A thought on about how bureaucracy can be so defensive

“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.”
– Laurence J. Peter

Born in Vancouver, Peter found fame in the United States, and became well enough known that one of his inventions — the Peter principle — has long outlived him. A bestseller after its publication in 1969 (Laurence teamed up with writer Raymond Hull, who turned his ideas into a manuscript), The Peter Principle held (as a paperback version put it) that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

Subsequent research has shown that there’s something to it; some researchers found, for instance, that people great at sales can make for poor choices as managers.

Peter died in 1990. He was 70.