Dilbert-Prinzip

Das Dilbert-Prinzip ist ein satirisches Managementkonzept von Scott Adams , dem Schöpfer des Comicstrips Dilbert . Es besagt, dass Unternehmen dazu neigen, inkompetente Mitarbeiter in Führungspositionen zu befördern, um deren Einfluss auf die Produktivität zu minimieren . Das Dilbert-Prinzip ist vom Peter-Prinzip inspiriert , demzufolge Mitarbeiter aufgrund ihres Erfolgs befördert werden, bis sie ihr „Inkompetenzniveau“ erreichen und nicht mehr erfolgreich sind. Adams erläuterte das Prinzip erstmals 1995 in einem Artikel des Wall Street Journal und führte es in seinem humorvollen Buch „Das Dilbert-Prinzip“ von 1996 weiter aus .

Im Dilbert -Comicstrip vom 5. Februar 1995 sagt Dogbert : „Führung ist die Art und Weise der Natur, Dummköpfe aus dem produktiven Fluss zu entfernen.“ Adams selbst erklärte dazu: ^{[ 1 ]}

Ich schrieb „Das Dilbert-Prinzip“ um die Idee herum, dass in vielen Fällen die inkompetentesten und schwächsten Leute befördert werden, einfach weil man sie nicht mit echter Arbeit betrauen will. Man will, dass sie Donuts bestellen und andere anbrüllen, die ihre Aufgaben nicht erledigen – eben die einfachen Aufgaben. Herzchirurgen und Programmierer – die klugen Köpfe – sitzen nicht in Führungspositionen. Dieses Prinzip war buchstäblich überall präsent.

Adams explained the principle in a 1995 Wall Street Journal article.^[2] Adams then elaborated his study of the Dilbert principle in his 1996 book The Dilbert Principle, which is required or recommended reading at some management and business programs.^[3][4][5][6] In the book, Adams writes that, in terms of effectiveness, use of the Dilbert principle is akin to a band of gorillas choosing an alpha-squirrel to manage them by an incredibly convoluted process.^[7] The book has sold more than a million copies and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 43 weeks.

The Dilbert principle can be compared to the Peter principle. As opposed to the Dilbert principle, the Peter principle assumes that people are promoted because they are competent, but the tasks higher in the hierarchy require skills or talents they do not possess. It concludes that, due to this, a competent employee will eventually be promoted to, and then likely remain at, a job at which he or she is incompetent. In his book, The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter explains "percussive sublimation", the act of "kicking a person upstairs" (i.e., promoting him to management) to reduce his interference with productive employees.

The Dilbert principle, by contrast, assumes that hierarchy just serves as a means for removing the incompetent to "higher" positions where they will be unable to cause damage to the workflow, assuming that the upper echelons of an organization have little relevance to its actual production, and that the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people who rank lower. Unlike the Peter principle, the promoted individuals were not particularly good at any job they previously had, so awarding them a supervisory position is a way to remove them from the workforce without actually dismissing them, rather than a reward for meritorious service. An earlier formulation of this effect was known as Putt's Law (1981), credited to the pseudonymous author Archibald Putt ("Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand.").

• Negative selection (politics) – Aversion to the success of one's subordinates