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Inspired By the Peter Principle: the Peter Pinnacle
bfwebster writes "Michael Swaine — long-time, well-known and very prolific author/editor in the programming and personal computing worlds — has just devised a new twist on the Peter Principle: the Peter Pinnacle, 'meaning to get promoted so high and to be so unqualified for your job that the company tells you that you can name your price just to go away.' I'm sure the timing of the neologism is just a coincidence."
The article has no more information than the above summary, does not use any specific examples which illustrate the case, and does not have any links to any further information whatsoever.
If the author doesn't care enough about it to actually take the time to explain in detail what he is really talking about, why should anyone care enough about his opinion to listen?
Sorry for how hostile this post sounds... I'm not angry or anything, just mildly disappointed. An actual paper describing this phenomenon could have been an interesting read, if there had actually been one.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Getting sick of the multiple Ballmer stories with the same old tired discussions... this is what, the 10th story on the same thing?
This space for rent.
...promoted to his/her level of incompetence...
I'm sure the timing of the neologism is just a coincidence.
Back in 2005, Carly Fiorina took $21 million to walk away from HP: http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/09/technology/hp_fiorina/
And in 2010, Mark Hurd took a $37 Million payoff to leave HP: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/08/09/why-did-mark-hurd-hps-disgraced-ex-ceo-get-37-million/
Thank you, I needed a good pick me up.
I'm sure the timing of the neologism is just a coincidence.
Back in 2005, Carly Fiorina took $21 million to walk away from HP:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/09/technology/hp_fiorina/
It's not just her, it every CEO! If you're a fuck up and CEO, they pay you a fortune to go away.
AS for the rest of us peons, well too bad.
Are we really so dense that we can't just acknowledge that we have a ruling class? You don't spill the blood of kings folks, and you don't punish executives for screwing up. It's the same thing. The only difference is they got smart enough to stop flaunting their wealth so you'd think of them as 'one of us' and not even consider revolting. You can't win a (class) war when only one side knows it's fighting...
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The Ballmer Pinnacle
Steve Jobs, Steve Balmer, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and the list goes on and on and on....
but what is unqualified? someone with a great education? or someone that can actually do the job, instead of someone that can do it in theory...
According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "when you strike at a king, you must kill him". Merely spilling his blood nonfatally can leave you getting unwanted attention from an irate king and his cohorts of stooges.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Not sure why this guy gets the honour of discovering something that has been around since at least the start of the industrialization era.
Most of the older folks here probably have some good stories about people who got so far along, one disaster after another until the disasters happened at C-level. I know I do.
I've certainly seen cases where an organization could realize a substantial likely profit by paying someone millions of dollars to go away (or to just sit quietly in a room and stop working mischief). But any organization smart enough to realize this would not find itself in such a lopsided position to begin with. So mostly this state is just an observable marker of a poorly functioning organization.
Please name your price so we could get rid of you. Any price. It doesn't matter, the kickstarter would be funded within the hour.
I was on the phone with HP Premier Support when the Fiorina departure news hit their office. I almost couldn't finish the call because of the chaos that erupted on the other end. The entire office was cheering, crying with joy, shouting in celebration...and someone in the background started singing at the top of his voice "Ding, dong, the witch is dead!"
I am not kidding.
Robert Nardelli comes to mind for the Peter Pinnacle
He was given $210 million to go away after he seriously damaged the chain which took years to recover from his pathetic leadership.
Nardelli out at Home Depot
No. 1 home improvement retailer gives ex-CEO $210 million package; vice chairman Frank Blake takes the helm.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/03/news/companies/home_depot/
A simple to detect symptom of this is the relentless self promotion that many of these people do. If you look at many of the CEOs that have been given the heave ho; most were becoming household names. A great example of this is the "Curse of Forbes" which basically states that if you make it onto the cover of Forbes magazine that you or your company is going to be in huge trouble in the not too distant future.
But there are many awesome CEOs who are not a household name and avoid publicity as a waste of time. They focus their energies on running their companies. Whereas the people who relentlessly self promote have to do two seriously broken things. One is to neglect what they are supposed to be doing, and the second is that they often have to take credit for others' work. Technically there is a third quasi-valid reason to self promote and that is your products suck and you try to sell them through pure con-artistry.
Even years ago I knew a bunch of pilots in training. Oddly enough it is difficult to tell a great pilot; it is only easy to detect the bad ones through their misfortunes. Thus being a blow-hard was a fairly effective method to having people hire you. Most of the better blowhards had shocking levels of success as compared to the more diligent pilots who just focused on their training and hours.
Where these blowhards succeed is that they are quite capable of launching their careers far beyond what a critical look at their skills and experience would normally justify. Then reality will kick in as they start to make a mess of things. At that point the "Peter Pinnacle" definitely kicks in.
So where I would say the Peter Principle and the Peter Pinnacle differ is that under the Peter Principle people get promoted (typically one level above competence) until they fail. Whereas under the Peter Pinnacle people get promoted until they run out of hot air (which could be dozens of levels beyond competence).
The worst part is that people who will reach the highest heights of the Peter Pinnacle were probably terrible from day one and realized that bluster, scheming, and politicking were the only ways they would survive at any level. Programmers who couldn't program, then couldn't manage, then couldn't run a department, then couldn't run a company. But at each level they made sure that things were structured so that they could take credit for successes that were about to happen, and make sure others were put in place to take the blame for their messes. "I'm glad that I took over from Bob when I did. I was able to turn defeat into victory." and six months later "I left that department a well oiled machine, I misplaced my trust in Sue to be able to step into my shoes."
I've seen a phenomenon that's similar but opposite to the Peter Principle. Rather than a person gradually being promoted to the level at which he's incompetent, someone can also – through layoffs during recession, the occasional arbitrary dismissal without cause, and/or bad career moves – find himself moved down the corporate org chart to the point that he finds himself no longer competent, either because he's changed or the job has. For example, imagine an executive chef working as a line cook at Chili's, a former sysadmin answering the help-desk line, a university research scientist lecturing at a community college, or anyone over 40 trying to start over at an "entry level" position.
There are 5 articles from December 1945 on his blog.
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'Nuff said.
This is just the culmination of the Dilbert Principle.
Have gnu, will travel.
... it's beginning to get a bit complicated. To help keep it all reasonably clear I suggest we keep all the various definitions neatly organised in a Peter file.
If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.
> Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
This is the troll hook.
John Roth of Nortel -- decimated the R&D and pumped & dumped the stock. His thought process was to decimate R&D in favour of off the shelf products which were was 1-2 generations behind the tech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roth_%28businessman%29
Then there is Paul Maritz who cashed in 60 million in bonuses in 3 days after decimating all the original developers, replacing them with developers in China & India at a fraction of the cost. Also squezzed the hell out of the front line workers identifying bugs and removed resources from staff to resolve bugs -- thus the big surge in profit was at the cost of making employees work 60-70 hours a week at reduced salary & bonuses to support his bonus. this is very short termed thinking.
you're a pal and a cosmonaut.
I can't imagine where you got the idea that the word "cosmonaut" could possibly fit there. If you were to clean out your ears and listen, you'd see that the line is, "you're a pal and a confidant," which actually makes sense, unlike your garbled version.
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Insert Obligatory Carly Fiorina Joke...
Proof: Carly Fiorina
Sounds like what IBM should do with Ginni Rometty.
I'm too busy sexually dominating my secretary and arranging my tie collection.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
Plus, this guy invented, or twisted, NOTHING.
The concept has been known for years and is called "rising to your greatest level of incompetency". You get promoted so much that you leave your sphere of knowledge.
THINK! It's patriotic
A fine example of the Peter Principle in action. ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
There is always one dumbass that bites on the hook and always one dumbass that points it out.