Basic Peter Principle

The overall subject of the book The Peter Principle is that companies, by various means, allow people to reach their level of incompetence. It is so true in small and family owned businesses. Rather than deal with a person and do the right thing, many times they will move them into a position for which they are not qualified, move them into a position laterally that is beyond their capabilities or beneath their capabilities or even promote them (usually family) under the guise of "training" or giving them another chance.

What really needs to be done is that they need to be told to improve (receive a not so good review) or given specific improvement items or maybe even termination. Another thing that might need to happen is training/education for real. Not a conjured up seminar that deals in such high level abstractions that it is no earthly good, but training to specifically deal with the problems that keep the person from being what they need to be. Training/Education seldom really works because what management is looking for is to "fix" the person and the person may not be "fixable". Surprisingly, I have seen it work though. Especially for an ill-educated or non-educated family member. One of my clients had 3 sons one of which was in the business. One of the sons was incompetent, irresponsible and a liar and thief. The Father recognized it and would not allow that Son in the business. The third Son was in college and bound for medical school. The Son in the business was the middle Son and he was very helpful in all aspects of the business EXCEPT accounting/finance. When I came in to help the Father reorganize the business, it was obvious that the Son was a very smart young man, had a great work ethic and knew the business almost as well as the Father. He had worked in all aspects of the business EXCEPT accounting/finance. Sooooooo, I asked him to go back to school and take some accounting courses. He did not want to do it at first, but he did and he did well. Now he is finishing his degree and is handling all aspects of the business. I had shown him how to work in QuickBooks and initiate and follow through with transactions, but after going to school he understand what and why these transactions were necessary. So, it can work.

The point is that many times the person cannot be trained, cannot work with others and/or cannot or will not do their job. Rather than doing the right thing, many companies make "maneuvers" to "save" the person when they should have canned them or demoted them. Like Mike Huckabee says, "Do the right thing"! I agree.

What do you think?