Adrian Barich: impostors, incompetence, the ‘Peter principle' and why you're not fooling your coworkers

West Australian

07-06-2025

I've never forgotten when a bloke said to me, 'How good is Perth? We could take over this town'.
He had just moved to WA from Sydney and after being here for about five minutes, had summed up the laid-back attitude of many of us in the west. He was saying that given a chance to play golf or surf or head down south — most West Aussies would do that, in preference to working 'too' hard.
I've always remembered how in a scene — I think it was from either Happy Days or maybe the TV spin-off Laverne & Shirley — where a couple of cooks (husband and wife) were offered the chance to work overtime, and they answered by grabbing baseball bats, as if to say, 'fat chance pal'.
At the time I never understood why they acted that way. But after moving to Perth in the 1980s to rejoin my family, it all made sense.
I think that what the New South Welshman was referring to — that sometimes the extra money/kudos/experience/prestige just isn't worth it, especially when you live in God's country and almost every day there's a blue sky just waiting to be enjoyed.
That was also reiterated to me by a Melbournian recently, who lamented that while we in the west basically always have blue skies, in Victoria an overcast greyness often rules.
It's no wonder plenty of people in WA feel like they're bluffing their way through the workday. It's easy to feel like a fraud. And in too many workplaces, it's just as easy to be one.
We've all heard the saying 'fake it till you make it' (probably more times than we've heard 'you're on mute' in a Zoom meeting). But let's be honest, faking it isn't making it: it's just acting.
In professional sport, you can't fake it. If you drop the ball (literally or figuratively), you get found out instantly. You can't explain away a missed goal with a LinkedIn post about your 'strategic vision'.
But in the workplace? Mediocrity can sometimes get a pay rise.
There even seems to be a strange pact in some offices: don't expose my incompetence and I won't expose yours. It's all nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, like a skit in Monty Python, which might seem like a bit of fun until somehow Beau gets promoted, despite not being able to open a PDF without calling IT.
Apparently, it's called the Peter Principle, which comes from economist Laurence J. Peter: 'In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.' I don't think I'm sufficiently equipped to fully explain this, but we know what he means, in our heart of hearts.
Then there is 'impostor syndrome' (which isn't what you think it is). That's all about self-doubt and constantly wondering if you are good enough. If you're not familiar, please google it: you might be surprised to read it's about good people who, for some reason, are unsure of themselves.
But then there's the flip side we don't talk about much: the actual impostors.
If you want to avoid that tag, here are some tips.
Don't be sneaky. Don't promise to 'circle back' or 'leverage synergies' when you actually have no clue what the project is really about.
You might fool us all for a while, but the smart people will work it out. They know. They see who's real and who's just jumping on the back of other people's efforts.
As Abraham Lincoln purportedly once said: 'You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.'
And as French writer Francois de La Rochefoucauld put it (probably after getting towelled up in a meeting): 'We are more often deceived by pride than by cunning.' (If you're like me, that will take a bit of digesting but once you get there, it's a spot-on analysis).
And as old mate Abe also apparently said: 'Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.' Again, hard to comprehend at first blush but worth delving into the true meaning.
So, if you're the quiet achiever who's not sure you belong, don't stress: you're probably doing better than you think.
Don't regret having a good heart. Good things have a way of coming back and multiplying. Be a believer in providence. Keep showing up, do your bit, and don't worry if you're not telling enough people about how well you're going.