These are a set of games which in general I think can cause tremendous frustration in the people that "don't get it" or aren't naturally socially outgoing, good corporate citizens by nature. This is a similar bucket as Win Friends and Influence People adherents - it's a methodology and an effective one, but there are parts to consider. You see this all the time in security. They're right, but because it's not packaged well, there are legions of bitter AF security engineers who don't understand why their messages aren't not getting through.

At a minimum, it's really important that people know that things can work like this sometimes. If you don't follow it and maintain your soul or whatever, at least you won't be confused why Brian shot up the ladder so quickly. Promotions and success shouldn't only go to the socially outgoing, which is why I don't think Win Friends and Influence People is all that bad of a book. In a well functioning team, Brian and the talented Roberta can also climb. But if you're really pissed about Brian, stuff like this is probably why he's doing well. At least you know!

If Roberta needs to learn to schmooze a bit by reading a book, or learn how to navigate a crappy team and save a career to fight another day by doing an 18 month jump as this article states, I think that's ok. We train our bodies and minds to try and even the odds in the job market and health context, so what's wrong with training our personalities and corporate strategies a bit so the good can rise up too?

The only caveat with this genre of corporate how-to'ing is it only works if you never mention that's what you're doing. That's sort of obvious, but it's an interesting quirk because this is important stuff to pick up on for good, talented, non-A-Hole peopl who do want to find a way to do good in existing corporate structure. But it's naturally sort of a toxic underbelly of work culture, and many are opposed to learning it.