Introduction
I did a series on a book called The Holiness of God on my FCA-Devotional Blog and I stumbled upon something very interesting that related to the coaching profession. This book references another book called The Peter Principle by Dr. Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull that is somewhat of a classic in the business world. It says that people tend to rise to their level of incompetence in corporate structures. This was based on the observation that new employees typically start out at the bottom, and then as they display competence, they are promoted. Eventually, they reach a level in which they are no longer successful, and they are stuck at that level of incompetence. The net result is that most of the higher positions in corporate structures will all be filled with incompetents.
Not everyone gets caught in the trap of the Peter Principle. There are two categories of people who escape the trap: the super-incompetent and the super-competent. The super-incompetent person has no opportunity to move up to his level of incompetence because he is already at his level of incompetence. Competency is needed to be promoted, and the super-incompetent will never be promoted.
The real irony is found in the super-competent group. How does the super-competent person rise through the corporate structures to get to the top? He doesn’t. The reason is that he represents a massive threat to those above him. His bosses are frightened by him, fearful that he will take their jobs. He represents a clear and present danger to them that they will lose their seats of honor and power. The super-competent is more likely to be fired than the super-incompetent, because the boss can most likely find a job that the super-incompetent can do.