Peter's principle
highlights that in an organizational hierarchy, every employee will rise or get
promoted to his or her level of incompetence.
The situation is more visible in the upper strata of the middle management
layer, where there is overcrowding. Also
with organizations trying to rationalize cost by downsizing, it becomes
survival of the smartest. Here is a remedy kit, that will help an individual
defy peter's principle, sustain and grow.
Maintain Thy Flock:
The Flock is those
bunch of selfless souls who are brilliant, always happy and contended without
aspirations to grow and are innovative. It takes time to cultivate this flock.
You need to look back at the years you passed by in the organization, identify
your flock and have them together. With
a strong flock you can get them to innovate and execute while you effortlessly
take credit by projecting as if you are giving the directions to the flock to
execute. The flock will be your shadow in all challenging situations that you
handle, be it with customers or senior management who is looking at you as a
candidate for rationalization. With you
being the architect of the screen play in all meetings, laurels come to you
naturally. A word of caution though is to take care of the flock, make them
feel they are important and create an illusion of grand recognition by throwing
in some titbits every now and then at them.
Be the Profane Visionary:
Profanity is a key
trait to be showcased if you want to be perceived as an aggressive go getter.
Whether it is chairing a staff meeting or reviewing a proposal profanity
helps. When you review, always go with
the assumption that everything is wrong and start with an analogy - the more
dirtier and vulgar the better it is. You
will definitely get to hear in the corridors that you are a great reviewer and
any proposal or presentation needs your scrutiny before it is delivered. With a
multicultural and diverse community in place, how can you get away with this??
Acronyms are there to save your day. For e.g.: you can say "WTF" (I
leave the expansion to the reader) and you will definitely find a bunch of
sycophants around you to applaud you and appreciate your aggressiveness.
Profanity can also be used as a very effective diversionary tactic to hide your
incompetence and lack of understanding of the subject under discussion. A word of caution - Study your audience
before you apply this technique.
Hallucinate Confidently:
Projecting an aura
of confidence is an important pre-requisite to apply this technique. If you get
this right most of your hallucinations will be perceived as "thought
leadership". Through your
persistent and confident hallucinations,
you would have established yourself as a "thought leader" and you can
leverage that to create aspirational business cases, which will increase your
equity as a business leader also.
An example could be " Whatever I talk on a
microphone in any language should be understood by the system and translated to
code. Deployment will be through a IVR system. The system will have a
self-recovering capability that will enable a roll back through pre-recorded
message instructions that are stored in the system".
Now read the above
paragraph again. Doesn't it sound visionary, if you just read it and immerse
yourself in it, without even giving the slightest consideration as to who is
going to implement this. A word of
caution - don't make any attempts to understand your hallucinations which are
revelations that came to your probably in a dream or after gulping four large
Johnny Walkers. In addition, don’t ever make the cardinal mistake of trying to
empathize with the poor souls who are going to be tasked with the
implementation of your hallucinations.
Be a new broom:
If you have
exhausted the above techniques in your current organization and you still are
in the limelight for all wrong reasons, then be assured that your true colors
are out in the open. A very high
probability is that you had Judas in your flock and didn't identify him/her,
and this person is gunning for your position now. But don't worry- you can
still use the above three techniques to get into another organization. As the proverb goes "A
new broom sweeps well". You
can use the cool off period as a new broom to get into the inner circle of
powerful people in the new organization and also cultivate your flock. A word of caution - this is a time bound
technique and you should quickly adapt yourself and apply the above three
techniques in your new organization for sustenance; else you will be wiped off
without a trace.
Hog the Limelight:
For any of the above
techniques to work effectively, you need to be in the limelight. A fundamental
pre-requisite that will act as a catalyst for you here is proximity to the
people who matter. After all seeing is believing isn't it? You can also follow Machiavelli
- "Ends justify means". Even If it requires projecting someone else's
work (be it a member of your flock or someone who trusts you)
as your work do it.
The Fallback:
You feel all of the
above are too much for you to handle? You still have an option. Become part of
someone's flock. A word of caution - sincerely evaluate yourself against the
required traits, if you are competent enough
to be part of a flock, else the outcomes could be disastrous.
Thank you Mr. Scott Adams for being my
inspiration.
