I’d like to be able to screw up and be rewarded. How is it that some folks are able to do this consistently? Do you need to be super charismatic and charming? I bow to the teeming’s expertise… with help, there is no limit to how high I can fail!
Be born the scion of a politically connected family. You can probably screw up as much as possible and advance to remarkable heights.
Succeeding despite gross incompetance is called, “pulling a Homer” so I advise you watch a few episodes of the Simpsons and take some notes on how to put your wacky scheme into practice.
Master the art of appearing to accept full responsibility while shifting the blame onto someone else.
It helps to be enough of an arrogant asswipe, and working enough overtime doing so, that no one will ever dare question your dedication or competence.
Stab backs. Read Machiavelli. Scheme like your life depended on it, because it will. You don’t need to cultivate friends so much as you need to make people too afraid to be enemies.
I wish I knew - this is a constant source of discussion in the company I work in. VP’s who completely botch their jobs are given fabulous rewards, while the grunts (like myself) underneath them go nowhere.
I think it’s some sort of secret club, like the Masons… 
My husband told his boss that he was a fucking liar (that’s a quote) and a couple days later he gave him a bottle of Moet & Chandon.
Collect incriminating evidence on others. Of course, that would mean succeeding at collection of incriminating evidence.
Or fabricate convincing…
His boss gave him champagne or your husband gave his boss champagne after calling him a fucking liar? Peace offering? Or some sort of reward for calling it like it is?
Try collecting exculpatory evidence.
The boss gave my husband champagne after my husband called the boss a fucking liar. My husband also tells him his ideas suck and that he’s a drain on morale.
The boss also went on to royally ream another employee and asked him why he can’t be more like Mr K. The mind boggles, actually.
If only we could all be so lucky to have a masochistic boss. Boggle, it does. 
I don’t know anyone who screws up and then gets rewarded for it.
On the other hand, anyone who is unable to master the politics of their particular office is destined to not rise very far or find themselves out of a job.
It’s called Face Time. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Hell, you can be staring at a report without turning the page for three hours because you’re thinking about your next vacation or the episode of Lost you watched last night. All that matters is that you’re there at 6am - and making yourself plainly visible and saying good morning to the higher ups as they arrive, and you’re there at 7pm, phony papers in hand, saying good night as they leave.
Wow, that Bob is really busy. He’s working 70 hours a week. We should promote him!
Have no personal life or family, never get sick, never take a day off.
Arrange to be on “teams” where everyone else does the important stuff and you can do as little as possible. That way, you share responsibility for success, but you can avoid blame because you didn’t work on anything specific that the failure can be blamed on.
Once you reach the lowest rungs of management, steal the credit for your underling’s work and for their ideas. Simpy present everything that comes to you to your higher ups without any attribution. If it stinks, it obviously came from some underling. It it flies, you fly with it.
When you do fail and are called to account, completely ignore the negatives of the situation. Instead, talk about the lessons learned, the experience gained and how “invaluable” the whole thing was to the organization. In this way, you make your collosal mind numbing failures sound like grand positive learning experiences that will enrich the company. Spread blame in a positive sounding manner, undermining your team members and peers with faint praise and subtle damnation, preferably by pointing out how they could improve their efforts to make the next project succeed, or by suggesting reorganization of your rival’s departments to better serve your needs. This proves that you have the capacity to hold a higher position in the company, because you’re showing management ability beyond your limited position.
Just beware not to alienate anyone above you in your chain of command, or who might one day BE above you in your chain of command. Be friends with everyone above you! That knife stroke should be so soft and subtle that they never notice it until AFTER they’ve cleaned out their desk!
An extension of the face-time advice. Golf.
Read everything you can about George W. Bush.
Then get yourself adopted by Bush Senior and you’re good to go.
Be more like Cosmo Kramer. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating!
Working in a company is like joining and being in a college fraternity or on a high school sports team (which I realize many people in the SDMB were not). Your joining and success are contingent on demonstrating that you embody that values of that organization. Not only that, each level and group withing the company is like it’s own fraternity within a fraternity.
For example, to make management in my last job had little to nothing to do with your actual accomplishments or achievements. Oh you have to do your job. That’s a given in any job. But whether you got promoted or not was based on whether the current managers liked you enough to recommend you for promotion. And getting them to like you was easy. Just answer their emails and calls any time day or night. Work late whenever they asked. Keep their clients happy. Go out drinking with them like you are still in college and show up to their various holiday barbeques, parties, and birthday bashes as if they were your actual friends. Always be positive and happy and enthusiastic. Fail to do any one of those and during your review time, you will be described as “a hard worker but not ready for promotion.” Demonstrate that you are one of them and they will induct you into their little fraternity.
Of course that is the hard part. You can’t “make” someone like you. It becomes difficult to hide your frustration and anger when your manager gives projects to the incompetant jerk he goes to the strip club with every week. Or just simply putting up with their bullshit for months at a time.