{"id":4032,"date":"2019-11-14T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4032"},"modified":"2025-01-24T16:38:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T00:38:57","slug":"retaining-valuable-employees-recalling-the-lateral-arabesque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=4032","title":{"rendered":"Over-promoting employees. Recalling the Peter Principle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Remember the Peter Principle?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Funny how good messages come back in new forms after years of languishing out in the ether.\u00a0 Dr. Laurence J. Peter in The Peter Principle<\/em>: Why Things Always Go Wrong<\/em> wrote in the early 1960\u2019s of the \u201clateral arabesque,\u201d describing how companies promote incompetent employees sometimes by sending them to another department or division to get them out of the way of progress.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe lateral arabesque\u201d is real<\/strong><\/p>\n

I use the term \u201clateral Arabesque\u201d differently in a more poignant way to describe how companies rarely realize the true value of an employee until s\/he jumps (the arabesque) to another company in a higher position, valued there financially and for skills which were taken for granted in the original company.<\/p>\n

Rebound: The Double Arabesque \u2013 rehiring the employee<\/strong><\/p>\n

The twist (\u201cdouble arabesque\u201d) is that your company management only then realizes what the person is worth, and makes advances to bring him or her back at an even higher salary and more inflated title.<\/p>\n

The moral of the story<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]\u00a0<\/em><\/span> \u00a0The moral is that great employees are never as valuable as when they leave and land at a better position elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Yet, there is a lingering problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lived this experience time and again, most recently with the chief architect of a product line who jumped to a competitor for more money and more recognition.\u00a0 Remember that the grass IS almost always greener\u2026 The original company was afraid to upset the structure of its salary compensation schema and could not (would not) take the chance to raise the person\u2019s pay to be more than competitive early enough to show the love and trust deserved by the valuable player.<\/p>\n

How to fit a returning superstar into your salary range<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"That\u2019s the quandary. Mature companies have structure and ranges of salaries that are baked in so carefully as to not disturb the ecosystem.\u00a0 How do you over-compensate the most valuable players?\u00a0 Additional stock options?\u00a0 Bonuses? \u00a0Higher base pay? An increase in title?\u00a0 More attention? Each of these is a good tool and should be considered before needed to reward and encourage the best players before they can imagine playing for another team.<\/p>\n

The final irony<\/strong><\/p>\n

The irony of it all is that the lost person\u2019s replacement probably will be offered a starting salary higher \u2013 sometimes much higher \u2013 than the one paid to the departed player.\u00a0 And \u2013 to regain the one departed, an even higher offer will have to be made.\u00a0 Two jumps:\u00a0 a double arabesque.\u00a0 One initiated not just by the player, but by the largess of management.<\/p>\n

Have you star players in danger of performing the dreaded lateral arabesque?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the Peter Principle? Funny how good messages come back in new forms after years of languishing out in the ether.\u00a0 Dr. Laurence J. Peter in The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong wrote in the early 1960\u2019s of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depending-upon-others","category-surrounding-yourself-with-talent"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5734,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4032\/revisions\/5734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}