Gervais Principle

Thinking some more about the question, "Why do corporations appear to operate in a way befitting low IQs when they are filled with high IQ people", I did some more digging on the net and chanced upon something called the Gervais Principle.

This one is far more cynical than the Peter Principle - which states that in any hierarchy, an individual will rise to his level of incompetence and then stay there - thus doing more damage. An example would be an efficient line worker who gets promoted to foreman so that he can instruct other line workers on efficiency. He does well as a foreman and then gets promoted to production manager. He has neither the skills nor the education or training to do a production manager's job and falters, thus making no more promotions and staying stuck at his level of incompetence. The organization has thus lost a great foreman and begotten a bad manager who is there to stay.

The Gervais Principle suggests that most organizations are comprised of three types of people. The first type is the ambitious, driven, individualist, usually the entrepreneur who starts the business for self-serving outcomes, profit being the most common. The second set is the set of workers, people who are paid not quite enough in compense for their effort. They are the types who have given up their upside in return for a steady paycheck. The third set is where the principle gets most cynical. It calls them the clueless. These are the incompetent among the worker bees who get promoted to middle management. They believe they are on track to upper management, but that is not to be.

The problem manifests itself when the number of 'Clueless' starts to grow, seemingly driven by the need for administration during the growth phase. From this point on, the organization lives to administer rather than to deliver what the customer wants. Carried too far, this growth in clueless-ness then causes the company to falter or even implode.

Why the Gervais principle believes that most middle management people are in the 'Clueless' category is something I am trying to wrap my head around. Perhaps I am trying to read way too much into what is meant to be a cynical humourous take on corporate life.