The greatest waste of resources in all the organizations I have seen is the failed promotion.
Why should people who, for ten or fifteen years, have been competent suddenly become incompetent? The reason in practically all cases I have seen, is that people continue in their new assignment to do what made them successful in the old assignment and what earned them the promotion. Then they turn incompetent, not because they have become incompetent, but because they are doing the wrong things.
What the new assignment requires is not superior knowledge or superior talent. It requires concentration on the things that the new assignment requires, the things that are crucial to the new challenge, the new job, the new task.
ACTION POINT: Do not continue to do in your new assignment what made you successful in the old one. When you enter a new assignment, ask “What new things should I be doing in my new assignment to be effective?”
Drucker on Asia
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker