QuoteOriginally posted by: Finance1987What would you do with people who performed above your expectations? Don't tell me you're gonna lay them off-- it's counter-productive to the company..Company.... Schcompany.... If someone in power sees you are a threat, you are going to be laid off, the consequences to the company be damned.QuoteNow, how do people who performed above expectations posed a threat to management?Because some people feel seriously threatened by people that are smarter than they are, and one skill you have to learn in playing corporate politics is to know when to shut up and act stupid.QuoteRainmakers were let go? I think that's a recipe for disaster for the company.. So what? Who cares about the company?

QuoteOriginally posted by: Finance1987Maybe, but I can get a job in academia with my MIT degree. That doesn't pose a problem I guess.Academic politics is even more brutal than corporate politics. The one good thing about corporate politics is that there is enough money flowing around so that people have less of an incentive to knife you in the back. One cool thing about corporate politics is that there are second, third, fourth, and fifth chances. If you totally mess up in a company, then it's not the end of the world. If you totally mess up in academia, it usually is.QuoteThat's brutal and inhumane! How can the upper echelons of management decide like that with complete disregard to the co-workers below them.Part of the point of being in upper management is to be brutal and inhumane. Sometimes it's a good thing that upper management is brutal and inhumane. If I'm making widgets and there is no economic need for widget makers, personally, I think it's a good thing that I get fired because I can look out for myself and find a job making sprockets instead of widgets.Personally, I think global capitalism is kind of fun. The fact that the hammer could come down on me at any moment means that when I go home, and I have my job another day, it feels good.QuoteI don't believe in the concept of Politics-- it doesn't seem to exist at every level, maybe it primarily exists in the higher echelons of management.So how much real work experience have you had? Corporations, offices, and universities are fundamentally based on politics. Not that this is a bad thing. Sometimes politics happens to be good politics.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Finance1987Quote Behind every graduating class of extremely accomplished individuals, there is a set right behind them of extremely accomplished individuals. Therein lies the decreasing utility of what an accomplished person is, and how as time increases your viability may decrease as well regardless of what you have accomplished.I disagree, not every really accomplished person (MIT PhD, etc) isn't going to come to Finance. I was just saying that it becomes really easy to find another job with the MIT degree. Tell me how many people are there in Finance with an MIT degree-- very less, right? Sure ... maybe not everyone goes into Finance but regardless of the industry, this dynamic exists. Worse than this is that, sometimes it is the perspective of the onlooker and the social contention that exists in masses that propagates what is absorbed by the onlooker that carries the weight in the selection process. Not all decisions based on herd mentality are correct ones so you will find a non-zero probability of giving access to people without the proper background/ambition/abilities etc. Quote When I was working in finance we would hire large rounds of entry level people and while there is some learning curve, it became apparent that many of them were not meeting the expectation as anticipated. Perfect people to manage since they do not pose a threat to direct management or will not variate too much as self-confidence has been defeated a little in the beginning and then it is only a short period of time before they come down with a sense of malaise and become thankful just to keep their jobs. These are the perfect people for a majority of positions. What would you do with people who performed above your expectations? Don't tell me you're gonna lay them off-- it's counter-productive to the company.. Now, how do people who performed above expectations posed a threat to management?Good response, my natural work ethic is to succeed above or "pick up the pace". In a circumstance described above, if I were in management and some of my subordinates performed better than I ... I would do one of two things: 1. Nurture them to better positions2. Set a higher bar for myself, learn new approaches from them, learn new approaches to teach them. The important topic in management, I can only speak for the US here, is that you need to "control" your underlings. Generally if you are in management, I would assume you have "collected" a few items. Car, family, house, etc. and what is most important is to sustain those items. In this case, were you have them and it takes a lot of energy to maintain your "possessions", this leaves very little time to "keep up the pace". This is why in the US, it is my opinion, that management is really the downfall of our corporate system. People get lazy, senseless, routine, and become less interested. So if the typical manager hired someone that is more capable than they it means one of two things : 1. They have to work harder, which is not a strong US characteristic, and most likely will be avoided unless there is some real prominence involved.2. Do nothing and risk the elimination of your possessions. Since 2 is the easier task, with the help of corporate human resources, management, from what I have seen, will follow this route. In this case, I correlate more with the 1st choice than the 2nd. Quote Through the housing crisis in the US, I am personally aware of unfortunates that were true rain makers that were let go ... Contention and reality do not equate here my friend Rainmakers were let go? I think that's a recipe for disaster for the company.. ...Beer indeed! But business carried on ...

Yah, I don't have as much work experience as you have though..QuoteOriginally posted by: twofish If you totally mess up in a company, then it's not the end of the world. If you totally mess up in academia, it usually is. But, there are many universities, right?

QuoteOriginally posted by: Finance1987Yah, I don't have as much work experience as you have though..QuoteOriginally posted by: twofish If you totally mess up in a company, then it's not the end of the world. If you totally mess up in academia, it usually is. But, there are many universities, right?Good luck finding a decent university that would hire you without any good, recent recommendations and with a bad reputation in your field (academia is a very small world).

QuoteOriginally posted by: twointhebushGood luck finding a decent university that would hire you without any good, recent recommendations and with a bad reputation in your field (academia is a very small world).Once you miss the ball once in academia, you are going to be teaching community college or high school. It's also a downward spiral because once you don't have recommendations then you don't get funding which means that your publications will suck which means that you are going to get less funding.And "recommendations" is just a formal way of playing politics and gossip.One great thing about industry is that people do get fired for stupid reasons. That means that if I get a resume from someone that was laid off or even "terminated with extreme cause," my first assumption is that the guy lost a political fight, and do it doesn't go into the discard pile. Since academic hiring is "rational" if you find that someone has been fired, you assume that they did something really bad.