The Peter Principle was first published in 1969. Within a year, the hard-bound version was being printed for the fifteenth time and the first pocketbook edition was on the press. Laurence J. Peter, a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, for advocating a theory claiming that “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence,” had become one of the most talked about non-fiction authors of the decade. This maxim was his response to the universal question of “why things go wrong.”

The eagerly read book was prompted by Raymond Hull, who, after his arrival in Vancouver from England in 1947, had become a successful stage and TV playwright. Following a chance meeting in which they discussed a theatre production both were attending, Peter briefly touched on his research about hierarchies and incompetence and they ended up discussing the subject late into the night.

In his introduction to the book that he described as “the most penetrating social and psychological discovery of the century,” Hull wrote that “...[Peter] had so far been satisfied to discuss his discovery with a few friends and colleagues and give an occasional lecture on his research.... I stressed the dangers of procrastination and Peter agreed on a collaboration.”

Peter was 50 when The Peter Principle was first published and an Associate Professor of Education, Director of the Evelyn Frieden Centre for Prescriptive Teaching, and Coordinator of Programs for Emotionally Disturbed Children at the University of Southern California. He had begun his career as a teacher in Vancouver in 1941 and he had later also been employed as a counsellor, school psychologist, and prison instructor. He eventually received his Ed.D. from Washington State University in 1963.

After teaching briefly at the University of British Columbia in 1964, he moved to California where in 1965 he wrote his first academic text to help teachers improve their skills in coping with the disparity between the physical and social sciences. “I became convinced of a long-deferred need for substantive improvements in public education that would help children become the kind of caring, intelligent, rational beings that could live in peace with their fellow residents on the planet, live in harmony with their natural environment, and live satisfying personal lives in a technological world,” observed Peter in The Peter Plan, a 1976 publication advocating “ways to avoid falling victim of the Peter Principle.”

By then he had also written in 1972 a follow-up to The Peter Principle, entitled The Peter Prescription, and a four-volume academic text, Competencies for Teaching. His “Prescription” book was another overwhelming bestseller, going through seven printings in the first six months of publication. As a result, he was in constant demand as a speaker at teacher conventions as well as at business and professional conferences across North America.

In The Peter Prescription Peter again used numerous quotations and witticisms to illustrate 65 remedies for a better life. The book was divided into three sections: the first re-enforced the evils wrought by “The Peter Principle,” the second suggested how to be creative, confident and competent in order “to prevent yourself from becoming a tragic victim of mindless escalation,” and the third demonstrated “how to be successful in dealing with others and how to increase your efficiency and competency as a manager.”
 

The Peter Principle, first published in 1969, claims that everywhere people tend to rise to the level of their incompetence. Laurence J. Peter, provocative author of this horripilatingly valid, ruefully charming and excruciatingly applicable exposé, was convinced his message could revolutionize one's life. His global bestseller is deemed by some to be one of the most penetrating social and intriguing psychological discoveries of the 20th century. The term "the Peter Principle" is, today, as much a part of our everyday speech as are "Parkinson's Law" and "Murphy's Law" still other slogans that have passed into common, everyday language. [Photo, courtesy The Toronto Star/ A. Dunlop]

The publication of The Peter Plan in 1976 completed Peter’s “trilogy.” This last volume aimed to show “...ways by which we can protect our planet while civilization moves confidently forward to new achievements to secure the future of the human race.” In it he recalled his ancestry – pioneer farmers on the outskirts of Vancouver – but did not advocate going back to the “Good Old Days.” “The only successful way out of the present crisis,” he wrote, “is to break through to a new and more advanced civilization,” and he suggested that “escalating pleasure, love, knowledge, skill, and actualization of human potential for concern and creativity in the service and protection of the only planet we have is the challenge of progress today.”

While not claiming his “Plan” perfect, he recommended that “we develop conversion strategies based on new rules and new priorities so that progress toward a new level of civilization is accomplished with attention to the long range effects of what we do.” The popularity of his three books led to an invitation to write a column called “Peter’s People” for Human Behaviour magazine. The columns were reprinted in a 1979 book of the same name. Everything from one-line assessments of a number of United States presidents to features on comedians George Carlin and Johnny Carson, on whose show he appeared four times, is humorously explored. It includes insight into his own lifestyle after achieving fame and financial success. “We decided that if we were going to bypass the materialistic corruption of our lives, we would have to avoid the fashionable preoccupation with money, status and possessions” for a lifestyle “of deliberate simplicity –one that was outwardly simple and inwardly rich.”

Peter returned to the theme of his first best-seller in 1984 with a book entitled, Why Things Go Wrong –The Peter Principle Revisited and again a year later with The Peter Pyramid –Or Will We Ever Get to the Point. He had earlier written another prescription book on humour published in 1982 –a collaborative effort with Bill Dana entitled The Laughter Prescription. In it he prescribed “humour as a useful treatment of our illnesses and woes” and described Bill Dana as “the pharmacist who fills this prescription.”

A heart condition, however could not respond to that particular prescription as Peter experienced failing health and a stroke, while carrying on with what he considered his true life’s work –improving teacher education. Following his death in 1990, a former student and friend, W.H. New, wrote, “I was lucky enough when I was 12 years old to have had him as a teacher and in my memory he stands out not just because he was a big man, but because he was large of mind and heart.”
Mel James