To add more context from the Harvard Business Review article:

  > "Laura, our bookkeeper, was bright, hardworking, and 
  > creative. She’d been very important to our early growth,
  > having devised a system for accurately tracking movie 
  > rentals so that we could pay the correct royalties. But
  > now, as a public company, we needed CPAs and other fully 
  > credentialed, deeply experienced accounting professionals
  > —and Laura had only an associate’s degree from a 
  > community college. Despite her work ethic, her track 
  > record, and the fact that we all really liked her, her 
  > skills were no longer adequate. Some of us talked about
  > jury-rigging a new role for her, but we decided that 
  > wouldn’t be right."

(edit: To point out the obvious, in this scenario there was no argument that Laura was an "A Player", just that for her to become an experienced CPA would be a multi-year process, and the company needed a CPA immediately. The options the company has are thus:

A: Put Laura into a job that doesn't add any value to the company, and encourage Laura to retrain as a CPA. It's possible that Laura might be perfectly happy as a bookkeeper, and might not want to retrain. Also since the company needs a CPA immediately, the CPA job isn't guaranteed to be open if Laura finally does retrain, so the company would be asking for a big commitment from Laura with no promised reward at the end.

B: Give Laura a generous severance and a great reference, and help her find a job that is a reasonable "next step" for her in her career.)