Maybe he's not being honest with himself? :-) But I have heard elsewhere that a big reason behind doing this is it forces managers to not be wishy washy telli

Maybe he's not being honest with himself? :-) But I have heard elsewhere that a big reason behind doing this is it forces managers to not be wishy washy telling everyone how great they are. It's very hard to enforce the discipline of tough conversations in organizations where there are long lines of people waiting to be promoted. GE is a prime example of this. People aren't there to invent great technology, or make a financial killing. Therefore the senior engineer doesn't have status. It's the senior manager that does.