Happy to stay put

In their early days, the Beatles used to psyche themselves up with the chant, Where do we want to go? To the toppermost of the poppermost!” But what if total ambition’s not your gig? What if you’ve got far enough up the company tree and are happy to stay there?

Side-shifting or opting out of the race to the top without having to leave it or downshift, seems to becoming more popular aspiration. Surveys of college students increasingly find that they want to achieve a balanced life after graduation.

Twenty years ago, students still wanted to create peace, love and world revolution. Nowadays they would like to develop their work-life balance. Given today’s workaholic culture, it’s possibly just as radical a dream, and probably just as unrealistic.

Today’s rapid staff turnovers and competitive corporate culture perhaps herald a return to the Peter Principle – work behaviour defined by Dr Laurence Peter in his 1968 book of the same name, which states that in a hierarchy employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence.

He explains: “For each individual, the final promotion is from a level of competence to a level of incompetence.” It’s an unhappy place, where one lives in constant fear of being caught out or overtaken by pushy underlings. Side-shifters aim to avoid this predicament by staying one rung below trouble.

But people tend to notice the trap only once they’ve fallen into it. As Dr Peter says: “If at first you don’t succeed, you may be at your level of incompetence.” A telltale sign of being over-promoted is ‘codophilia’ – having to resort to speaking in letters and numbers instead of words. How do you avoid being over-promoted? One good way is to tray to work for happy bosses. They’re likely to stick in their jobs for as long as possible. And if they do leave, well, their job might not be such a bad one to step into.

William Montgomery is a regular contributor to television and radio on all aspects of leadership excellence. To find how he can help you and your business, please call his office on +44 333 666 1010.