[wraymond]

In almost all major companies the ‘escalation’ of issues is ‘filed’ within the first, or second, line of management. That’s what modern Management is really all about. Almost every lower line manager is envious of his immediate senior (I nearly put ‘superior’ but that would have assumed ‘better’ and the argument would have fallen). Witness: the number of promotion prospects who decline the promotion – vanishingly small (that explains the advancement of the inadequate applicant/proteges like a certain Hancock et al.

Ergo, only relationships rule and that is the first rule. Ask any entrepreneur about their opinion of hierarchies. That’s a proven entrepreneur, not just a lucky one.