Agree. I've never heard a manager say "we should keep this person because otherwise they'll go and create a competitor who will cause us problems". I have hear

Agree. I've never heard a manager say "we should keep this person because otherwise they'll go and create a competitor who will cause us problems". I have heard lots of managers say "yeah, I know they're not performing well, but I don't want to reduce headcount right before budget allocation, can we manage around them?" (or something to that effect). In my MBA course we even talked about this as a thing - that mid-level managers create fiefdoms, and the effects that has on the organisation culture. There are lots of other effects on the organisation from this, too.