The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong - Hardcover

Peter, Laurence J.; Hull, Raymond

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0285502557 ISBN 13: 9780285502550

Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd, 1992

Synopsis

The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong

About this title

Review

"The Peter Principle has cosmic implications." -- The New York Times

Ruefully delightful ... excruciatingly applicable--and fun to read --Playboy

"Ruefully delightful ... excruciatingly applicable--and fun to read"--Playboy

"[The Peter Principle] has struck a throbbing public nerve... a minor cultural phenomenon and its title phrase, like Parkinson's Law, is certain to enter the language."--Life magazine

"The Peter Principle has cosmic implications."--The New York Times

The Peter Principle has cosmic implications. --The New York Times"

Ruefully delightful ... excruciatingly applicableand fun to read --Playboy"

[The Peter Principle] has struck a throbbing public nerve... a minor cultural phenomenon and its title phrase, like Parkinson s Law, is certain to enter the language. --Life magazine"

Ruefully delightful ... excruciatingly applicable and fun to read --Playboy"

-The Peter Principle has cosmic implications.---The New York Times

-Ruefully delightful ... excruciatingly applicable--and fun to read---Playboy

-[The Peter Principle] has struck a throbbing public nerve... a minor cultural phenomenon and its title phrase, like Parkinson's Law, is certain to enter the language.---Life magazine

From the Back Cover

This book caused a storm when first published in 1969, battering up the bestseller list to #1, charming readers from Topeka to Timbuktu, and finally, brilliantly, blessedly giving the world an answer to a question that nags us all: Why is incompetence so maddeningly rampant and so vexingly triumphant? The book and the phrase it defined are now considered comedic-yet-classic cornerstones of organizational thought, and in honor of the book's fortieth anniversary, Robert I. Sutton has written a foreword introducing the book to a new generation of readers.

The Peter Principle, the eponymous law Laurence Peter coined, explains that -in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.- Everyone--from the office intern to the CEO, from the low-level civil servant to a nation's president--will inevitably rise to his or her level of incompetence, if it hasn't happened already. Dr. Peter's glorious revelation explains why incompetence is at the root of everything we endeavor to do--why schools bestow ignorance, why governments condone anarchy, why courts dispense injustice, why prosperity causes unhappiness, and why utopian plans never generate utopias.

With the wit of James Thurber or Mark Twain, the psychological and anthropological acuity of Sigmund Freud or Margaret Mead, and the theoretical impact of Isaac Newton or Copernicus, Dr. Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull's brilliant book explains how incompetence and its accompanying symptoms, syndromes, and remedies define the world and the work we do in it.

Edition details

• Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0285502557
• ISBN 13: 9780285502550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 180