The "Peter Principle"

The "Peter Principle" is the principle that individuals rise to their lowest level of incompetence. This means that employees continue to be promoted based on their past performance until they become incompetent in a position. At that point, they stop being promoted.

In order to avoid the "Peter Principle," it is necessary to look deeper into the employee's current job performance when considering them for advancement. Such as:

• Look at the candidate's current job requirements and skill sets and seeing if they match with the job requirements and skill sets of the new position.
• If they don't, then you need to make sure the candidate has demonstrated the KSAOs needed in the new positon in a measurable way either in the current position, in past positions or with outside organizations (volunteer work).
• It is also important to know that performance appraisals can be unreliable and biased. No two supervisors will rate a person's performance the same way. So, it would be helpful to review several years' worth of performance appraisals.

After exploring these three areas, you will be better able to determine if the internal candidate will be successful in the new position. Thus, avoiding the "Peter Principle."