[skytrue]

Not to mention that there is a fixed budget, and so they can only promote so many people in a given period, as rewards are tied to promotions. That means that even if there are many top performers, they have to determine which ones aren't as "top" as others. This inherently creates a stack. Whoops.

[skapadia]

There is always a fixed budget, so at some level stacking has to occur. Whether that's at the individual level, or team, project, department, business unit, etc. Unfortunately at some level politics / perception / who speaks the loudest always comes into play.