Management Health
While I am mumbling about management, or its negation, this morning I may as well continue with a few other tidbits. First, courtesy of U di Catania researchers we have research that seems to validate the Peter Principle. [Link] This latter is a statement by a Canadian psychologist that members of an organization are promoted based on their performance in the present job. The upside of this is that excellence seems to be rewarded; the downside is that once they land in a job they can’t do, they become stuck and the organization rots.
I can propose a correlary to this, which is even more damning to the organization. That is, the best person for a position is never selected; he/she would be too much of a danger. In effect it is the first part of the Peter Principle that is misconstructed and thereby actually tempers the second.
On the bright side, courtesy of the Scotsman, we find out that vegetarians are significantly less at risk of getting cancer than meat eaters, [Link] and drinking five cups of coffee a day counters Alzheimer’s disease.[Link] So if you work for one of those medicre folks who got promoted because they aren’t dangerous, make sure they get plenty of meat but no coffee.
No word on either hideously sweet confections or whisky. Which reminds me that when I was at the campus of the Boneyard I would sometimes spend Saturday nights, after labbing and studying, with a bottle of cheap blended whisky and a package of fig newtons, both of which I shared with my border collie. My neighbors wouldn’t let me make haggis, and besides, it doesn’t do well in the winter in Illinois.
