This ELI5 is actually not a good summary, the article is way more nuanced than this simplistic summary would suggest. In an effective organisation middle manag

This ELI5 is actually not a good summary, the article is way more nuanced than this simplistic summary would suggest. In an effective organisation middle managers are not incompetent rather they are clueless , they entangle their destiny with the organisation's believing falsely that working towards the betterment of the company would be good for their personal careers. They are actually competent, but very gullible to being tricked into by sociopaths (the upper management) for their own gains. The higher up executives are in fact the least concerned about the organisation, this makes them take bold risks and start new initiatives (which some times succeed, but mostly are a power grab) to further their own goals of power and leadership. They also carefully select the middle management for avoiding blame and responsibility. At the bottom are losers, some of these are wannabe sociopaths , they effectively spend all their time towards finding opportunities that put them ahead and some of them are dedicated losers who work hard and are setting themselves up for being used as pawns by higher ups. The rest are either doing just enough to stay in the loop knowing well how the game works or are failing to do even the basics and end up getting fired.