"In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his own level of incompetence," discovered Dr Laurence J Peter. Clear evidences of the Peter Principle can be found internationally in all spheres of life, be it a business, an industry, a trade union, politics, a government, the armed forces, a religion, education, or some other hierarchy. Dr Peter noticed that not only competent people but even incompetent and moderately competent individuals constantly move up in hierarchies on the strength of their performance, relations with a superior authority, nuisance value, image, etc. As per the principle, only the super incompetent and the super competent—because they challenge or threaten the well-being of the oragnisation or their superior—ever get kicked out. The elevations stop only when the incumbents finally reach a position they are incompetent to handle.
True, someone somewhere was incompetent in the abortive search for the weapons of mass destruction that killed over a million Iraqis and wasted more than a trillion dollars. Someone somewhere is always incompetent when patients die and doctors get beaten up, but hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance providers laugh all the way to the bank.
On the national level, someone somewhere was incompetent when lander Vikram diverted from the trajectory and fell over the moon in the much touted Rs.9.7 billion Chandrayaan-2 mission. Or, when it was assumed that introduction of new Rs.500 and Rs.2,000 notes and withdrawal of Rs.1,000 and prevalent Rs.500 notes would end terrorism, unearth black money, and stop the publication of counterfeit currency.
Some incompetence must have prompted the declaration that while the Mahabharata war was decided in 18 days, India's battle against the Corona virus would be won in 21 days, counting from March 25, 2020. The declaration of a Tika Utsav on April 11-14, 2021 to expose vaccine shortage can be another example of incompetence.
The incompetence of a key person motivated forced the police to ignore common citizens and instead focus attention on finding the seven lost buffalos of the Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan in 2014. Undue delay in the settlement of legal cases; mistakes in Aadhaar cards, voter cards and vaccination certificates; poor teaching and moral standards at schools—all point towards incompetence at some level.
Personally, I have had a bitter taste of incompetence when a bank has not rectified an error in the user name and forces me to use an entirely different surname to access my account even after fifteen years; or, when right from the manager to the prime minister's office did not detect the criminal who tried to break into my bank account and closed the case with a remark that "the account has sufficient balance"; or, when a credit card was despatched to a defunct address in spite of multiple warnings issued in advance; or, when my employee provident fund file was not transferred to the preferred office.
We have become so used to incompetence that incidents of first-time-right generate surprise. "Oh, the mechanic reported in time!" "Great, no one honked on the road!" "Super, the sweets were not weighed with the box!" "Wonderful, there was no fake news spread today!"
While the Peter Principle might have been true in 1960's and 70's, do the competent really move up now? Do they even get employed? Aren't people being removed from jobs at a very high rate during the pandemic? Aren't most employees being forced to accept low remuneration for their services?
Once, on hearing the praise of a superstar, Hindi filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt had remarked, "Remember, there are much more talented people than him who roam on the streets and die in gutters without ever getting noticed."
There is definitely something that matters higher than competence in career advancement. That is called destiny.
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