His father, a Swiss immigrant, was a midlevel manager for Ford Motor Co.

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Peer influence, whether you're a teenage girl trying to figure out what to wear to junior high on Monday morning or a midlevel manager at Morgan Stanley, is a powerful indicator of what you think is possible for yourself.

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The Science of Success is short on concrete examples, and Koch acknowledges that implementing his Market Based Management can be difficult because of the hazy connection between, say, property rights and the day-to-day decisions of a midlevel manager in charge of a fertilizer plant.

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