View all Posts
Blog
The Peter Principle or Peter Principality?
by admin
Its the 40th anniversary of the book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.
The premise goes something like this:
Employees who do well get promoted until they finally reach a level outside their competency. Once reached – they stay put. That leaves companies filled with people who have reached their level of incompetency.
Over the last few years we have plenty of examples of failed plans, policy, corporations and our entire financial system. The Peter Principle offers an easy explanation. However, something more profound may be taking place.
When the mindshift consortium looked at the frequency of late construction projects they ran into a brick wall with this line of assessment. As hard as they tried to find a clear culprit – architect, contractor, sub-trade or owner – it was never that simple.
Then the light bulb turned on – the system for design and construction has reached ITS level of incompetency. They took a system that was clearly successful 50+ years ago (the design-bid-build approach) and kept promoting it to more complex challenges. Eventually the complexity of the challenges outstripped the system’s ability to cope.
One member said, “The current system causes good people to do bad things.”
It is time to revise The Peter Principle so that it addresses the deeper source of incompetency – systemic dysfunction.
Unfortunately, we’re trained like heat seeking missiles to find culprits.
Does the same principle apply to churches? Growth can be a two-edged sword.
Pastor Robert Morris, Senior Pastor of Gateway Church, recently shared that as churches (or individuals) grow or expand they must be careful of how they mix with the world. If leaders are not careful their growth becomes a nesting place for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. This is a common biblical reference to an infestation of worldly and pernicious influences and powers.
It’s a subtle but real shift. In the book The Millennium Matrix, I talk about how our strategies and tools can grow from effective servants to demanding masters. In other words, the tail wags the dog.
Size and complexity can lead to the same unfortunate end. We come to rely on these tools, specialists and strategies instead of relationships and sense of the spirit. The unfortunate part is that it sneaks up on any organization and by the time it is obvious – its too late. Business writers recognize the same tension and warning exhorting to “think big but act small.”
In business this dysfunction is captured in the Peter Principle. Perhaps it should be called the Peter Principality.
Warning signs include:
- Tight budgets
- Tired staff
- Little time for building relationships with the congregation or with other staff
- Pressure to keep elevating weekly performance
- Lack of leadership development
- Passive or unengaged congregations
- Greater reliance on experts and specialists (professionals) to develop and perform ministry
- A shrinking percentage of the budget going directly to ministry (buildings projects and staff budgets don’t count)
One way to check and realign is to make sure that the organization does not outgrow the natural gifting and calling of the people carrying out ministry.
Tools, like glasses or a microscope, can also help us see underneath the complexity and find the disconnects. When people are forced to function outside their gifting or calling they eventually lose sight of where and how they fit into the larger purpose of an organization.
The Gallup organization has measured just how easy this disconnection becomes for corporations. Their statistics show that 54% of employees are not engaged in the organization’s purpose and 29% that are actively disengaged. That leaves 17% who are really making a difference for the organization.
How would you break down your organization? Churches also have an additional layer of complexity. The congregation should also be factored into this equation.
If your organization falls into this 20/80 ratio or worse then ask two questions:
- Do our people know their talents and giftings and how to apply them in their role?
- Does our structure make it easy or difficult for people to take initiative and engage?
I worked with an organization a few weeks ago dealing with both issues. Two years ago they went through their near-death experience and consequently brought in a new leader. After stabilizing the church has been able to get back on track with most of the same leadership core. With 33% growth and a major expansion planned for 2010 the senior and executive pastors were feeling the stress of an organization bogging down but without insight as to why.
Over two days we looked at the talent configuration of each leader, their current role, the logic of that role and the aggregate talent configuration of the team. We then plotted these against the anticipated needs of a larger and more complex organization. For our purposes we used the book Living Your Strengths to uncover the natural talents/giftings of the leadership core. It is an easy book to work with and does not require a high level of expertise to ask if current responsibilities play off one’s natural talents or if one has to function outside one’s natural talents.
For this team we also used a tool developed by CoreClarity. This allowed us to see clearly that the organization’s growth had moved into a new phase requiring greater Strategic and Execution capacity. The current leadership core had been performing at a very high level of ministry but would need to increase their strategic capacities and ability to execute and coordinate among themselves.
The additional stress on the two lead pastors was manifesting in the form of lack of follow through, details overlooked, coordination issues and missed deadlines. It became clear that the core leadership had talents well suited for what they were currently doing but not for these new needs.
Relief – The senior pastor could clearly see that the source of frustration was not his team but a qualitative structural shift. He was able to avoid going down the typical path of adding more demands, expectations and even corrective action and look at his challenge and opportunity differently. It was liberating.
In simple terms – he had a football team with a strong offensive line but no wide receivers. Instead of forcing one or more of his team to play a wide receiver he could now look for the talent set he needed to fill the gap.
If you would like to find out more about this alignment process let me know and I’ll send a sample executive summary adapted from one of the organizations I’ve recently worked with.
Tags: calling, dysfunction, gift, ministry, outgrow, principality, principle, stress, talent
3 Responses to “The Peter Principle or Peter Principality?”
Rex,
I’ve heard great things about you and believe that we have much in common. I want to send you my book, The People Profit Connection, which was written specifically for the construction industry. It is available as a free download on my website as well. My phone number is 404-247-3747. All the best to you and your vital work.
Great article, Mr. Miller I was an newbe LT in the Army when I read the Peter Principle and I agree with your take on it.
…of relationships and sense of the spirit
When people are forced to function outside their gifting or calling they eventually lose sight of where and how they fit into the larger purpose of an organization.
I just devoured your book, which couldn’t have fallen into my hands at a better time. Yesterday I promised to send a copy to Christine Mugridge, a close relative to Malcolm Muggeridge. She is an active force in promoting a Theology of Communications based on the writtings of JPII.
Ref: THE MILLENNIUM MATRIX
Oral Culture–Liturgical Church
p.29
Worship Service: Liturgy
The Eucharist for the Catholic is the weekly mystical celebration of communion with Christ. The liturgy is a sacred reenactment that transforms the place, time and participants from ordinary to extraordinary. The event is sealed with the sacrament of communion, in which the transforming power of Christ’s, body and blood is transmigrated into the bread and wine.
Mr. Miller,
May I offer the following rewrite (my own words without reference to official Church texts):
The Catholic Church considers Holy Mass the source, summit and center of its life as the Mystical Body of Christ. It is an earthly participation in the Divine Liturgy, worship that occurs eternally in heaven as revealed to and written by St. John in the Book of Revelation. St. John refers to this heavenly worship as the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is Jesus Christ’s ultimate prayer to His heavenly Father as detailed in the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper. It is the fulfillment of the Passover promise to the People of Israel and the consummation of God’s covenant. This re-presentation of the Paschal Mystery (Last Supper/Crucifixion/Resurrection) is sacrament par excellence. As the Sacrament of Holy Communion we ‘give thanks’ (Gk: eucharistia) through, with, and in Jesus Christ. Each and every day the Church celebrates and renews this sacrifice of the altar, where the elements bread and wine are consecrated by an ordained priest who acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) serves both as priest and victim. When Christ commanded the apostles “Do this in remembrance of me,” He meant it. The Church has always taught that in obedience to these words of Our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit changes the substance of the sacrificial offering into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ while maintaining the accidents (sense perceptible qualities) of bread and wine. Over time this action was defined by the Church using the word transubstantiation. The faithful’s receipt of Holy Communion is an abiding in Christ and He in us. It is a mystical communion of persons that is the new and everlasting covenant in Christ’s blood. It fulfills Christ’s dying wish, that we are one as He and the Father are one. It is through this Holy Mass, this participation in the atoning sacrifice of Calvary and the victory over death at the Resurrection that we are offered freedom from sin, a share in Christ’s divinity and the hope of heavenly glory.
To the best of my knowledge ‘transmigration’ has never been a term used by orthodox Catholics to define the Divine Action (Gk: energeia) at Holy Mass. Jesus never used the term ‘luck’ either. Words are critically important if one wants to reach Catholics with a very important work. Transmigration has a Buddhist ring to it…not good for the reality that Catholics hold dear.
By the way, as you recommend in the Millennium Matrix, I just did a GOOGLE Search on the term ‘marriage supper of the Lamb.’ I was shocked to find a near complete Catholic lockout from the first 40 entries…all but one was non-Catholic. This is a supremely important concept for Catholics and a seeker might have to make the search term ‘marriage supper of the Lamb, Catholic’ to find Mark Shea’s and Scott Hahn’s efforts as well as the historical record on the subject…but only if one digs deeper. This is the democratic bias that the internet provides. We Catholics are asleep at the wheel. Paltalk’s Christianity group is another sleepfest. There may be 50 chat rooms open at any one time and yet only one is Catholic…what message does this convey to the seeker?
Shocking… and that is why I am going to buy multiple copies of your book. You are spot on; you only have to make that spot a perfect circle and not a hastily stippled dot.
I am involved in a little biasing mission relative to the triad: Light, Live and Love. These three words are a battleground in their own right and New Age/esoteric cults seem to revel in claiming them as their own on the internet. They normally add the word Liberty (license) or Luck to the three and completely undo the biblical tradition that we see so powerfully witnessed in the Gospel and 1st Letter of St. John. You may be interested to see the swastika connection. It shocked me too. No wonder Hitler took it as his own. My goal is to keep a Catholic presence in the “top four” in cyberland. I have help from several non-Catholic “friends” which include Stuart H. Pouliot whose Kingdom and Glory article normally holds down the number one slot and his work dovetails with my own.
If you feel so inclined, I would be honored to be a Catholic point of contact, a node for you to “bounce things off of” in the future. I greatly appreciate your overall candor in relating the Catholic/Orthodox first 1500 years. I also think that you are gracious to put the Vatican website front and center as you described the digita lweb pages currently in existence and how they reflect the culture they serve.
Mr. Miller, I conclude by offering a simple image for you to ponder, an Einsteinian thought experiment:
Close your eyes and think of a small pebble falling from the sky and striking the surface of a perfectly peaceful pond (sorry for the alliteration, sometimes I can’t help myself). Better yet, maybe make it a single drop of rain falling from a single cloud on a windless day with the sun shining brightly in an otherwise clear blue sky. This pebble/drop impacts the water with a meteoric yet silent thud and the effect is truly dramatic if we slow things down and observe the reality. Captured in super slow motion (check the YouTube site at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYhkU6tMA8) it is a way of conceptualizing the gift of Holy Mass to the Church and the World. It is the source, summit and center for it is Christ’s coming back to earth. The ripple effects of the waves that radiate from the center of witness to supernatural grace, both in time and in eternity. A diagram of the MM should have concentric rings with Jesus Christ and the Easter Triduum at the center of the center and at the center of time. As a drop of water we see the abiding more clearer. Notice the crown at impact. Christ is priest, prophet and king. That is why a drop of water (representing the faithful) is added to the wine in the chalice prior to the consecration at Mass. Two become one. http://www.ewtn.com/library/Liturgy/zlitur39.htm
God bless you and your important work in the Third Christian Millennium. You are in my prayers.
Mike from Corpus Christi, TX
Mr. Miller,
I found a better slo-motion at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZTj4pfpUk&NR=1.
Jesus is self defined as the “life giving water” a gift that comes from the Father.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7INnvnHrlg
Also, I don’t know how much faith your put in divine providence as it applies to the here and now, but as I was began writing this I found that Japan was hit by a major earthquake and a huge tsunami is running across the Pacific