The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle made an appearance in ch. 7 because it helped explain bewildering organizational structures. By which I mean it helps explain why there are people at high levels of the organization who are blatantly incompetent. (A brief refresher: The Peter Principle states that people who are good at their jobs get promoted until they finally arrive at a position at which they can’t perform. They’ve “reach[ed] the level of their own incompetence.” And there they stay, enjoying big paychecks.)

Now the New Scientist reports that one way to get around this outcome is to promote people at random, and so presumably both high and low performers had an an equal shot. This is a deeply stupid idea that professor Rajiv Mehta politely terms “a really interesting alternative approach to looking at the Peter Principle.”

He continues: “But it would turn on its head almost every established theory of human behaviour and would face a multitude of problems.”

I’m not sure the Peter Principle is something you can regulate around, not least, as one commenter pointed out, because good people who aren’t rewarded at a company tend to quit in disgust and seek their fortunes elsewhere. As I saw it, its usefulness — as a theory — is that it helps stave off despair when you’re stuck working beneath incompetents. It’s not you, and it’s not even them. It’s the system. Knowing this helps frustrated junior employees from overdosing on self-doubt.

On Being Offended

Apropos of here and here, here’s one more reason why being “offended” ought to end with 2009. Yes, the “offensive” label is overused; if everyone is driving around offended all the time, it makes it harder to gin up real outrage when real outrage is warranted; and yes, saying x is offensive to me is a weird passive construction and way of distancing yourself while still sounding judgmental and disapproving but without actually committing yourself to an overt explanation of why you’re offended. In a word, it’s prissy.

But slapping a “that’s offensive” label on something just doesn’t accomplish what it’s meant to accomplish. It’s often said with the hope of prompting the offender to reevaluate their statement(s). You say that all women who wear mascara are disease-ridden whores, and I say, “Wow, offensive!” but my real point is probably this: I don’t agree. I wear mascara. I don’t have sex for money. Perhaps you should reconsider what you’ve just said, or risk hurting people’s feelings.

If I were extra sanctimonious, I might even be hoping that by calling you offensive, you’d be embarrassed, possibly even ashamed.

Two BIG PROBLEMS right there: 1) Shame simply isn’t that potent a social phenomenon any more. 2) The subtext of “That’s offensive” is usually that you, the offended, are a kinder, more sensitive, and thoughtful individual than the offender is. This is insulting. And you can insult someone, or attempt to influence them, but you can’t do both at the same time.

As long as I’m keeping a running list of “how to be useful” mentions…

How to be useful = a trait which can’t be cultivated by accident, tends to be learned alongside independence. Says a mom.

Spam Comment Poetry III

Hello there, very nice place

I’d like a packet of biscuits,

please.

Are you from San Diego?

In truth, immediately I didn’t understand the essence. But after re-reading all at once became clear.

You will need to see a doctor.

Sting contemplates his Christmas album

As quoted in several AP-fed papers: “I’m 58. I’m not in the winter of my life but I’m definitely preparing for it, so it reminds you of your mortality, the short span of years we have on the planet, what to do with that, how to be useful, how to be meaningful.”

How to be useful = release a Christmas album. I’m still wrapping my head around this. Is a collection of old(e) English advent hymns more / less useful than “Wrapped Around Your Finger“? I don’t know the answer.

Re. the video. Candles, white suit, sunglasses, dancing. All in one! Not just anybody can pull this off. It does take a special someone.

“where the borderline between usefulness and uselessness lies”

The root problem, Lord Turner, free-thinking chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the UK industry regulator, famously said this summer, is that too much business over the past decade has been “socially useless” – a buzz-phrase that has since informed the thinking of regulators and politicians. Many of the derivative products dreamt up by bankers, not to mention the “casino banking” practised by proprietary traders betting the banks’ own capital, would fall into Lord Turner’s “useless” category.

–From an article in the FT about London bankers convening to discuss how to salvage their souls. Merry Christmas!

Help

That’s one way to do it

I began writing because I was unhappy and wanted to see if I could make anyone else unhappy in exactly the same way.  —-Akhil Sharma

In Persuasion Nation, or, Thoughts on a Productive Lunch

If a presentation is too glossy and slick, the message is diluted.

Every intellectually curious person I know is operating at 95% capacity. They barely have an hour to synthesize all of the facts they gather each day.

This means the potential impact of every single act of communication is diluted.

At the same time, competition for our attention is intense. The challenge for anyone who wants attention—for for-profit purposes or not—is overcoming our skepticism and fatigue.

So the question becomes: How to talk to people who may not know us but already don’t trust us? How do you address people who don’t have time to listen?

For-profits and non-profits alike who can figure out how to overcome our ennui will do better than those who fail to realize where their real communications problems lie.

Meaning is made by one’s audience. All you can do is reduce your probability of being misunderstood.

This is easier said than done. I’d recommend professional help.

This is undoubtedly an instance of “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” but I further imagine that this challenge requires blunt, fresh language that paradoxically, imperceptibly, triggers nostalgia. Triggering longing is secondary.

Accomplishing the above requires $10 sentences.