Why your boss is incompetent - life - 17 December 2009 - New Scientist

Most of us, I imagine, have come across the Peter principle noting that many people end up being promoted beyond their abilities. "At some point, then, they will be promoted into a job they can't quite handle. They will, as Peter and Hull put it, 'reach the level of their own incompetence'." I certainly have noted this in action and my informal observations, made in personal conversations down the years, pretty much match the further research. Lazear's research indicates:

... every worker's ability to do his or her job well is determined by their basic competence plus an additional transitory component determined by circumstance. There is no guarantee that this transitory component will be maintained after a promotion, especially if the new position requires different abilities. An electrician doing excellent work on the factory floor might not have the interpersonal skills needed to manage a team of electricians. A skilled and sensitive doctor might flounder when faced with the multitudinous difficulties of running a hospital. A cabinet minister prudently managing the finances of a nation might not necessarily be the best choice to step up and lead it.

And this is why, in my opinion, flatter structures which reward competence rather than position or responsibility are better, along with building teams where it is possible for people to play to their strengths and gain the support they need to extend their skills and competencies at a pace they can cope with.

This applies to my church too. We seem to have a tendency to catch sight of the shiney or clever project or piece of work someone does and assume that the creativity or sparkiness is transferable 'just like that'. It may not be. I myself, in the past, have been asked to do things on the basis of something that has been noticed. The problem is that some of the things asked have actually not really been sufficiently alike the thing that's caught interest. Either it's not been something I'm as interested in, or it's been a slightly different skill-set required or further work is needed to prep than circumstances allow at that point. The problem is, of course, if one knocks back too many 'asks' you stop being asked -only to see someone else doing less well something you know you could do later on.

Concrete examples? Well, one has to be careful of the privacy and reputations of others, but I think I can give one. On the basis of what seemed to be a good assessment of my work in University chaplaincy, I was asked to consider taking a post with a large youth work component in a suburban parish. I didn't take that up: it was based on a fair-enough noting that there are some elements of similarity between youth work and working with students. However, for me the core skills and perspectives were different and I knew that taking such a post would likely mean a less-than-optimum youth outreach and a lot of frustration for me. I would have been 'moved' to a point of incompetence. In addition the energy for me in the chaplaincy came from a broad engagement with the institution of which the work with student groups and individuals was part. Without the fuller, bigger, picture, my work on any one bit would suffer. There is a difference between doing one thing full-ish time and doing a number of things as part of a portfolio and working through and with others.

We need systems that allow people to try-out, find support and if necessary to return to points of good competency without penalty. The problems of promotion to incompetency are reinforced by the lifestyle and long-term implications of higher pay. Co-operatives probably have a healthier approach in this respect.

Of course, what we should note is what this means for interpreting history: "- it means that when things go wrong at the top, it is most probably a cock-up, not a conspiracy. "
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