The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his own level of incompetence. This dangerously simple maxim of organisational dysfunction, first spelt out more than thirty-three years ago, has wormed its way into everyday managerial vocabulary. The Peter Principle is rife wherever hierarchies exist - multinational companies, local government, the Civil Service, hospital management, the groves of academe and public transport. There is no escape: promotion, like the paths of glory, leads but to the grave of over-promotion. 'The Peter Principle' is required reading for all those now setting their feet on the first rung of the promotional ladder, their starry-eyed gaze fixed on the heights above them. Do they realy want to scale a peak from which their fate can only be a dismal shunting into oblivion? But all is not lost. Those who shrink from the horror of the Final Placement may seek salvation in a deviously cunning strategy. It will demand diligence and a talent for dissembling, but it may just avert the unwanted, ultimate promotion.

This bestselling business classic of more than twenty-five years' duration is a dead-on account of why boredom, bungling, and bad management are built into every organization. Through hilarious case histories and cartoons adapted from Punch, Dr. Peter shows how America's corporate career track drives employees relentlessly upward -- until they get promoted into jobs they just can't do and wind up desperately treading water, driving their colleagues crazy, and dragging down productivity and profit.