Career & The Peter Principle

Why should our lives focus on advancement in a particular career?  Since I work in Higher Education this may come across as being an odd question.  It seems that so many individuals (whether they like or do not like what they are doing) are seeking to reach very high positions in their field.  Societal pressure also seems to encourage us to seek higher roles.  Individuals very young in their careers are setting long-term goals of being a ‘Director of….’ or a ‘Dean of….’ or some other high level position.

Don’t get me wrong….it’s great that some individuals seek and achieve these levels but I hope those that do are able to maintain a good balance in their lives.

I sincerely enjoy my current job; it provides a decent salary, allows me to be very autonomous, it’s flexible, and it is very family-friendly.  Society and pressure seems to push us to always seek more money or advancement to positions having a higher status and more responsibility.  I believe some of this is a status issue where an individual wants the perception that they are important (because of societal or peer pressure)…or in some situations it’s solely because they’ve never ’sat back’ and asked themselves why they want this overly stressful position.  I see a combination of this in higher education where it seems some individuals are ‘proud’ of the fact that their job requires them to do some work in the office each weekend…..or that they need to work extra hours each day to get their job done….or that they bring work home every night.   The traditional work week is 40 hours and we should work towards fitting all of our work into those 40 hours.  This isn’t to say that there won’t be times when an individual would need to work a bit extra (which is why many at this level are salaried)….it just should not be a norm.  We all need to start taking pride in the fact we work normal hours and have no stress at work.

I believe our priorities should focus on building a life where we have a strong family structure and quality time to do the things we want to do.  Career should come second to this (with the understanding that one does need a stable occupation that provides enough financial stability to support the main priorities). In my 25 years of being in the work force I have seen individuals perfectly happy with their jobs ‘move up the ladder’ and become miserable because they no longer like their jobs and are always stressed out.  I also see some who ‘move up’ and are able to balance things well and succeed.  I’ve also recently seen some individuals ‘downgrade’ to lower positions because they finally recognized that happiness and balance is more successful than status and stress.  I applaud these individuals.

A very interesting concept referred to as The Peter Principle (Dr. Laurence J Peter, Jan. 1967) supports the concept of being happy and competent in your work.  I won’t go into much detail since I feel the basic principle speaks for itself:

“In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.”

There are a number of interpretations of Peter’s concept.  One that I contemplate and fits well with my entry is a statement by Dr. Edward P. Lazear that states:

“…employees work harder than normal to get a promotion, and then relax once the promotion is attained”

 We all need to stop worrying about ‘career advancement’ and focus on mastering and enjoying our jobs….so work becomesa less important focus of our lives.  We work so we have money and stability…..to support ourselves, families, and the things we want to do.  It’s time to change the mindset….

This entry was posted on January 8, 2009 at 11:17 am and is filed under Higher Education, Parenthood, Annoying Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.