And she watches her back.
            
One day, a few months later, her boss rolls into her office with a production order. It's for a large quantity of product. More than usual.
            
Nancy obliges, and then forgets about it.
            
A few days later, his boss calls her to a meeting. He's fuming.
            
It turns out -- someone botched the production order, and they now have several hundred units of excess inventory, and the company is severely over budget. Someone's head is going to roll for this.
            
What happened next shocked Nancy to her core.
            
He pulled out a production order, one that Nancy's boss had given him, and it had different numbers on it! He'd set Nancy up to fail -- very publicly.
            
Now, I told you earlier that Nancy watched her back.
            
As luck would have it, she had the original production order with her, in her pocket. And when she pulled it out, it clearly had her boss's handwriting on it. So she dodged a bullet on this occasion. But it gave her a rude awakening.
            
Nancy learned something valuable that day:
            
Corporate life isn't fair. Often, it's the best people -- the ones who perform to the best of their ability and contribute value, without brown-nosing or getting involved in office politics -- who get trampled over and set up to fail.
            
That day, Nancy made a decision.
            
She decided to never again put herself in a position where she's vulnerable to those kinds of dirty tricks. She decided to build a reputation for herself as someone her boss's boss couldn't live without.
            
Fast forward about a year later:
            
She was a diamond. Top management acknowledged that she was the best production manager in the company. When other managers struggled to get the best out of their staff, they'd send them to Nancy -- so she could straighten them out and get them performing at a high level.
            
In fact, this is how Nancy got into management consulting. She wanted to help other "quiet achievers" get the recognition and respect they deserve.