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Notes -
The Parker Principle seems to be a rehash of the old "competent asshole" trope, which the last generation of HR has worked tirelessly to discredit and discourage. To wit:
This longer exists, except maybe for the cream of the crop of quants (maybe @BurdensomeCount can chime in on how life is as a Parker). I wholeheartedly agree that there is no shortage of people rising to the top of the corporations because they are better at "being in a corporation" than "accomplishing [goal of corporation]", but what's the solution here?
If Peters are so much worse for corporations than Parkers, why can't Parkers run circles about them? Shouldn't there be a species of Parker that is singlemindedly devoted to Machiavellianism just as much as the Parkers you describe are devoted to their respective crafts? Or do they get their names changed to Peters once they realize that the real money is in climbing the hierarchy? In that case, this seems like a problem of incentives that can't be solved by top-down mandates, only by a change in corporate culture/structure.
The remedy you propose is just more technocracy, which you're already acknowledging as having failed us thus far - if the hiring and/or promotion process is broken to the point where Peters are promoted beyond their competence ceiling, why would this same firm be able to put together a hiring/promo committee that's any more competent than the current performance of the firm, and not going to get instantly gamed by Peters? How would they staff them with hyperfocused Parkers to weed out all the Peters that have already excelled at the game and risen to the top? I suppose we can hire quickly and fire the bottom 10% or so on an annual basis, but make sure we keep a banner of principles of leadership hanging somewhere to make sure that everyone knows where their North Star is, but that hasn't worked out too well thus far. If the people you're trying to get rid of have the unifying characteristic of being able to game corporate and regulatory systems, how can you (as a Parker, presumably) hope to beat them at their own game? You can't solve a social problem with technology (I think).
But why would the Parkers subject themselves to this? "Oh, we let you get away with whatever you want, but now if you want more money we also want to see how well you can adhere to the latest HR handbook. Oh, and there's also a circular firing squad comprised of all the people that were better at politics and worse at working than you that will have final veto on your promotion." The Parkers would just leave for a less onerous firm that just gives compensation for competence and lets the Peters go to HR training.
Yes, after all:
Peters (including HR) are the first type. Parkers the second. There are certain biological dispositions that tend to bucket one into either category, sex being by far the most important in Western countries where women aren't forced into productive labor, which is why this tendency eventually developed into today's gender war where more women than men are in welfare positions [produce nothing and created directly or indirectly by law]). Notably, the Peters use Parker language ("women in STEM") to justify this.
Startups reliably outcompete major corporations (OpenAI is still ahead of everyone, for instance). Major corporations can't act like this partially because it's illegal (again, due to last generation of HR's hatred of competence, see above) but also because of inertia.
Yes, but when they get successful they tend to name themselves [or be named] the regional dialect's way to pronounce "Caesar" (for no reason in particular, I'm sure) and, once they have achieved their goals, become indistinguishable from a Peter. Or their successors inevitably do, and then we're back to the same cycle.
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