And Peter gave the world his principle in the sixties. People who are competent are re-warded by being promoted to levels of incompetence. As a result the vast majority of the workforce functions at levels it is not fit for. Ergo, we live and work in a world where most of us are doing the wrong thing.

Nearly half a century later there is a refinement of the principle and though it is still a fact that the upward reward is often detrimental to efficiency the flaw lies in the inability of the corporate structure to acknowledge competence at its own level and shore it up with enough privilege and compensation to make the spiral of promotion redundant and un-attractive. After all, we want to be promoted so we can earn more and win for ourselves the perks that come with the designation. But what if we could make the same lifestyle for ourselves by being provided incentives that would keep us doing what we are best at.

I would have loved to be an aviation correspondent. But no one wanted one. So I chose to become the editor at 27 and wipe noses administratively.

Would that approach not create more universal competence, less frustration and give job satisfaction a deeper relevance. A salesperson whose forte lies in packaging the merchandise is promoted to a manager and finds himself swimming in paperwork. He has more money, a better remuneration but he's a lousy administrator. So, he ends up being miserable and unproductive. A lone wolf operator in a company displays sheer genius in his projections for the future. So, he is made the boss of a section. He's a lousy boss, he couldn't lead a squad up a hill let alone into battle, so now he is miserable, his subordinates are miserable and the company has lost a whole dimension to its success. It is happening all the time. So what you could do best is what is being denied to you. This equation of promotion with competence is so well ingrained that few organizations see the awesome worthiness of financial promotion as an alternative.

Let people at subordinate jobs earn more than the boss if their contribution is tangible. A good boss need not be a good field man. A first rate creative talent may suffocate clearing leave applications. A worker may make a poor foreman, a sergeant a tiresome officer, an idea man a feeble executor of that idea. An endless list of fitting good, solid square pegs into loftier spaces where they do not fit. Consequently, reward in situ would the logically more en-lightening thing to do. Let the salesman become a supersalesman by giving him as much money as his boss's boss.

We will then find people being enormously productive and not the least bit interested in climbing the ladder. Who needs it if you can be compensated doing what you excel in? The whole problem is this fascination we have with command appointments and the chasm between the top bracket and the rest, this them and us barrier that limits the earning power of the masses. I recall many years ago discussing this very aspect with the famous Indian tycoon J.R.D. Tata. I was young, aggressive and impervious to atmosphere. He was indulgent. But he did say one thing. He said that in a nation where unionization of the workforce had become politically motivated, the only way to improve productivity was to give the managers the right to dismiss one person per year without assigning reason. Everyone would go back to work post haste.

About my refinement of the Peter Principle he was not so forthcoming. Who would judge the competence of those in the right places?

What if their "best" was not good enough? What if a good salesman could become a better boss? How would you deny him the right to command without first testing him? It was, he said, dangerous to conclude that everyone got promoted to a level of incompetence. Just as it was myopic (the little concession I won) to push people into positions they were not fit for just because the system did not permit commensurate incentives at the lower level where they were performing brilliantly. I am still an advocate of my theory. Too many of us are compelled to give up our best roles because the costumes carry no glitter.