The extra-poor men and the extra-good men always stick their heads up above the dead-level of good-enough men; the first to holler for help, and the second to get an extra reach.  And when your attention is attracted to one of these men, follow him up and find out just what sort of soil and fertilizer he needs to grow fastest.  It isn’t enough to pick likely stock; you’ve got to plant it where the conditions are right to develop its particular possibilities.  A fellow who’s got the making of a five-thousand-dollar office man in him may not sell enough lard to fry a half-portion of small potatoes if you put him on the road.  Praise judiciously given may act on one man like an application of our bone-meal to a fruit tree, and bring out all the pippins that are in the wood; while in the other it may simply result in his going all to top.

You mustn’t depend too much on the judgment of department heads and foremen when picking men for promotion.  Take their selection if he is the best man, but know for yourself that he is the best man.

Sometimes a foreman will play a favorite, and, as any fellow who’s been to the races knows, favorites ain’t always winners.  And sometimes, though not often, he’ll try to hold back a good man through jealousy.  When I see symptoms of a foreman’s being jealous of a man under him, that fellow doesn’t need any further recommendation to me.  A man’s never jealous of inferiority.

It’s a mighty valuable asset for a boss, when a vacancy occurs in a department, to be able to go to its head when he recommends Bill Smith for the position, and show that he knows all about Bill Smith from his number-twelve socks up to his six-and-a-quarter hat, and to ask:  “What’s the matter with Tom Jones for the job?” When you refuse to take something just as good in this world, you’ll usually find that the next time you call the druggist has the original Snicker’s Sassafras Sneezer in stock.

It’s mighty seldom, though, that a really good man will complain to you that he’s being held down, or that his superior is jealous of him.  It’s been my experience that it’s only a mighty small head that so small an idea as this can fill.  When a fellow has it, he’s a good deal like one of those girls with the fatal gift of beauty in her imagination, instead of her face—­always believing that the boys don’t dance with her because the other girls tell them spiteful things about her.

Besides always having a man in mind for any vacancy that may occur, you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who understand the work of each position in it.  Every business should be bigger than any one man.  If it isn’t, there’s a weak spot in it that will kill it in the end.  And every job needs an understudy.  Sooner or later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled head, and then, if there’s no one in the wings who knows her lines, the gallery will rotten-egg the show and howl for its money back.  Besides, it has a mighty chastening and stimulating effect on the star to know that if she balks there’s a sweet young thing in reserve who’s able and eager to go the distance.