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Who is this guy named Peter and what's his principle all about? Throughout my days, I seem to have encountered many Peter principle afflicted individuals. And though it is not affected by the Peter principle or simply examples of arrogance and ignorance a dangerous and sometimes deadly combination, I'm jimpolling. This is my view from the middle. The other day, my wife and I were watching a documentary on Netflix about the Titan disaster called Titan the Ocean Gate Disaster. The Titan was a submersible that took groups of tourists down twelve five hundred feet below the surface of the North Athletic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland to explore the wreck of the infamous passenger liner Titanic, which is in a school child nose, sank after hitting an iceberg on April fifteenth, nineteen twelve. The wreck is one of the most explored and obsessed over shipwrecks of all time since it was first discovered by Robert Ballard and Company in nineteen eighty five. James Cameron helped matters along in nineteen ninety seven with his blockbuster movie aptly titled Titanic. More than fifteen hundred people died when the Titanic sank, and on June eighteenth, twenty twenty three, another five people were added to the casualty list when the Titan and its five occupants were lost after the vessel imploded during a dive to the wreck. On board was Titanic expert Paul Henri, Narzalai, businessman Hamish Harding, Shazada Daywood, and Daywood's son Suleiman, and most notably Stockton Rush. Rush was CEO of the company that built the Titan submersible, Ocean Gate. Titan was unique in that, unlike previous submersibles, it was constructed using carbon fiber, a material much lighter than traditional elements. As the name suggests, carbon fiber is made up of strands of carbon basically fiber reinforced plastic, which is incredibly strong while still being lightweight, but apparently not strong enough. Stockton Rush was the first to crow about how the Titan project was a collaboration with NASA, Boeing and the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington. But what Rush didn't tell people is that he rarely paid attention to anything any of these people said. This is where the arrogance and ignorance came in. Early tests of the craft, which yielded implosions, led to a new design and testing recommendations from the partners which Rush totally ignored. As a result, the partnerships dissolved, a fact quickly pointed out by the group after the tragedy occurred. In the Netflix documentary, they filmed inside the submersible and dives before the incident, and you can clearly hear the carbon fibers snapping and pinging under the water pressure. Why anyone would even consider continue going under those circumstances is beyond me arrogance and ignorance. Another example of arrogance and ignorance is the story of Henry Ford, the papa of the Ford Motor Company. His huge success story is, of course, the Model T. The Model T was manufactured from nineteen oh eight through nineteen twenty seven, with fifteen million cars sold, was the most sold car in history until that honor was supplanted in nineteen seventy two by the Volkswagen Beetle. Ford's brilliants in developing the assembly line method of putting the machines together kept the cost down to an affordable level, hence the high sales. But as with many arrogant and ignorant entrepreneurs, Ford let this success go to his head to the point where he wouldn't listen to anyone telling anything He thought he was a genius. Who are these people who think they know better? As a result, he nearly ran the Ford Motor Company into the ground, refusing to modernize or change with the times. Giving General Motors a foothold, They took his grandson and Henry Ford the second to get the company back on track again. Arrogance and ignorance. I probably should also point out that Ford appeared to be a Nazi sympathizer during World War II and continue to do business with them when most other companies in the Allied countries had stopped. He also reportedly sponsored an anti Jewish newspaper and allegedly had a portrait of Adolph Hitler hanging in his office. I don't know what this has to do with Ford's arrogance and ignorance, but it does give you a little insight into his psyche. But Ford wasn't a good example of the Peter principle that I mentioned earlier in this episode. Although arrogance and ignorance and the Peter principle types can probably be put on a similar level, they both can cause significant damage to accompany, his performance, employee, morale, or both, and sometimes it's hard to make a distinction between the two types since they tend to overlap. The term Peter principle was coined after a book of the same name that was published in nineteen sixty nine by Lawrence Peter and Raymond Hull. Basically, the concept states that people in a hierarchy rise to quote a level of respective incompetence. Employees are promoted based on past successes, but then get over their heads as they rise through the ranks of a company. I'll bet you can think of at least one boss or company owner for which you worked who fits one or both of these classifications. Generally, the affliction is spotted a mile away and by multiple people, everyone that is, but the actual afflicted individual. I'm reminded of the comedy TV series WKRP in Cincinnati, where Art Carlson, the general manager of the fictitious radio station, was made out to be this bumbling, incompetent fool. Most of the time My favorite episode of the series is when Carlson, shunning the help and advice of his staff, decided to spearhead a Thanksgiving promotion where they would give away turkeys, but Carlson's hair brained idea was to drop the turkeys out of a helicopter onto a crowd of people below. The classic closing line of the episode was delivered by Gordon Jump, the actor who played Carlson, quote, as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. The show was and is hysterical, But sometimes I look at it and think, well, maybe not so funny. Working in the radio business, the real radio business, for so many years, I've worked for the ark Carlsons of the world. Maybe not to the extreme of dropping turkeys out of a helicopter, but pretty close. I relate some of the stories in another episode of this podcast series called A View from the Ivory Tower, where I talk about Ivory Tower managers, those bosses, company owners who have their heads stuck so far up in the clouds they have no idea what's really going on down on planet Earth. Half to time they get fed false accolades by brown nosing lackeys that fuel the Ivory Tower syndrome. Ivory Tower managers definitely display arrogance and ignorance, but the reverse isn't always true. There are some managers who actually do know what's going on in their company, but they're just too pigheaded to take advice from the people who actually know how to run things. I spent several decades running a state radio network, but I did so under ten different general managers and five owners. Most of the time a new owner a general manager coming in wouldn't have a clue as to how to run a state radio network. Some look to be for guidance, which was a good thing. In the Ivory Tower episode, I talk about Rick Green. Out of the ten general managers I worked for over the years, Rick was by far the best. He didn't know a lot about state radio networks when he first started, so he leaned on me, but he was a fast learner, and with his radio management experience and plain old common sense, he became a model GM. Rick wasn't the only good GM out of the ten, but he was definitely a standout. There were others that stood out as well, but well not in a good way. One GM, the first one I worked for with the state radio network. Let's just call him Bert. I don't want to use his real name, and if you're a former coworker of mine and recognize this guy, please don't go shouting his name out on social media or anything. Anyway. Bert was one of these stiff managers who really should have known what was going on in his own shop, but was basically clueless. Although you wouldn't be able to tell him that. He started off as a talk show producer and somehow wound up in sales and then got promoted to general manager. This is the Peter principle in all of its spectacular glory. Unfortunately, I was new and young and couldn't really see through this guy's mo o at the time. But looking back on it, it was apparent he had no real knowledge of how the network should operate, nor did he have any respect for it. I should point out that after four years with the network at that point, this GM actually fired me for reasons that are yet unclear. Of course, after he left, the new GM sought me out and hired me back, and I stayed there for the next thirty three years. So you might think my Bert comments are sour grapes, but I assure you, they are not. Bert was a real political animal. As a matter of fact, he did make a couple of unsuccessful attempts at politics. He somehow managed to become a big wig in the Florida Democratic Party, but fell out of favor when the Dems did poorly in the two thousand and two election. Then, apparently not getting the message, ran for Congress in twenty sixteen and lost badly. At last word, he had divorced his wife, came out of the closet and hooked up with some guy out in California. I said in the introduction to this podcast series that there were some things that would be hard to talk about for which I could remember all the details, or what follows is among them. I don't like speaking negatively about people, but sometimes things happen, and who are you going to call? Well, apparently me. One of the gms I served under was a nice person generally, but had an ego the size of Montana, and the people orbiting around them, usually sales types, would spend a lot of time kissing up to feed that ego and in turn their chances for well whatever. Feeding some one's ego and kissing up gets you. No. I was never one to put on fake errors to impress anyone. If they didn't like me for what I did or the way I was, well that's their problem, not mine, which is not to say it wasn't nice and friendly, but I wasn't going to toddle along behind the GM like a puppy dog to make them feel important. This probably caused me more problems than not, but at least I could sleep at night. One of the traits of an Ivory Tower manager who got to where they are because of the Peter principle is the tendency to believe his or her own press. This makes them think that every decision that exits their brain, every statement that spills out of their mouth, is golden. This just makes things worse for those of us in orbit around this manager, who must suffer through the inane decisions that are surely to follow. Most of them would never throw these made up accolades in anyone's face, but in the back of their mind and subtextually in their statements is the undercurrent of, hey, I'm right about this because I was voted the most powerful schmuck on the planet by Goofball magazine or some such non gee. Maybe that's why we're running all those commercials for Goofball magazine. Sometimes the Ivory Tower manager can do some damage to the company in people's livelihoods, like the time I had one manager tell me that they had a sixth sense about people, and for that reason, we needed to fire this guy who worked for me. This even though the manager had no idea what the guy did and could only see his quirkiness. In this case, the guy's firing damaged the company more so than the employee. The job he was doing stagnated after he left because the replacement hired, of course by the Ivory Tower manager, had no experience or qualifications for the job, and how could they. The Avery Tower manager had no clue what the job was. Meanwhile, the guy who was summarily routed out of his gig went on to make a name for himself in the real estate business. Good for him. So much for the sixth sense. But I should point out here that there was a mitigating outcome to all this. After making the original horrible decision to fire the guy, than the near disaster decision to hire the unqualified replacement, they did hire someone for the position who knew what they were doing. At last word, that person is still in that position and doing fine, but it would have done a lot less damage to the company's reputation had the Ivory Tower manager stayed in their Ivory Tower and left well enough alone. Another thing Ivory Tower managers do is take advice from the wrong people, usually the kiss ups that are doing the brown nosing. I had an editor that worked for me once. She was an extremely bright young woman who had a double major in journalism and international relations. I hired her to be a web newswriter and managing editor because she was specifically qualified for the role due to her education and past job experience. I detailed the whole experience in the podcast episode the Story of Fred and Ethel. But the Ivory Tower manager in this case listened to a kiss up brown noser who had a questionable agenda and said, my employee was to be transferred to his department so she could post pictures of celebrities on their website and do pop culture type stuff, a job that was totally beneath her qualifications. But the brown noser convinced the manager that this was somehow a step up from what she was doing. Well, let's see writing and editing news articles and managing an online news service versus posting pictures of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift. Yeah, I can see that not all this was concocted between the brown Noser and the Ivory Tower manager. Never did the kiss up ever come to me and asked me if this would be a good idea, mainly because he knew what my answer would be, and more importantly, he didn't care. Oh and perhaps I should point out here we're talking about a pretty twenty year old young woman who was going through a divorce and vulnerable. Well, I'll let you fill into blanks. He was counting on the Ivory Tower manager being ignorant as to what the woman did for me, so he could easily manipulate him, and it worked like a charm. I know what you're thinking. Maybe if I had done some better kissing up than the other guy, I would have won this battle. Maybe, But Homie, don't play that game. Sorry. Remember I'm the guy who could actually sleep at night. Oh so they offered to transfer one of mister Brownnoser's employees over to me, someone who had absolutely no newswriting experience or training. Now that wasn't going to work. I kicked up such a stink. They finally said my employee could do both jobs. Well, I knew that wouldn't last, so I finally had to tell her she was relieved of her responsibilities to me. The insult to injury to all this was that she was paid out of my department's budget, so I had no budget left to hire a replacement and just had to do without the product of the company suffered as a result, and a short time later we wound up shuttering the service she was originally hired to manage. Also, I found out later from the guy who eventually replaced the brown noser, and after my former employee had transferred to another market, that her situation became rather untenable since her co workers were apparently jealous of the attention she was getting from the brown nosing manager. He told me that unsolicited because at that point I was over it all and I really didn't want to know any more about it. The whole situation upset me greatly because when I see potential in someone, I enjoy helping them get on track to realize that potential, and I really hate it when I see someone swoop in take advantage of a young person's vulnerability for their own questionable benefit and derail that track completely. Then there was the guy who was hired by Pat Robertson's company as a consultant and eventually took over as general manager. Yes, Pat Robertson, the evangelist, the seven hundred Club, Christian Broadcasting Network, etc. Etc. I talked about him before in this series too, talk about someone who didn't know anything about running a state radio network. Robertson used to refer to himself as a Christian businessman. Well, I'd rather not share my opinion on the Christian part of that, but I'll attest that calling him a businessman was really a stretch. We were lucky to make payroll and lucky if the power didn't get shut off. The consultant turn GM had absolutely no idea what he was doing and was obviously just a placeholder. Thank goodness, Roberson had the good sense to sell the network to Bud Packson when he did. Then there was Bud Packson. I've talked about Bud before in this podcast series. Bud was definitely an ivory tower manager and had arrogance, but I wouldn't say there was much ignorance there. Overall, Bud was a good guy, a little misguided at times because his success in business made him think that every decision he made was golden. That was definitely not the case. But the good thing about Bud was you could make a pitch to him to change his mind. Most of the time he saw the logic in your argument and avoided a very bad situation for all concerned. Bud, as I explained in another episode, was the founder of the Home Shopping Club, an undeniably successful endeavor that still operates to this day. But like Henry Ford and the Model T, you can't assume that one great idea gives you the ability to make infallible decisions for your entire life. And a middle manager like me, well, well, I'm put in the proverbial rock in a hard place when of the decisions handed down that you know when your gut is going to derail the success of the company. Yes, there I was in the middle Ivory Tower managers above me afflicted with the Peter principle, with brown nosing exploiters bending their ears, and unsuspecting vulnerable employees below me getting suckered into things they might forever regret. Ivory Tower managers above me, afflicted with the Peter principle making obviously disastrous turkeys being dropped from a helicopter type decisions for the company and an operation below me, hoping I can somehow reconcile them all and keep the parking lot from being fouled put intended with turkey guts. In some cases, if I was lucky, I could surreptitiously get things done despite these bad decisions, since arrogance and ignorance often clouded these Ivory Tower manager's view of what was really going on. Anyway, these managers maybe throwing the turkeys now the helicopter, but I'm on the ground catching them before they go flat. The network would still be operating, the employees were all still making a living, and the arrogant and ignorant Ivory Tower managers infected with the Peter principal are standing around saying, as mister Carlson did, as God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly. I'm Jimpeupling, and that's my view from the middle