The Peter Principle formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”.
This is seen often. For example an individual who has specialized talent in one area and is producing great work, gets promoted. This promotion has no or very limited training, skill development, mentoring, coaching, etc… The person at this level fails miserably because the lack of cognitive ability, requisite tasks, and ability to operate in a managerial level. This failure has detrimental effects on the organization and the staff that this person now manages. So this employee has reached their level of incompetence.
I would like to theorize a Reverse Peter Principle (kind of) when it comes to task delegation of managerial leadership.
This Reverse Peter Principle states that “within a hierarchy tasks tend to be delegated until they have descended to the employees level of incompetence”.
Meaning that mangers who delegate tasks that they themselves should be completing, are passing the task along the hierarchy until it cannot be completed by the person in the last pass off of the delegation. Causing important goals (that are aligned with the tasks) to be completed poorly if at all. Then the management scape-goats the employee because, it was delegated to them.
The complexity of the task must fit the level of work. There is a great tendency to delegate tasks to too low a level. For example Marketing development that requires a level of thinking, ability, and accessibility to resources that only the Marketing VP has. If the Marketing VP was to delegate this task to the Marketing Manager – the task would be too complex and the manager does not have access to the power system, necessary authority, and connections to collaborate with other departments for successful completion.
If these more complex problems are assigned even one level of the hierarchy too low, the consequences are ones that we have all seen and are highly predictable: Budgets are over spent, completion time targets need to be continually extended, and should the project be completed, the quality and results are sub-standard.
It is essential to ensure that the complexity of tasks are appropriate when delegated to staff. All tasks should be appropriate in complexity, resources, and skills for the person delegated to. People want to be challenged to their full capacity, and if the Managerial Leader knows the people then this can be accomplished.
When delegating tasks consider the task assignee’s background. The task should be adjusted to take into account: the persons time in the position (role); their familiarity with the task; the requisite knowledge and skill necessary for successful completion; the maturity of their relationship with their manager; and whether or not they value to assigned task.
It is essential to delegate tasks properly to avoid the Reverse Peter Principle. When delegating tasks managers must make clear the what-by-when (Quality:Quantity:Time Frame). In addition, they must ensure that staff understand the resources and approved methods, policies & procedures to utilize while completing the task. While a manger can assume that any delegated task will be completed on time and to standard unless they are notified to the contrary, it up to the manager to ensure that the staff understand and are capable of completing the task in the first place.
michael cardus is create-learning
image by AleBonvini
I must say, the idea has merit. Perhaps you should write a longer manifesto on it. Find some element of research to support it and I’d volunteer LeaderLab Papers to publish it.
Thanks David.
A manifesto I like that idea:)