Laurence J. Peter
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Laurence Johnston Peter (16 September 1919 – [12 [January]] 1990) was a Canadian educator and management theorist, most famous for having formulated the Peter Principle.
Quotes
[edit]- In every organization there is a considerable accumulation of dead wood in the executive level.
- Laurence J. Peter (1969) in "Up against the Peter principle". LIFE - Vol. 67, nr. 3. July 18, 1969. p. 59
The Peter Principle (1969)
[edit]- The Peter Principle (1969) co-written with Raymond Hull
- Occupational incompetence is everywhere. Have you noticed it? Probably we all have noticed it.
- p. 20 cited in: James Ike Schaap (2011) "The Peter Principle: Is This Forty-Year-Old Universal Phenomenon in Decline or Growing?"
- In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.
- p. 25: Statement of the Peter Principle
- In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties. Do not be fooled by apparent exceptions.
- p. 36 cited in: James Ike Schaap (2011)
- Some Blockett-type employees actually believe that they have received a genuine promotion; others recognize the truth. But the main function of a pseudo-promotion is to deceive people outside the hierarchy. When this is achieved, the maneuver is counted a success.
- p. 38: This phenomenon is called by Peter "percussive sublimation", or "being kicked upstairs".
- Never stand when you can sit; never walk when you can ride; never Push when you can Pull.
- p. 63
- Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence
- p. 107 (The Mathematics of Incompetence)
Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)
[edit]- The only valid rule about the proper length of a statement is that it achieve its purpose effectively.
- p. 10: Introduction
- On second thought, maybe the atheist cannot find God, for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.
- p. 44: Sometimes misattributed to Francis Thompson, whose quote "An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident" Peter was commenting on.
- Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.
- p. 83
- If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
- p. 125
- The habitually punctual make all their mistakes right on time.
- p. 181
- Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.
- p. 324
- If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
- p. 333
- Frequently mistaken as quote by Albert Einstein.
- p. 333
- Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
- p. 362
- When you see yourself quoted in print and you're sorry you said it, it suddenly becomes a misquotation.
- p. 418
Peter's Almanac (1982)
[edit]- Peter's Almanac (1977) ISBN 9780688016128
- Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.
- Entry for September 24; as quoted in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1993), ed. Suzy Platt, Library of Congress, ISBN 0880297689, p. 78
Quotes about Laurence J. Peter
[edit]- Dr. Peter effectively destroys examples of seeming exceptions and is rather convincing that his principle is ubiquitous.
- Lawrence Lipsitz, in The Process of Innovation in Education (1973), p. 26