Author: admin

There is a law, The Peter Principle, that states an employee will get promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.

Once this level of incompetence is achieved then all they have left is to pretend to do some work, and make excuses for what the can’t do.

You’ve probably encountered managers you admire more for their technical skills than for their actual leadership skills.

Perhaps it’s the familiarity of this experience that lends the Peter Principle its popular appeal. 

The Peter Principle, was initially laid out in a book by Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1969 ), it describes the following paradox:

If organizations promote the best people at their current jobs, then organizations will inevitably promote people until they’re no longer good at their jobs.

In other words, organizations manage careers so that everyone “rises to the level of their incompetence.”

The Peter Principle problem arises when the skills that make someone successful at one job level don’t translate to success in the next level.

In these cases, organizations must choose whether to reward the top performer with a promotion or to instead promote the worker that has the best skill match with a managerial position.

When organizations reward success in one role with a promotion to another, the usual grumbles ensue; the best engineer doesn’t make the best engineering manager, and the best professor doesn’t make the best dean.

The same problem may apply to scientists, physicians, lawyers, or in any other profession where technical aptitude doesn’t necessarily translate into managerial skill.

While the Peter Principle may sound intuitively plausible, it has never been empirically tested using data from many firms.

Please Click here for further discussion about Peter’s principle

The above discussions actually contains a section on what can be done to combat the effects of the Peter Principle.

It says that the Peter Principle can be combatted in two ways:-

First, firms can reward top performers with pay rather than promotion. In our data, we found that firms with the strongest pay-for-performance also promoted the best managers. In other words, by rewarding sales performance with greater incentive pay, firms are free to promote the best potential managers. The best salespeople don’t feel they “have to” become managers in order to earn more money.

A second solution is to let managers be managers: promote the best candidates for the managerial job role, let them manage large teams, and isolate their managerial responsibilities from their individual contributor responsibilities.

For further details regarding these two methods of combatting Peter’s Principle please click here.

It can be seen from the research undertaken by Alan Benson, Danielle Li and Kelly Shue , that promotion not only results in greater financial gain but also in more prestige. For many people the prestige can be more important than the financial gains.

However, I believe that there is a third way, which in some ways combines the best parts of the above two.

Companies should bring in a system that relies on pay bands, that rewards people equally for their technical and managerial experience. With roles whose job titles carry the same prestige.

Many companies say that pay bands are incredibly complicated and difficult to implement. Personally I believe that this is not just totally untrue, but also a way to keep the current remuneration package which only upside is that incompetent managers not only remain over paid but also in-situ.

There can be an issue of rewarding people of similar service periods and status differently depending on either their managerial or technical ability.

Some employees may not be as technically or managerial competent in their roles as others and so may not get the promotion that they believe they deserve. However, this does not mean that they are not good at the current job.

So the problem here is how to keep the employee who may be very good at their current job, but have reached the pinnacle of their technical/managerial ability, happy in their current position.

This can be overcome by increasing their annual salary so that they still feel appreciated. However, how do you increase their annual salary, but at the same time keep them in the appropriate pay band?

That is not as difficult as it appears, these employees can be given a guaranteed annual ‘bonus’, above their annual pay increase, that can be increased each year.

Once the pay increase had been given then whatever happened to their performance during the next twelve months their next pay increase would be based upon their ‘virtual’ annual salary which is made up of the top of their paygrade base salary and their previous paygrade bonuses.

This means that these employers will effectively get two pay increases each year, both of which would be pensionable. The first would be the annual increase that normally rises with the annual inflation rate, measured by either the Retail Price Index or the Consumer Price Index. The second would be based on their performance and would increase in line with a pay differential, that is based on the difference between their current pay grade and the pay grade of the position they would have been promoted to.

Both of these pay increases would be added to the employees base pensionable salary.

The increases above the pay band would perhaps go some way to enhance he employee’s sense of prestige, but to fully satisfy this sense of prestige there would need to be some progression in job title.

This could be the slightly more difficult part, as how to make the job title meaningful without making it sound condescending?

Speaking from my own experience, as long as the pay increase is ‘in-line’ with what the employee would have expected for the work they have put in, then the job title would not be too important if they felt the financial rewards were appropriate.

One of my pet hates is management gobbledygook, or management speak, more commonly known as idioms.

Are they meaningful and helpful phrases that help make the discussion more concise, or are they used by management to hide the fact that they do not know what is going on, and helps managers avoid getting involved and actually doing any work themselves?

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Before we discuss why they are used let me first of all give an idea of what some of the phrases/idioms are actually supposed to mean.

Run it up the flagpole

‘Run it up the flagpole’ is the first half of a longer idiom—run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it.

The literal meaning of run it up the flagpole is to raise a flag upon a flagpole. The visual aspect of the idiom is to see how many people pay attention to the raising of the flag, who salutes it and who ignores it. 

A Phrase which became popular in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It means “to present an idea tentatively and see whether it receives a favourable reaction”.

The following are some examples of how the phrase can be used:-

When proposing an idea “I have this new marketing strategy. Let’s run it up the flagpole at the next meeting and see what the team thinks.”

Testing a Concept “Why don’t we run this new app design up the flagpole with a few focus groups before we launch it?”

When suggesting a plan “We could try implementing flextime for employees. We could run it up the flagpole with management and see their reaction.”

When seeking feedback “I’m not sure about the layout for the website. Let’s run it up the flagpole and see what our users think.”

When asking a question “Should we run this new policy up the flagpole before rolling it out company-wide?”

In Summary the expression refers to the context of brainstorming ideas and making suggestions to see who likes it.

Take a look under the bonnet and see what we find

The idiom “look under the bonnet” originates from the automotive world and has evolved to have broader meanings in various contexts.

Literally, it refers to the act of opening a car’s hood (or bonnet) to inspect the engine. This is often done to check for issues or perform maintenance.

Here are the primary interpretations:

1. Figuratively, it means to examine the internal workings of something, whether that be a system, process, or even a person’s mind. For example, you might “look under the hood” of a software program to understand how it operates, or you might do so in a metaphorical sense to explore someone’s thoughts or emotions.

2. In discussions about technology or business, “looking under the hood” can imply investigating the underlying mechanisms that drive performance or behaviour, allowing for a deeper understanding of how things function beyond their surface appearance.

In summary, “look under the Bonnet” encourages a closer examination of the inner workings of something, whether it’s a vehicle or a more abstract concept. This idiom highlights the importance of understanding what lies beneath the surface to gain a comprehensive view of a situation or object

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As can be seen, on the surface it looks like they are all helpful phrases that help summarise certain situations and/or actions.

However the can also be tools used by management to hide the fact that they haven’t actually got a clue about what is happening!

For example, “Take a look under the bonnet and see what’s underneath”,.

It could imply that the manager is asking you to take a look at the underlying issues and see how they affect what is happening when something is not happening as it should, or it could be that the manager is using this phrase to hide the fact that they have no clue as to what is really happening or what is being discussed.

To help in deciding which of the above is the true reason for using the idiom we need to know the context in which the idiom is being used.

If it is being used in a general discussion, to encourage the team to look deeper into the issues relating to a particular problem, or is it being used in answer to a question/query of a team member?

If the former then the use of the idiom can be said to be used to help the manager summarise the actions he wants the team to take, for example further analysis/investigation of the issues causing the problem.

However, if it is the latter, a response to a co-workers request for help, then it is probably being used by the manager to hide the fact that they haven’t a clue as to what is happening, and have no idea what the problem is nor anything about the issues, and how to help resolve them.

If they do understand the situation and/or issues that are causing the problem then why not just make a properly worded suggestion, such as “Why not look at the calculation process, as it looks like the item cost is be being divided by the number of items rather than being multiplied by the number of items”. Which is more helpful and could result in the issues being resolved much quickly.

It could be argued that an idiom should not be used in any context, as they can lead to confusion as to what each team member should be doing to resolve the problem.

It would be much clearer for the manger to just tell each team member exactly what he/she wants a particular team member to do rather than allow each team member to decide for themselves, what part of whatever lays under the bonnet they should be looking at.

It may be that the manager, may be afraid that the project is going to fail, so rather than give specific instructions to staff, wants to intentionally be ambiguous, so the staff can be blamed for the failure rather than themselves.

It could be that managers, or any body else who use idioms in everyday communication, are just afraid of looking incompetent, or lacking basic product knowledge, and believes that using Idioms makes them look more intelligent to their staff. When in fact at best it only serves to make them look incompetent and a figure of fun, and at worst causes confusion and decreases the productivity of the team!

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Here are a few more examples of management idioms:-

(The/Da) Man

Meaning, an informal phrase mainly used to refer to a person in power or authority.

Example, ask Simon, If you want to take more time off, as he’s the man.

Cross all of The T’s, and dot all the i’s

Meaning, to be meticulous and thorough in completing a task.

Example, When it comes to contracts, you can trust Chris to Cross all of the T’s, and dot all the i’s

Think outside the Box

Meaning, to think creatively and consider new ideas that are not limited by traditional constraints. Emerging in the 1980s, this phrase encourages creative thinking beyond conventional boundaries. It originated from business discussions where teams were urged to approach problems in innovative ways. It has become a common call for originality in various fields.

Example, It would help to solve this problem, if we think outside the box.

The one question I ask myself more than any other is ‘Is Climate Change really Happening’.

There are so many contradictory arguments on social media concerning climate change that it is difficult to filter the facts from the fiction. This confusion appears at all levels of society from the class room to the boardroom to the local pub’s ‘debating society’.

Who hasn’t been in their local in the late evening, after a few pints of ‘liquid refreshment’ have disappeared down the throats of the thirsty customers, heard discussions about who is the best footballer, team, manager or how the current government is no good, but then the other lot are no better!

But the most popular topic of discussion has been proven to be, no not Brexit, but the weather. It can be to cold, to wet, to hot or to humid but it is always ‘changeable’ and it’s always better in another part of the world.

The funny thing is, that it doesn’t matter what the weather was actually like and no matter how long it was discussed, the conversation was always pleasant and calm and seldom became heated or discussed in anger.

That was until the arrival of ‘Climate Change’ formerly known as global warming. Now it is almost impossible to discuss the weather without voices being raised and fingers pointed like some Jedi Lightsaber. Whether this is due to the stronger ale that is drunk these days or to the modern phenomenon of complete polarisation of peoples’ opinions (due in a large part to the ready availability of social media) or a mixture of both.

Although I am more on the side of ‘Yes Climate Change is happening’ rather than on the side of ‘It’s a complete myth, as temperatures have always fluctuated’ I shall try in this series to establish what is actually happening with the weather.

Please do not get angry and bombard me with e-mails full of personal insults, or worse, as these will just be ignored and remain unanswered.

However, if you do disagree with anything I say and believe you have factual evidence to the contrary, even if it is just an opinion you may have overheard/discussed in the local pub, then please by all means contact me and I shall add your evidence to the conversation. I might even give it it’s own discussion page if sufficient evidence is supplied, thus giving other people the opportunity to reply to your arguments, whether supporting them or contradicting them.

Once I have completed an article that expounds my views on a particular subject, I shall add a comment page at the end of the article for you to supply your comments on my views.

These comment’s will be edited to remove any foul language but i will not attempt to edit them in such a way as to misrepresent your views.