Can we turn back the Rising Tide of Incompetence?

In almost any division, department, or office, there’s a weak link — someone whom everyone has to work around, someone who makes everyone’s life a little more difficult, someone who holds back the rest of the group. It’s a simple fact: Not everyone can do the job. It’s been thirty-six years since Laurence J. Peter introduced the Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” That is, workers keep getting promoted until their new job demands more than they can give, and then they stay in that job pretty much forever.

The principle remains true today, according to an article in The Conference Board Review. But the situation has worsened: Today’s increasingly complex working world, combined with technological advancements that require each worker to master a wider range of skills, guarantees that more and more of us are incapable of performing all parts of our jobs well.

The article — titled “Can We Turn Back the Rising Tide of Incompetence?” — is the cover story of the debut issue of The Conference Board Review, which recently changed its name from Across the Board. The independent bimonthly magazine is published by The Conference Board.

Incompetence, Defined

“What do we mean when we say someone is an incompetent?” asks Matthew Budman, managing editor of The Conference Board Review. “One definition: An incompetent is someone who is defined by his mistakes. Everyone makes the occasional error or bad decision or lapse in judgment. Most of them go unnoticed. But at some point, failure becomes the norm and even that person’s defining characteristic.”

Are workers more incompetent today than in the past? In general, probably yes. Budman writes: “There’s no reason to think that people today are fundamentally less capable than their parents or grandparents, but more is demanded of white-collar workers every day — less in terms of the sheer amount of work than of different types of work. The working world is increasingly complex, and many of us regularly take on more responsibility for more things.” This is the inevitable result of improved technology — for instance, powerful word-processing software on every PC — and of organizational delayering. Departments and business units have ever-broader scopes and mandates but fewer warm bodies, meaning that every time there’s a new project or initiative or team, the necessary commitment of time and energy gets added to someone’s already-long to-do list. Everyone is expected to do a bit of everything. “Plus, there’s the issue of multitasking, which can turn almost anyone into a forgetful blunderer,” Budman writes.

Do They Know They’re Incompetent?

Of course, it’s not only the modern workplace that creates incompetence — the Principle holds that the hierarchy itself, through promotions, transforms capable workers into shaky bosses. “In addition, incompetence begets incompetence: Managers with poor judgment hand out assignments to the wrong people, delegate tasks to those who can’t handle them, and force others out of their zones of responsibility,” Budman writes. And despite workplace personality testing, companies keep putting the wrong people in charge. “Just think of all the books you’ve seen about dealing with toxic bosses, and consider that each of those toxic bosses was, at some point, promoted to that position of responsibility.”

To that end, the article shifts from business to politics, focusing on former FEMA director Michael D. Brown and how the federal government’s “less than rapid” response to Hurricane Katrina led to concerns about the management of the entire Bush administration. The article notes that after the Brown situation, “people of all political stripes began asking tougher questions.”

You Can’t Just Fire Everyone

Comparatively few workers are what Peter termed “super-incompetents,” and companies tend to tolerate those whose performance is mediocre. “Firings are unpleasant for everyone involved,” Budman writes, “and it’s no wonder that it’s the solution of last resort.” To avoid making painful decisions, organizations kick incompetents upstairs, re-route important work around them, and go through other contortions.

The problem is that too many managers end up in the wrong positions, the article argues. To solve the problem, therefore, companies need to do a better job ensuring that people end up in the positions for which they’re best suited. But there’s a larger problem with the way organizations promote people, argues Budman, who recommends a broad reconsideration of traditional companies’ hierarchical, promotion-based culture. “I’m not talking about a radical restructuring of organizational design,” he writes. “You don’t have to scrap your org chart.… Just start considering how to separate promotions from rewards for high performance, how to alter the pattern of good people inexorably rising until they’re no longer good people.”

Source: September/October 2006 The Conference Board Review