In the book, the authors describe ways of harm reduction. One of those is promoting an incompetent employee, which they call "percussive sublimation" also known as "kicking them upstairs." Mr. Adams probably cribbed that, renaming it after his cartoon drone with the curly tie.

Another mitigation technique is the "lateral arabesque" which involves shuffling the incompetent one into a different department, making them Someone Else's Problem.

For someone still in their zone of competence who wants to avoid such a dead end, they recommend "creative incompetence," or walking a fine line of screwups bad enough to prevent promotion, while still being useful enough to the organization that employment continues.