Laurence J. Peter Quotes

In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status

Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere Mankind, Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of Sense, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. (Ibid., 11. 77–80)

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

Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence (Peter’s Paradox): they merely gossip about incompetence to mask their envy of employees who have Pull.

Nobody understands how the incessant pressure from above and the incurable incompetence below make it utterly impossible for me to do an adequate job and keep a clean desk.

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.

Incompetence,” he argued, “knows no barrier of time or place.

the main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.

Many a man, under the old and the new systems, has made the upward step from candidate to legislator, only to achieve his level of 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 computer may be incompetent in itself — that is, unable to do 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.

Dr. Peter observed that one reason so many employees are incompetent is that the skills required to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required to do the job itself. The skills required to run a great political campaign have little to do with the skills required to govern.

Seorang yang kompeten dalam level tertentu belum tentu kompeten pada level berikutnya

It is true that work can expand to fill the time allotted but it can expand far beyond that. It can expand beyond the life of the organization and the company can go bankrupt, a government can fall, a civilization can crumble into barbarism, while the incompetents work on.