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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An 8 page summation of Laurence F. Peter and Raymond Hull's The Peter Principle. The writer offers a chapter by chapter brief summation of the major points of this text, arguing that this an excellent parody on several levels, as it basically castigates the entire hierarchical structure of Western civilization. As with all good satire/parody, its humor lies in the fact that so much of it is true. The Peter Principle is as applicable today as it was 34 years ago when it was first published because it concerns a feature of human nature that has not changed, but rather become more entrenched in industrialized society -- incompetence. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khpeterp.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
feature of human nature that has not changed, but rather become more entrenched in industrialized society -- incompetence. Chapter 1, The Peter Principle: After analyzing literally hundreds of cases,
Dr. Laurence Peter formulated his conclusions into the insightful "Peter Principle," which states that "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence" (25). In other
words, an employee masters a job and is doing it quite well. This is noticed by management who rewards the employee by giving him or her a promotion. If the
employee succeeds at this job, there is another promotion, and so forth, until the employee arrives at a position for which he or she is totally unsuited and incompetent. This,
maintains Peter and Hull, is the key to understanding modern hierarchies, why nothing works as advertised -- why all bureaucracies are wasteful and inefficient. Chapter 2, The principle in action:
To illustrate the Peter Principle in action, the authors offer the example of the a hypothetical teaching college and how it turns out incompetent teachers. Exemplifying this is teacher "Dorothy
D. Ditto," who, as a student herself never had an original thought and always did precisely as she was told, earning her the evaluation of being a "competent" student
(29). Miss Ditto reaches her level of incompetence quickly by going into the teaching profession, where she is careful to teach precisely what is in the textbook, the curriculum guide,
and follow the bell schedule (29). Next, the authors offer the example of a teacher who is superlative in the classroom, but no good at paper work, so, naturally, he
is promoted to a position where he has to do a lot of paper work, and never rises further because he is quite incompetent at this new position. The
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