Inverse Peter Principle: Anyone who is competent soon becomes irreplaceable and therefore ineligible for promotion. The only people who are promoted are those who aren't good enough to stay in their current position but aren't bad enough to fire outright.
A useful data point: one thing they repeatedly emphasized to me in management training, was that if someone was irreplaceable, FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY. Do not promote them. Do not keep them around. FIRE THEM. Otherwise they will become a challenge to your leadership, and you will continue to have to make larger and larger concessions to their idiosyncracies. People must be just competent enough to get the work done, but not competent enough to dictate terms, or the entire leadership hierarchy breaks down.
(This concept was a major contributor to my walking away from future management opportunities)
Are you sure it actually was management training and not a PHB (pointy-haired boss) tutorial?
In response to the question
I posted that my military experience seems effectively designed to increase executive function. Some examples of this from myself and metastable are
Uniforms- not having to think about your wardrobe, ever, saves a lot of time, mental effort, and money. Steve Jobs and President Obama are known for also using uniforms specifically for this purpose.
PT- Daily, routinized exercise. Done in a way that very few people are deciding what comes next.
-Maximum use of daylight hours
Med Group and Force Support-Minimized high-risk projects outside of workplace (paternalistic health care, insurance, and in many cases, housing and continuing education.)
After a moment's thought it occurred to me that there are some double-edged swords in Military Rationality as well, some of which lead to classic jokes like 'Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.'
Regulations- A select few 'experts' create policies which everyone else is required to follow at all times. Unfortunately these experts are never (never ever) encouraged to consider knock-on effects. Ugh.
Anybody else have insights on the military they want to share here? I feel a couple of good posts on increasing executive function might come out of a discussion on the rationalities and irrationalities of the armed forces.