Principles

It is often difficult these days to tell which principles people are following in their daily lives. For example, some individuals appear to be disciples of The Peter Principle, first expounded by Dr. Laurence Peter in 1969. This axiom of course states that sooner or later people are promoted to their level of incompetence. After over 50 years in the business world, TNB can certainly attest to the validity of this proposition.

Lately we have seen some very public examples of The Peter Principle at work, perhaps best exemplified by Jeff Zucker who rose from NBC Wunderkind at the Today Show to president of the network, where he has presided over the demise of NBC prime time including the jaw dropping Leno/O'Brien mess. For this classic adherence to The Peter Principle, Zucker was rewarded with a new 3 year comtract by Comcast, which is acquiring NBC Universal from GE. A perfect manifestation of what has been aptly dubbed "upward failure".

At a slightly different level is The Dilbert Principle, first enunciated in 1995 by cartoonist Scott Adams and which states that companies tend to intentionally promote their least competent employees to middle management as "nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow". Sadly, this satirical observation was written before the current syndrome (see the movie "Up in the Air") of just terminating employees-- competent or otherwise.

Now in 2010, we have The TNB Principle, which asserts that people totally without any principles can shockingly be an influential voice in society. Just last week we witnessed both Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson make statements about the earthquake in Haiti that dispel any lingering doubts about their characters. If only there was some way to remove these morons from the productive flow (see Dilbert) before they do any more damage to what remains of our principles.