Welcome back to the Corporate Politics 101 series! In my previous post, I updated the infamous Peter Principle for the 2020s. Whereas employees used to rise to their level of incompetence, now they leave and perform the role badly for a different company! Project managers and middle managers unite…and become lateral hires.
In this post, I’ll look at a corollary to the previous one. Since lots of bad managers hop ship to a different company, competence tends to drop as one looks up the corporate hierarchy.
In short, rank-and-file workers do much better at their jobs than managers and leaders! Don’t believe me, look around at the places where you’ve worked and your friends work. Yes, managers and leaders often take credit. They often pat themselves on the back. But who’s doing the actual work? And, when it gets down to it, who’d be better at making key work-related decisions?
Competence and Corporate Survival in a Capitalist System
In fact, all this relates to more than the Peter Principle. It’s also a matter of corporate survival in capitalism. As I’ve pointed out before, many leaders don’t actually work. They just talk about work. To survive, therefore, companies need workers who work. Not everyone on the payroll can be a manager. And companies need some people to do actual work competently.
So, readers shouldn’t find this too surprising. People who do actual work tend to be pretty good at their job. Because they’re the people who do the things companies need in order to survive.
Some readers might have seen data showing that workers’ cooperatives are more productive and effective than ‘traditional’ companies. This should provide context and support for those data. Yes, it’s because their workers are happier and have more say in their jobs. But, perhaps more than anything, it’s because nearly all their workers do actual work. They don’t lard up the payroll with bullshit jobs or gratuitous leaders, middle managers, and project managers.
