A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

C H A P T E R F O U R T E E N
People Have No Limits,
Even After Failure
O ccasionally
I have been asked whether the Peter Principle was
one of Peter <strong>Drucker</strong>’s concepts. It was not. The Peter Principle came from
a best-selling book of the same name, written by an academic named
Laurence J. Peter. Moreover, Peter (<strong>Drucker</strong>, that is) thought the “Principle”
was badly mistaken, easily disproved, and likely to lead to serious problems
at many levels of management if the “Principle” were actually applied
as presented. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In Peter’s class, we had been discussing staffing and the selection of
senior executives. Peter gave us a case which we were to write up and
later to discuss regarding a failed promotion. Basically, the case concerned
a senior appointment as a deputy to the CEO of a corporation.
The appointee, a man by the name of “Novak,” had a fine record of
increasing responsibility over many years <strong>with</strong> the company. The CEO,
who <strong>Drucker</strong> called “McQuinn,” felt that there was no question that this