The Dilbert principle

The Dilbert principle refers to a 1990s satirical observation 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. 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. 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.^[2][3][4][5] 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.

Although academics may reject the principle's veracity, noting that it is at odds with traditional human resources management techniques, it originated as a form of satire that addressed a much-discussed issue in the business world.

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 remain at, a position at which he or she is incompetent.

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. An earlier formulation of this effect is known as Putt's Law.

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.

Notes

1. ^ "Funny Business". BizEd. November/December 2002. http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/bized/p16-21.pdf. Retrieved April 23, 2011. 
2. ^ http://mot.berkeley.edu/Berkeley_Students/Students/Courses/Course_Descriptions/proj_mgmt_syll.pdf
3. ^ Readings for CSCI 3308 - Software Engineering Methods and Tools
4. ^ Syllabus - SW Project Mgt - CSE5315 - 1998
5. ^ EM 501 Management of Organizations

References

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• The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams, HarperBusiness 1996 ISBN 0-88730-858-9
• Adams, Scott. "Manager's journal: The Dilbert principle. " Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 22 May 1995, Eastern edition: A12. Wall Street Journal.