Guy Kawasaki’s Peter Principle Pop Quiz

Guy just posted a pop quiz over at his American Express blog that melds the culprits of the financial meltdown (plus a few politicians) with the crazy language — my favorite jargon monoxide of all time — from The Peter Principle.  Here are two sample questions, but you need to go to Guy's site to take the whole pop quiz:

• Richard Wagoner’s record at GM proves which Peter axiom?

  1. In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

  2. The incompetent supervisor evaluates input, not output.

  3. The habitually incompetent can, by random action, be right once in a while.

  Answer: 1. Obviously. [2: Wrong. Both inputs and outputs tanked. 3: Wrong. When was he ever right?]

• Which of Peter’s axioms best explains Bernie Madoff?

  1. Gargantuan Monumentalis: giant burial park, big mausoleum, and huge tombstone syndrome.

  2. Rigor Cartis—abnormal interest in charts, with dwindling concern for realities that the charts represent.

  3. Image Replaces Performance—a substitution technique involving smoke and mirrors.

  4. 2 and 3 only.

  Answer: 4: Correct. At least, this explains his clients. [1: Wrong:
  you’re confusing Madoff with Robert Stanford. 2: True, but not the
  entire answer. 3: True, but not the entire answer.]

I love the quiz because it shows how, although the times have changed, the concepts in the Peter Principle apply as well as they did 40 years ago, and the language that Dr. Peter invented remains as funny — and accurate — as ever.