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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1969-10-30, Page 15THE BLUE,. THUMB. is By G. MacLeod Ross Dr. Laurence J. Peter has written a book called "The Peter Principle" *1, the theme of which is in the direct line of succession to C. Northcote Parkinson's "Parkinson's Law" 4 *2. Whereas Parkinson dealt with the idiocyncracies of -staffing the- -organisational-chart- of any undertaking, together with explanations as to how men fill the time while at work, Peter deals with the individual competence of those pawns who fill the spaces on the chart. His theorem is that, almost without exception, an employee rises to his own level of incompetence at which stage of his career his Promotional Quotient becomes Zero. (P.Q. Zero) r, Dr. Peter is one of the many Canadian academicians who "got away"; yet another pawn in the brain drain to the United States. He is now associate director of 4 Committee requests signs The Goderich Tourist Committee asked council October 16 to authorize the erection of a sign at Victoria and Kingston Streets informing northbound motorists that the next five streets on the 1 t to the town's busing and for another sign' a and Nelson Streets in lead ton, i r toria orming. southbound motorists that the next'five streets right lead to the business section. . Councillors were unable to tell from the letter containing the request whether the tourist committee wanted council to erect the signs or whether the tourist committee merely wanted authorization to erect the signs themselves. Dr. G. F. Mills, mayor, said • the idea was a' good one and felt the signs should be of a reasonable size. He suggested council send a letter to the tourist committee asking for drawings of the proposed signs• and for an indication of the size ♦ required. • In other council news permission was granted to the Royal Canadian Legion, branch 109,,�t,ci hold it.s_annual poppy day on November 7 and 8. The Ontario Municipal Board • has again suggested • revisions for the official plan for the town and have notified council it would prefer schedules "A" and "B" to reflect usage. Council concurred.,, Council has been asked to make reservations now for members attending the 1970 good roads convention. Reeve Harry Worsell suggested reservations he made. i Denmark is the world's lead- ing per capita consumer of pork at 83 pounds, up five pounds . from 1966. Canadians iank fif- teenth,as pork consumers. M ti • the Evelyn Frieden Centre for Prescriptive Teaching, as well as co-ordinator of programmes for emotionally disturbed children at . the University of Southern California. OMNIPRESENT INCOMPETENCE Raymond Hull, Dr. Peter's collaborator in this book; explains how he was pursued by incompetence, even in his own home, until it became a nightmare to him. Modern Canada provides monumental examples in every walk of life: Nova Scotia's "Heavy Water" plant fiasco, which has now achieved a per capita cost equal to that required to send men to the Moon, but no water. Hellyer's disastrous emasculation of the Armed Forces which is costing more than before he ignored esprit de corps and substituted accountancy. The "Bobcat"; The'Avro Arrow; The Navy Hydrofoil etc. But be of good cheer; incompetencei_knows no barriers of time or place. Pepys recorded the rotten state of the Royal Navy when he took it over; Wellington noted it; Robert E. Lee commented on it. In every day life it is all too common. The brand new radio which is faulty. The dish -washer which leaks; The reservoir that leaks; The high school graduate who cannot read; the demise of the postal system; The marriage counsellor who turns out to be a homosexual; the modern high-rise apartment in which the walls are so thin• you can hear your neighbour's bed springs creak; the church in which you cannot hear a word the preacher says; the hospital which is all administrative area and a dearth of beds. In short, incompetence is universal. We live in a world in which the label on the door is • only a disguise for the incompetence of the occupant. When Hull went round asking the modern oracle, the university student president, the reason, he found that,_•everyone heaskted had a different reason to promote.- It was only when Hull met Dr. Peter that the latter expanded on the principle he had developed; a principle which is just as much a law as is Northcote's. THE PETER l OI+v I l L E+ GODERICil R ONAL-STAR, Tuuttsatiy,,OONSM 30, • 96 I :5A Why things always g� wrong 1937, who could possibly pass over a man who has been president of the Mechanicals? Answer: No one, least of all an army hierarchy completely uneducated in any phase of engineering. General Boom was obviously the sole choice. 1937 carne and went. General Boom's .n tx.i h u k i-o,n- —.t -o- tank development was to instruct his design office to use a 4-B pencil on their drawings instead of Indian ink. By 1939 there was but .one design of battle -worthy tank of which only a few had been produced. In 1940 the Germans capturednost of these at Dunkirk and by . 1941- had armed their own brand of tank with a gun, not only superior to that in the captured tank, but one which would penetrate its armour at battle ranges. General Boom refused to mount the better and available British gun in his tanks, because he said the staff hierarchy had not asked for it. It • was about then that it began to dawn on even the staff that the general had reached his P.Q. Zero some years before. But competence, like beauty, truth, and- contact glasses, lies in the eye of the beholder. Look after the molehills and the mountains .will look after , themselves. An ounce of image is worth a' pound of competence. Why is it that "good" students frequently make poor teachers, whilst people with ru&imentary qualifications in the mental health field make excellent instructors? SOME CLUES TOINCOMPETENCE "" Dr. ` Peter has found a number of clues which reveal those wh # are operating above their level of competence. Here are some: An obsessive attachhient to communications gear; phones in varying colout 1 and complex switchboards; tape recorders; panels full of flashing lights. The clean desk which many executives dote on. In reality they are suppressing reminders of problems they cannot solve. I In India, where paperwork, files etc had the habit of becoming more and more frustrating than dealing with the Ontario Provincial bureaucracy, it became the universal custom to urn-ilia-file-iii--ofe•-o•f-floe fire place, since that was often the only solution to the problem which it contained. The problem seldom recurred.] Another clue is the total immersion in keeping files up to date to , the exclusion of any usefulness in the file as a reference medium. In the result the file is of use only to the file clerk yet totally valueless when a post mortem has . to be undertaken. A very common clue is those who confuse activity with action. They are forever hareing around on some self-imposed task which• they feel competent to discharge, to the neglect. of the job that matters. Dr. Peter calls this "Substitution," and while not wishing to put words As you might expect, the great charm of the principle is its absolute simplicity. A Speaking academically it says: In a Hierarchy every employee tends to it. rise to his level of incompetence. Take as r an example Military File No. 13. General Boom served in'•the Boer War with steam tractors. In World War 1 he was employed on `railways, where he came to know all the railroad presidents who, in turn, elected him to a membership in- the Mechanical Engineers Institution. Rising as he must, automatically in army rank, he finally became president of the. institution. When a ` director of tank development was required in • AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL CITIZENS RESIDING IN CANADA WHO ARE 65 YEARS OF AGE AND OVER Dear Senior Citizens, • We, in the Bank of Montreal share the concern of all Canadians J with title impact of inflation on the purchasing power of the dollar, particularly as it affects those over the age of 65 who may be - dependent upon pensions and other sources of -fixed income which do not keep pace with rising living costs. In an effort to alleviate the burden on our senior citizens, we are launching a plan to help them whether or not they are customers of the Bank. • Here is our plan. Senior Citizens may apply to any branch of the Bank of Montreal in Canada for a,Senior Citizen's Courtesy Card, which will entitle the holder to preferred service at ou,r, offices at • reduced charges as follows -:r 1. One-half of the regular commission charges made by the Bank for the acceptance'of payment of utility accounts. 2. One-half_of the regular•service fee or the issuance of Canadian - dollar drafts and money orders. 3. One-half of the regular per item charge on cheques issued on oar True Chequing Accounts and on our 3'/2% Savings Accounts. You are cordially invited to take advantage -of these reduced -rates. Yours very sincerely, G. Arnold Hart Goderich Branch— W. M. (Bill) Wardley, Manager di or ideas into the good actor* mouth or head as the case may be, there is yet another clue which. is "Alibiitis." This 'occurs when the executive is never available to take a decision, to act, to discuss some vital matter when most needed. It is, a disease closely allied. to "substitution" but infinitely more subtle in its teChnique� — a IN -COMPETENCE ANTIDOTES There is "Percussive Sublimation"; the process by which incompetents are "kicked upstairs." This is • something which must, be handled with care. It is ekactly what happened to General Boom. It is fraught with all the elements of disaster. Much better to employ the "Lateral Arabesque," • - which covers the technique of giving an incompetent an expanded title and office, but with diminished responsibility. The most Draconian arabesque is the removal of, the entire department to another building, away from the erstwhile departmental head. This is known as the "Free -Floating Apex." D r. P e ter finds that management consultancy is often of no value because so many consultants have reached their own levels of incompetence. Occasionally consultancy can help by ordering the hiring of more employees, amongst whom some may be found who can arrest the degeneration of the organization. But i -t has to be acknowledged that most organizations regard super -competence with suspicion. Given half a chance they will expel • the irritant. However the doctor does admit there is such a thing as ,"summit competence"; an ability to 'titittion at any level of, -tile- hierarchy. But even some of these moon aroued until they- can find' a job they can perform incompetently. Just look at Socrates, who found his ' incompetency level as a defence lawyer. Or the power -house trade unionists who• become lame bureaucrats; the top civil servant who leaves the administration to become a "nobody" in Montreal. Society is not yet advanced enough to approve of the strategem of refusing promotion because it marks a man as an odd -ball. Yet " it is reliably reported that I.B.M. has instituted a scheme which enables the newly promoted (old style) to step back down the organizationalladder with no. loss .of face, no hard feelings, either to promoter or to promotee. Dr. Peter is hopeful that his principle. will stop medical men recommending rest to those patients who develop anxiety states from too long immersion, at a Promotional Quotient f Zero. Golf he suggests excellent therapy, because yo are helped to cope" with copelessness. • As will be clear, Dr. Peter's theory is but an extension of Darwin's. The fittest survive only up to the point of incompetence. Human progress is a system of promotion for man, hence it follows that a time - must come when mankind promotes itself to "Total Life I ncompetence." "Escalation" without purpose is dangerously rife today. The Vietnam war machine, staffed at every -level by people whcf k low things are going hopelessly wrong. The "Pueblo" fiasco, in which the message reporting the ship's capture took 80 minutes to get through to the man who should have • been informed immediately. The inquiry report concludes: "The military is not equipped to handle emergencies." Did you ask how much . more equipment it requires? Dr. Peter himself was rescued from the very jaws of "success" by his •book when it became a best seller. They were trying to promote him to become departmental head at the university, but once the book came out they were just a shade silicious. A superb example of "creative incompetence!" • Satire comes in many subtle 'forms. It can be cruel or kindly. As a weapon it can be classed, along .with flattery, as one of the most potent"`in' the armoury of, speech or letters. Having regard to its fine cutting. edge, it is astonishing how few know how to employ it. In• the present instance satire can best be defined as' the art of making serious problems amusingofor it is surprising how many more people can be reached with satire in this form, rather than with lecture, crusading, or general laying down of the law. Northcote and Peter are both adept wielders and one wonders how it would fare against some other of our failing$: Highway • carnage, for example. * 1. The Peter Principle. L. J. Peter & R. Hull. Wm. lvlorrow. New York. $6.00 * 2. Parkinson's Law. C. Northcote Parkinson. Johne Murray. 12/6. EMIOY THt• FINEST .FOOL • IN' TOWN 'Chinese Food Our $p ci0Ity. ALS+ TAKE,QUT QIRDERA- OPEN DAILY $a.mn, to tbi.p,ITI. Open Friday and. Saturday _ -LIMO 12101dnight The tse,iiiire. Restaurant "524-9941". TTENTION: FARMERS WE WANT YOUR (Storage Facilities Available At The Present Time Please Enquire)- FIVE nquirer FIVE UNLOADING PITS GUARANTEE YOU FAST SER'VI:CE' G HIGHEST PRICES PAID THOMPSON AND SONS LIMITED Phone 262-2527. 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