Dilbert principle
The Dilbert principle refers to a 1990s theory by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams stating that companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management (generally middle management), in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing.
Definition
In the Dilbert strip of February 5, 1995, Dogbert says that "leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow". Adams himself explained,[1]
I wrote The Dilbert Principle around the concept that in many cases the least competent, least smart people are promoted, simply because they’re the ones you don't want doing actual work. You want them ordering the doughnuts and yelling at people for not doing their assignments—you know, the easy work. Your heart surgeons and your computer programmers—your smart people—aren’t in management. That principle was literally happening everywhere.
Adams explained the principle in a 1995 Wall Street Journal article.[2] Adams then expanded his study of the Dilbert principle in a satirical 1996 book of the same name, which is required or recommended reading at some management and business programs.[3][4][5][6] In the book, Adams writes that, in terms of effectiveness, use of the Dilbert principle is akin to a band of gorillas choosing an alpha-squirrel to lead them. The book has sold more than a million copies and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 43 weeks.
Adams' presentation of the principle is satirical—facetious but also addressing a real-world concern.
Comparative principles
The Dilbert principle is comparable to the Peter Principle. As opposed to the Dilbert principle, the Peter Principle assumes that people are promoted because they are competent, and that the tasks higher up in the hierarchy require skills or talents they do not possess. It concludes that due to this, a competent employee will eventually be promoted to, and then remain at, a position at which he or she is incompetent. In his book, The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter explains "percussive sublimation", the act of kicking a person upstairs (i.e., promoting him to management) to get him out of the way of productive employees.
The Dilbert principle, by contrast, assumes that hierarchy just serves as a means for removing the incompetent to "higher" positions where they will be unable to cause damage to the workflow, assuming that the upper echelons of an organization have little relevance to its actual production, and that the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people lower in the power ladder. Unlike the Peter Principle, the promoted individuals were not particularly good at any job they previously held, so placing them in a supervisory position is a way to quietly remove them from the workforce without actually firing them, rather than a reward for meritorious service. An earlier formulation of this effect was known as Putt's Law.
See also
References
- ↑ "Funny Business" (PDF). BizEd. November–December 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 6, 2009. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
- ↑ Adams, Scott. "Manager's journal: The Dilbert principle." Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 22 May 1995, Eastern edition: A12. Wall Street Journal.
- ↑ "Project Management Case Studies" (PDF). Haas School of Business. University of California, Berkeley. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 13, 2012. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ↑ "Readings for CSCI 3308 - Software Engineering Methods and Tools". University of Colorado Boulder. March 16, 2001. Archived from the original on September 22, 2006. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ↑ Syllabus - SW Project Mgt - CSE5315 - 1998 at the Wayback Machine (archived February 20, 2003)
- ↑ "EM 501 Management of Organizations". Washington State University. 2000. Archived from the original on February 9, 2010. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
Further reading
- The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams, HarperBusiness (1996) ISBN 0-88730-858-9.
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