In Competence

By Stefan Kanfer

WHY THINGS GO WRONG by Dr. Laurence J. Peter Morrow; 207 pages; $12.95

Pe 'ter Prin 'ciple: people tend to be promoted till they reach a level beyond their competence [from the title of a book by Laurence J. Peter (b. 1919), Canadian educator].

| --The Random House College Dictionary

In this caustic sequel, Peter lives off the principle he invented.

But this time the author is not merely ; against the Organization, he pits himself against organization itself. His omnium-gatherum of anecdotes, historical footnotes and autobiography has little structure and no main thesis. Instead, Peter fills his book with 24 corollaries of the principle, plus a few odd insights: "The higher you go the deeper you get." "All useful work is done by those who have not yet reached their level of incompetence." "There is a ten dency for the person in the most powerful hierarchal position to spend all of his or her time performing trivial tasks." "What happens is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

To illustrate his last point, Peter offers a sheaf of historical examples, ranging from the failure of the Edsel to the follies of Watergate. Some of his most piquant entries come from the lawbooks of regions where statute makers have risen beyond their level of competence. In Danville, Pa., "fire hydrants must be checked one hour before all fires." A San Francisco ordinance forbids the reuse of confetti. In Seattle it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon of more than 6 ft. in length. An Oklahoma law states that a driver of "any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in death . . . shall immediately stop . . . and give his name and address to the per son struck." The village of Lakefield, Ont, passed noise-abatement legislation permitting birds to sing for 30 minutes during the day and 15 minutes at night.

Peter, who believes that communicators rise until they bump their heads on the ceiling, is also a connoisseur of the elevated double-entendre: in headlines (KEY WITNESS TAKES FIFTH IN LIQUOR PROBE), Signs (WANTED: MAN TO WASH DISHES AND TWO WAITRESSES), and news stories ("Women compromise more than a third of Britain's work force"; "His face was a striking one and even without his clothes, people would have turned to look at him").

Show business yields some splendid instances of managerial miasma. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck predicted, "Video won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." When Alfred Hitchcock admitted that he saw very few movies, a studio executive demanded, "Then where do you get your ideas?" But the most revealing anecdotes concern what Groucho Marx called a contradiction in terms: military intelligence. As illustration, Peter holds aloft Air Force Major General Charles Kuyk's statement that he was pleased with the C-5A cargo plane, even though "having the wings fall off at 8,000 hours is a problem." Matters scarcely improve across the ocean. Soviet strategists once trained dogs, in Pavlovian tradition, to associate food with the bottoms of tanks. The animals were to run under the attacking machines with bombs strapped to their backs. Reports the author: "The unexpected turn of events was that the dogs associated food only with Russian tanks," which "were forced to retreat as the bomb-bearing dogs ran toward them."

No one is immune to Peter's corollaries, not even their lexicographer. "It was never my intention," he states, "to decry the sins, mistakes, vanities and incompetence of my fellow human beings. I am at least as guilty as they." The proof lies in his vain attempts to back a California education center: "I realized I had reached my level of incompetence as a fund raiser when all my requests from government agencies and private foundations were rejected." Undismayed, Peter obeyed his own dictum: "Quit while you're behind." One year later he funded the school with royalties from The Peter Principle. Manifestly, this is a man worth following. Just make sure to get off one stop before he does.

--By Stefan Kanfer