Laurence J. Peter Quotes

A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.

Such an extreme policy will not be generally tolerated. So, to avoid the accumulation of incompetents, administrators have evolved the plan of promoting everyone, the incompetent as well as the competent. They find psychological justification for this policy by saying that it spares students the painful experience of failure.

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.

Man’s First Mistake: The Wheel

Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence

The more conceited members of the race think in terms of an endless ascent — or promotion ad infinitum. I would point out that, sooner or later, man must reach his level of life-incompetence.

All, from police forces to armed forces, are rigid hierarchies of salaried employees, and all are necessarily cumbered with incompetents who cannot do their existing work, cannot be promoted, yet cannot be removed.

the ability to charm, to amuse, to inflame a crowd of ten thousand voters with voice and gesture did not necessarily carry with it the ability to think sensibly, to debate soberly and to vote wisely on the nation’s business.

Occupational incompetence is everywhere. Have you noticed it? Probably we all have noticed it.

If man is going to rescue himself from a future intolerable existence, he must first see where his unmindful escalation is leading him. He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence

Three Observations 1) The computer may be incompetent in itself — that is, unable to do regularly and accurately the work for which it was designed. This kind of incompetence can never be eliminated, because the Peter Principle applies in the plants where computers are designed and manufactured. 2) Even when competent in itself, the computer vastly magnifies the results of incompetence in its owners or operators. 3) The computer, like a human employee, is subject to the Peter Principle. If it does good work at first, there is a strong tendency to promote it to more responsible tasks, until it reaches its level of incompetence.

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

A political party now exists primarily as an apparatus for selecting candidates and getting them elected to office.

Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.