Well, to be fair, this particular politician actually holds a relevant degree.

Yes, in practice it's usually a mix of the two, so the principle is more an abstract model than an argument about real, concrete thresholding.

But the general idea is that by the time someone stops being promoted, if they continue in the job that they are in while not being promoted for an extended period of time, it means that they are likely not amongst the highest-merit individuals around for that particular job and responsibility list—because if they were, they'd have been promoted and/or would have moved to another job elsewhere that offered an equivalent to a promotion.

Yeah, the alternatives would have made all the difference.

Whether a broken vase is red or blue matters little concerning its usefulness.

And their role. Sadly, many think it's their job to tell people how to do their job. A former boss of mine, who I owe a lot of my knowledge on management, put it best: When you're coaching an NFL team, you needn't tell them how to play football. They know that. You have to make sure they can do it.

Management is not about breathing down your people's back and crack the whip. That's not going to accomplish jack. Maybe it feeds your ego. Ok. But I don't care about your ego, I care about results. And results, you won't get that way. You will get workers that spend more time pondering how to find a new job without a gap in their resume rather than doing any meaningful work. Which will only tell those idiots that they didn't crack that whip hard enough.

Good management is not about squeezing your people dry and getting the last bit out of them. Good management means that this isn't even necessary to get peak performance. Of course, that means that the manager has to actually work rather than just sit or stand there and yell at people.

My job as a manager is to "pave the way". To clear out obstacles for the people working for me to make sure that they can do their job without interruption, distraction or stumbling blocks. I have to make sure they have the resources they need, timely and completely.

Yes, correct. I am working for them. That's the whole point. That's why I have the clout and the "power" that my position carries. They can't go and stand against a department head who doesn't want to cooperate. I can. I can make decisions and I can back them up. And I can get a decision from other departments and I can ensure that they will deliver. I can do that. They cannot.

Of course, cracking the whip and burning your staff is easier, and it sure will not make you appear "difficult" to your peers in management who have to deal with you instead of someone they can brush aside. But that is your damn job as someone who should manage his team. You're the manager not because you're the best in whatever your team is doing. You're their manager because you can get them what they need to do their job!

So do your damn job, manager!

I think it's some manager term. Must be one of their buzzwords they use to feel like they're important or something.

So instead of climbing the ranks 'til they are useless, the go right from MBA degree to useless?

Seriously, the unrest is brewing in our towns. The powder keg is filled to the brim, all it takes is a spark, and any kind will do, to blow it up. You're getting close to a critical mass of people who are severely unhappy with how things are going, the only thing missing is a focal point for this anger. As soon as a justification is found to vent that anger, you have a riot.

Sure worked great for Mubarak et al.

Funny how quickly we forget how we berated those middle east regent when they tried to prop up their failed regime by banning social medias, then promptly turn around and want to squelch dissent at home by monitoring and controlling them when it threatens our own regime.

The best way to understand the principle is to imagine the counterfactual.

When does a person *not* get promoted any longer? When they are not actually that great at the position into which they have most recently been promoted. At that point, they do not demonstrate enough merit to earn the next obvious promotion.

So, the cadence goes:

Demonstrates mastery of title A, promoted to title B.
Demonstrates mastery of title B, promoted to title C.
Demonstrates mastery of title C, promoted to title D.

Does not manage to demonstrate mastery of D = is not promoted and stays at that level indefinitely as "merely adequate" or "maybe next year" or "still has a lot to learn."

That's the principle in a nutshell—when you're actually good at your job, you get promoted out of it. When you're average at your job, you stay there for a long time.

When you're done playing, kindly place it next to the Kinect, will ya?

Worldcom and Enron were simply not big enough not to fail. They should've gone into banking. Or car manufacturing.

Name one. In recent history, please. I'm aware that the American dream once existed (and it could actually work out).

lol you made up your mind long before that and just wanted an excuse to generalize and bash a party you do not agree with.
Okay, so you're saying lumping an entire party together and generalizing and bashing them is a bad thing. That's a reasonable argument to make.

That's why we refer to you democrats as "sheeple" and you fit the status quo.
And yet you lump both yourself ("we") into one camp, and others you disagree with into another camp, and use childish* name-calling to bash the ones you disagree with and have preconceived notions about? You're either a brilliant troll or have the self-awareness and memory of a goldfish**.

* yes, I am generalizing about children being immature
** and goldfish

Politically they don't differ too much, that's true. All of them have pretty much the full range from left to right, liberal to conservative and free to controlled market, with proponents for pretty much any kind of political ideal you could hold dear.

I think that is the first sensible AC comment I read here. Maybe it was the right decision not to surf at +2 after all...

I'm still not convinced they're different enough for me. I'm used to a political spectrum that reaches from the far right (think Rep, but more Ayn Rand and less compassionate conservativism) to infra-red leftism that makes anarchy look like a fascist ideal.

But yes, I can see the difference between your two parties now.