We’ve all been there. We have an amazing mid manager. They really get results. We promote them. They crash and burn. We all feel bad about it. How did we go wrong?

There is another way that prevents this scenario. Here are his latest thoughts.

I am a big fan of Topgrading. Brad Smart is the guru. Dr. Brad Smart is the Founder and CEO of Topgrading, a consulting and software company dedicated to helping companies of all sizes improve performance and profits by hiring high performers. Brad has conducted over 6,500 in-depth interviews with executives and is frequently acknowledged as the world’s foremost expert on hiring.

He is the author of Topgrading: The Proven Hiring And Promoting Method That Turbocharges Company Performance; The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best; and co-author of Topgrading for Sales: World-Class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top Sales Representatives, with Greg Alexander; and Smart Parenting: How to Raise Happy, Can-Do Kids, with Dr. Kate Mursau. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradsmart/

Almost every leader I’ve interviewed has promoted people who were high performers in their current job, but failed when promoted. Years ago a popular business book was The Peter Principle (by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull), a book that painfully documented how common it was to promote people to their level of incompetence. “She earned the promotion” made sense decades ago, and for years after The Peter Principle was released companies were more cautious — people were NOT necessarily given promotions because they “deserved the chance.”  But in my recent experience, too many companies have fallen back into the Peter Principle trap and need a reminder.