-known appliance-manufacturing firm has twenty-three vice-presidents!

A Paradoxical Result!

The Waverley Broadcasting Corporation is noted for the creativity of its production department. This is made possible through percussive sublimation. Waverley has just moved all its non-creative, non-productive, redundant personnel into a palatial, three-million-dollar Head Office complex.

The Head Office contains no cameras, microphones or transmitters; indeed, it is miles away from the nearest studio. The people at Head Office are always frantically busy, drawing up reports and flow charts and making appointments to confer with one another.

Recently a reshuffle of senior officials was announced, aimed at streamlining the headquarters operation. Four vice-presidents were replaced by eight vice-presidents and a co-ordinating assistant to the president.

So we see that the percussive sublimation can serve
to keep the drones out of the hair of the workers!

Apparent Exception No. 2:
The Lateral Arabesque

The lateral arabesque is another pseudo-promotion. Without being raised in rank—sometimes without even a pay raise—the incompetent employee is given
a new and longer title
and is moved to an office in a remote part of the building.

R. Filewood proved incompetent as office manager of Cardley Stationery Inc. After a lateral arabesque he found himself, at the same salary, working as co-ordinator of inter-departmental communications, supervising the filing of second copies of inter-office memos.

A
UTOMOTIVE
M
ANUFACTURING
F
ILE
, C
ASE
N
O
. 8 Wheeler Automobile Parts Ltd. has developed the lateral arabesque more fully than most hierarchies. The Wheeler operations are divided into many regions, and at last count, I found that twenty-five senior executives had been banished to the provinces as regional vice-presidents.

The company bought a motel and ordered one senior official to go and run it.

Another redundant vice-president has been laboring for three years to write the company’s history.

I conclude that
the larger the hierarchy, the easier is the lateral arabesque.

A C
ASE
OF
L
EVITATION
The entire 82-man staff of a small government department was moved away to another department, leaving the director, at $16,000 a year, with nothing to do and nobody to supervise. Here we see the rare phenomenon of a hierarchal pyramid consisting solely of the capstone, suspended aloft without a base to support it! This interesting condition I denominate the
free-floating apex.

Apparent Exception No. 3:
Peter’s Inversion

A friend of mine was travelling in a country where the sale of alcoholic beverages is a government monopoly. Just before returning home he went to a government liquor store and asked, “How much liquor am I allowed to take back home with me?”

“You’ll have to ask the Customs officers at the border,” said the clerk.

“But I want to know
now,”
said the traveller, “so that I can buy all the liquor that is permissible, and yet not buy too much and get some of it confiscated.”

“It’s a Customs regulation,” replied the clerk. “It’s nothing to do with us.”

“But surely
you know
the Customs regulation,” said the traveller.

“Yes, I know it,” said the clerk, “but Customs regulations are not a responsibility of this department so I’m not allowed to tell you.”

Have you ever had a similar experience, ever been told, “We don’t give out that information”? The official knows the answer to your problem; you know that he knows it; but for some reason or other, he won’t tell you.

Once, taking a professorship at a new university, I received a special identification card, issued by the payroll department of the university, entitling me to cash checks at the university book store. I went to the store, presented my card, and proffered a twenty-dollar American Express traveller’s check.

“We only cash payroll checks and personal checks,” said the book-store cashier.

“But this is better than a personal check,” I said. “It’s better even than a payroll check. I can cash this in any store even without this special card. A traveller’s check is as good as cash.”

“But it’s not a payroll check or a personal check,” said the cashier.

After a little more discussion, I asked to see the manager. He listened to me patiently, but with a faraway expression, then stated flatly. “We do not cash traveller’s checks.”

You have heard of hospitals which spend precious time filling in sheaves of forms before helping accident victims. You have heard of the nurse who says, “Wake up! It’s time to take your sleeping pill.”

You may have read of the Irishman, Michael Patrick O’Brien, who was kept for eleven months on a ferryboat plying between Hong Kong and Macao. He did not have the correct papers to get off at either end of the trip, and nobody would issue them to him.

Particularly among minor officials with no discretionary powers, one sees an obsessive concern with getting forms filled out correctly, whether the forms serve any useful purpose or not. No deviation, however slight, from the customary routine, will be permitted.

Professional Automatism

The above type of behavior I call
professional automatism.
To the professional automaton it is clear that means are more important than ends; the paperwork is more important than the purpose for which it was originally designed. He no longer sees himself as existing to serve the public: he sees the public as the raw material that serves to maintain him, the forms, the rituals and the hierarchy!

The professional automaton, from the viewpoint of his customers, clients or victims, seems incompetent. So you will no doubt be wondering,
“How do so many professional automatons win promotion? And is the professional automaton outside the operation of the Peter Principle?”

To answer those questions I must first pose another: “Who defines competence?”

A Question of Standards

The competence of an employee is determined
not by outsiders but by his superior in the hierarchy.
If the superior is still at a level of competence, he may evaluate his subordinates in terms of the performance of useful work—for example, the supplying of medical services or information, the production of sausages or table legs or achieving whatever are the stated aims of the hierarchy. That is to say,
he evaluates output.

But if the superior has reached his level of incompetence, he will probably rate his subordinates in terms of institutional values: he will see competence as the behavior that supports the rules, rituals and forms of the status quo. Promptness, neatness, courtesy to superiors, internal paperwork, will be highly regarded. In short, such an official
evaluates input.

“Rockman is
dependable.”

“Lubrik contributes to the
smooth running
of the office.”

“Rutter is
methodical.”

“Miss Trudgen is a
steady, consistent
worker.”

“Mrs. Friendly
co-operates
well with colleagues.”

In such instances,
internal consistency is valued more highly than efficient service:
this is
Peter’s Inversion.
A professional automaton may also be termed a “Peter’s Invert.” He has inverted the means-end relationship.

Now you can understand the actions of the Peter’s Inverts described earlier.

If the liquor-store clerk had promptly explained the Customs regulations, the traveller would have thought, “How courteous!” But his superior would have marked the clerk down for breaking a rule of the department.

If the book-store cashier had accepted my traveller’s check, I would have considered him helpful: the manager would have reprimanded him for exceeding his authority.

Promotion Prospects for Peter’s Inverts

The Peter’s Invert or professional automaton has, as we have seen, little capacity for independent judgment. He
always obeys, never decides.
This, from the viewpoint of the hierarchy, is competence, so the Peter’s Invert is eligible for promotion. He will continue to rise unless some mischance places him in a post where he has to make decisions. Here he will find his level of incompetence.
1

We see therefore that professional automatism—however annoying you may have found it—is not, after all, an exception to the Peter Principle. As I often tell my students, “Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.”

Apparent Exception No. 4:
Hierarchal Exfoliation

Next I shall discuss a case which to untrained observers is perhaps the most puzzling of all: the case of the brilliant, productive worker who not only wins no promotion, but is even dismissed from his post.

Let me give a few examples; then I will explain them.

In Excelsior City every new schoolteacher is placed on one year’s probation. K. Buchman had been a brilliant English scholar at the university. In his probationary year of English teaching, he managed to infuse his students with his own enthusiasm for classical and modern literature. Some of them obtained Excelsior City Public Library cards; some began to haunt new- and used-book stores. They became so interested that they read many books that were not on the Excelsior Schools Approved Reading List.

Before long, several irate parents and delegations from two austere religious sects visited the school superintendent to complain that their children were studying “undesirable” literature. Buchman was told that his services would not be required the following year.

Probationer-teacher C. Cleary’s first teaching assignment was to a special class of retarded children. Although he had been warned that these children would not accomplish very much, he proceeded to teach them all he could. By the end of the year, many of Cleary’s retarded children scored better on standardized achievement tests of reading and arithmetic than did children in regular classes.

When Cleary received his dismissal notice he was told that he had grossly neglected the bead stringing, sandbox and other busy-work which were the things that retarded children should do. He had failed to make adequate use of the modelling clay, pegboards and finger paints specially provided by the Excelsior City Special Education Department.

Miss E. Beaver, a probationer primary teacher, was highly gifted intellectually. Being inexperienced, she put into practice what she had learned at college about making allowances for pupils’ individual differences. As a result, her brighter pupils finished two or three years’ work in one year.

The principal was very courteous when he explained that Miss Beaver could not be recommended for permanent engagement. He knew she would understand that she had upset the system, had not stuck to the course of studies, and had created hardship for the children who would not fit into the next year’s program. She had disrupted the official marking system and textbook-issuing system, and had caused severe anxiety to the teacher who would next year have to handle the children who had already covered the work.