How to Take Your & Your Business to the Next Level
Learning from Marshall Goldsmith and understanding the Peter Principle can help us to achieve business and personal success.
The Peter Principle
“They have been promoted to their level of incompetence” was a great insult we used for those who were clearly in the wrong job, (the politically correct term for a complete muppet!) For my sins, I worked in the corporate sector for quite a few years and there were quite a few managers who fitted this description.
Can you think of anyone? Chances are you can.
In fact, it is known as the Peter Principle, a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter and published in 1969. This principle states:
“There is a tendency in most organisational hierarchies for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence.”
While it gives us a giggle, if you take it to its logical conclusion it means just about all managers are incompetent as they keep getting promoted until they reach their competency limits. Worrying!
What got you here won´t get you beyond your current level of competence.
Obviously not all managers are operating out of their competence zone, but it is worth being aware of this in your organisation. If we are running our own business doesn’t it make sense that we can only grow our business to the level of our competence?
Just think about it for a minute, you can only build your business to the size and success that you have the ability and competence to do so. So, if we want greater business success surely we need to improve what we do or how we do it?
As the saying goes, if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we will always get what we’ve always got. So, to gain massive improvement we need to change. This can be hard for some of us, and personally very challenging. First, we have to realise we have flaws and we often get so defensive about these things. But what do we really have to lose? Usually, very little.
In fact, if you are the boss why would we want to change? I mean who really questions or criticises you? (employees will probably laugh at our jokes irrespective of how funny they are). The higher you go in an organisation, the more your suggestions become interpreted as orders. At this level getting praise can be dangerous because it becomes easy to delude yourself when all you hear are positive things. It is this delusional self-confidence that causes you to resist change. So, it takes a very self-confident, maybe even brave, person to accept that we need to change, to adapt and to learn to improve our business.
Marshall Goldsmith and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
In the book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith he gives some great pointers on how to adapt/ improve our behaviour to maximise our performance and, therefore, our success. I was lucky enough to not only read several of Marshall Goldsmith’s read but also spend several days training with him. These days were enlightening and really made me think differently about how I viewed my own abilities and mindset and how I worked with others.
My 6 Top Take Aways from the book:
- People who think they can do no wrong usually can’t admit they are ever wrong. Which, paradoxically, makes them more wrong. Owning up to your mistakes is essential.
- Your personality is not fixed and improvement does not require you to become a radically different person. You don’t have to change your whole life, just improve one tiny trait.
- At the bottom you had to be right, to be the best. At the top they don’t need to the best, you need to help the team to be the best.
- The higher you go the more your problems are behavioural. Interpersonal behaviour is the difference between being great and near great.
- Knowing the answer to, “How do you feel about me?” does not matter when it comes to getting better. What matters is, “How can I get better?”
- We can’t change for the long-run without following up. Follow up shows your colleagues that you care about getting better and that you’re taking the process seriously.
So, if you want to change something, then take action and change something.
” Nobody got muscles by watching me lift weights. They need to do it themselves” -Arnold Schwarzenegger
