“Are you sure?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I answered.

“Then let’s go to sleep.”

The next day Jim came over and we wrote an agreement on notebook paper. The deal was done.

Jim wound up being a sensational president, probably the best in our industry. The headhunters are after him now, also. Just goes to show you, you can’t keep a good man down. If someone rises to the top in one field, it’s usually no accident. Put him in another, and he’ll rise there as well.

It’s all sort of logical when you think about it. Just find someone who’s shown a lot of promise in some sort of undertaking. Move him into your field, give him some support and love, and he’ll succeed for you. Success, in short, is an absolutely accurate predictor of who will succeed. That’s absolute rule No. 2. Oh, I forgot to mention absolute rule No. 1: There is no such thing in business as an absolute rule. Every rule has an exception.

Our most notable exception is Michael Fischberger, the most senior divisional manager in our company, and everyone’s universal choice as most decent human being on earth and the one least likely to succeed.

I mean, in terms of obvious lack of potential, it’s hard to top this guy. We hired him as a favor to his family. They were just happy for him to have an indoor job. Prior to his coming to us, he’d spent a couple of years working in construction, where he’d advanced from filling wheelbarrows to pushing them. Burdened by a learning disability that made school a nightmare for him, the only hint Fish ever gave of his future managerial cunning was in hiring older friends to sneak out of school and steal his report card, after the postman delivered it but before his parents got home. Even at this, though, he failed. He paid the thieves in advance, thus allowing them to stop for pizza before his tattletale sister arrived home and spotted the dismal report card in the box.

As a young person he started no business, chaired no organization, and captained no teams. From all reports (drawn largely from himself), his parents were already mourning over his failure before he’d even accomplished it. If ever a person was made to be the assistant of the assistant of the assistant manager of tech support, Fish was the man. And it was to that position we assigned him, hoping ardently we wouldn’t have to demote him lower.