The Rise of Incompetence: Blog@Ix

BLOG@IX
Jonathan Grudin, The Interactions website (interactions.acm.org) hosts a stable of bloggers who
Microsoft Research share insights and observations on HCI, often challenging current practices. Each
issue we’ll publish selected posts from some of the leading voices in the field.
The Rise of Incompetence
All public employees should be demoted INCREASING INCOMPETENCE and communication skills required for a
to their immediately lower level, as 1. Today technology enables job increase, someone promoted into that
they have been promoted until turning competent employees to find higher- position is less likely to handle it well. In
incompetent. level jobs more easily. Competent addition, competent workers could once
— José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955) people are promoted more rapidly and count on remaining competent, but skills
reach their levels of incompetence more can now become obsolete. “Lifelong
In a hierarchy, individuals tend to rise quickly. In the past, few employees had learning” isn’t a cheerful concept to
to their levels of incompetence. to wait the 62 years and counting that someone who was happy to be finished
W
— Laurence Peter (1919–1990) Prince Charles has for his promotion, with school 30 years ago.
but wait they did. Now software You may be thinking, “The Peter
e should be enjoying developers, university professors, Principle is oversimplified, competence
a golden age of and athletes jump to better positions. isn’t binary, lots of us, including
competence. We have The quickest way to advance in an me, haven’t reached our levels of
access to so much organization can be to take a higher incompetence and don’t plan to.” Peter
information. YouTube position elsewhere and return later at would disagree and insist that you are
videos show us how to do almost the higher level. LinkedIn reduces the on a path to your level of incompetence,
anything. And there are impressive friction in upward trajectories. if you haven’t reached that destination
achievements: Automobiles run more 2. Successful organizations grow already. However, we should also
efficiently and last longer; products more rapidly, creating managerial ask: Could other changes wrought by
are rapidly distributed worldwide. vacuums that suck people upward. technology and society undermine the
Nevertheless, there is a sense that Enterprises once started locally and Peter Principle? The answer is yes.
the world isn’t running that smoothly. grew slowly. Mass media and the
Inept governments and poor service Internet enable explosive growth. WEAKENING THE
are common. Financiers whose As projects ramp up and add team PETER PRINCIPLE
ruinous actions led to worldwide members, experienced workers move up 1. The Peter Principle addresses
recession didn’t lose their jobs. a management ladder that quickly adds promotion in hierarchies. Hierarchy
In HCI, many nod when Don rungs. People can plateau at their levels is not gone, but it is weakening.
Norman says, “UI is getting worse— of incompetence while young. Children address adults by first
all over.” How could incompetence 3. The end of mandatory retirement names, executives respond directly
be on the rise when knowledge and ages extended the time that employees to employee email, dress codes
tools proliferate? can work at their levels of incompetence. disappear, and everyone tweets. In rigid
The opening quotations offer an 4. The decline of class systems and hierarchical organizations of the 1960s,
explanation: the Peter Principle. other discrimination is terrific, but communication moved up and down the
In his 1969 bestselling book, Laurence egalitarian systems are less efficient: chain of management. The efficiency
Peter described why organizations More people reach their level of and ambiguous formality of email
keep incompetent managers and incompetence. Competent employees disrupted this. Subordinates are more
how they avoid serious harm. trapped by a class boundary or a glass uncomfortable circumventing hierarchy
Could managerial incompetence ceiling fail to achieve incompetence. For with a telephone call or a knock on the
be escalating, despite the greater example, women with few employment door that requires a response than with
capability of those who are alternatives could be extraordinarily email that recipients can ignore.
competent—who, in Peter’s words, capable teachers, nurses, and secretaries. 2. Hierarchy benefits from an
have not yet reached their levels I benefited from this indefensible aura of mystery around managers and
of incompetence? Consider this discrimination in school, as did my leaders. Rulers tied themselves to gods;
thought exercise: father in his job. (If this argument is celebrities and politicians were quasi-
Assume the Peter Principle was true alarming, read to the end!) royalty. Not so much anymore. All
in 1969. How are technology and societal 5. Greater job complexity is a barrier is visible. Leaders are under a media
changes affecting it? to competence. As the tools, information, microscope, their flaws and foibles
6 INTER ACTIONS J A N U A R Y – F E B R U A R Y 2 0 16 INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG

exposed. To ignore obvious managerial organizations that pile up vice
incompetence is more difficult. presidents “on special assignments.”
3. When organizations are rapidly In a lateral arabesque, a manager is
acquired, merged, broken up, or shut moved sideways to a role in which
down, as happens often these days, little damage can be done. Another
employees have less time to reach their maneuver is to transfer everyone out
levels of incompetence. from under a high-level non-performer,
yielding a free-floating apex.
AND THE WINNER? Peter described capable followers
We lack competence metrics. Perhaps who were promoted to be incompetent
only perceived incompetence is on the leaders, excellent teachers who made
rise, with greater visibility and scrutiny poor administrators, shop-floor experts
piercing a chimera of excellence that who became bad supervisors, and
we colluded in maintaining because we great fundraisers who proved to be
wanted to believe that capable hands poor legislators. Sources of eventual
were at the helm. incompetence are intellectual,
Nevertheless, managerial constitutional, social, and other
incompetence appears to be mismatches of skill set to position
accelerating, aided by technology and requirements.
benign social changes that strive to level The phenomenon can be seen
the playing field. The counterforces rely in more subtle hierarchies. A good
on weakened hierarchy, but hierarchy paper presenter is promoted to panel hire someone for me to manage. Today,
remains strong enough to trigger self- invitee, and if successful there, invited with job opportunities visible online,
preservation maneuvers at the expense to give keynotes. A young researcher a capable worker aspiring to a higher
of competence, as summarized below. is invited to review papers, then position can likely find an employer
promoted to associate editor, then looking to fill such a position: One need
HIERARCHY AND editorships in ever more prestigious not wait as long as I did for such an offer.
THE PETER PRINCIPLE venues, until incompetence is
Our genes were selected for small- achieved. Percussive sublimation and CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
group interactions in hunter-gatherer lateral arabesques are also found in Rapidly accessed online information
societies. When agriculture and food professional service. The visibility of is a powerful tool for skill-building,
sufficiency supported concentrated competence can, ironically, undermine and it is logical to promote someone
populations, extraordinarily it: A strong, proactive conference who does something well to manage
hierarchical societies evolved with committee member may deliver weak, others doing it. This undermines
remarkable speed, producing the social reactive service when invited to serve managerial competence: Managing is
control and communication needed by on four committees simultaneously. a complex social skill that is learned
armies, religions, and governments. Our Although at times Peter claims less when studying online than through
innate disposition to jockey for status that there are no exceptions to his apprenticeship.
in a small group leads to unpredictable principle, elsewhere he acknowledges Class barriers and glass ceilings
patterns in large hierarchical that people work ably prior to their may be under attack, but subtle biases
organizations. “final promotion” and suggests ways remain and can impede promotions. By
Members interested in stability and to avoid promotion to your level of the logic of the Peter Principle, under-
future promotions work to preserve a incompetence. But it isn’t easy. Once it represented groups are especially likely to
hierarchy. Removing employees who was common to spend a career with a be capable as they more slowly approach
were promoted but proved inadequate single employer—actors in the studio their final promotion.
has drawbacks. It calls into question the system, athletes and coaches with one What should we do? Think
judgment of higher management who team, faculty staying at one university. frequently about what we really
made the promotions. Why not leave Years of competent performance while want in life, and keep an eye on those
them in place and hope they grow into awaiting an internal promotion were hierarchies in which we spend our days,
their jobs? common, abetted by glass ceilings and never forgetting that they are modern
Other strategies are applied when early retirements. Those days are gone. creations of human beings who grew up
high-level incompetence could threaten The versatility of programming on savannahs and in the forests.
an organization. Provide an inept made it a nomadic profession from
executive with subordinates “who the outset. When I left my first
Jonathan Grudin is a principal researcher
have not yet risen above their levels of programming job—which I loved—to
IMAGE BY DMITRY NAUMOV
in the Natural Interaction Group at Microsoft

competence” to do the actual work. travel, my manager tried to retain me Research. http://interactions.acm.org/blog/
Kick an incompetent manager upstairs by offering to promote me to my level author/7175/Jonathan%20Grudin
to a position with an impressive of incompetence—that is, he offered to →→ [email protected]
title and few duties. Peter labels this
percussive sublimation and describes DOI: 10.1145/2854002 COPYRIGHT HELD BY AUTHOR
INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG J A N U A R Y – F E B R U A R Y 2 0 16 INTER ACTIONS 7

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BLOG@IX

The Rise of Incompetence

6 INTER ACTIONS J A N U A R Y – F E B R U A R Y 2 0 16 INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG

in the Natural Interaction Group at Microsoft

INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG J A N U A R Y – F E B R U A R Y 2 0 16 INTER ACTIONS 7

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