This article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye: “Warren Buffett Further Reveals Succession Plan at Berkshire Hathaway” written by Nicole Friedman. The article discusses the two candidates identified by Warren Buffet as potential candidates to take over the top job at Berkshire Hathaway when he eventually retires. This article immediately made me think of Jack Welch’s First Rule that he describes in Winning. Welch describes the process of continuously evaluating your team members to identify development areas and areas where the team members are performing well. While Welch got a lot of flak for this principle of differentiation it is only through this process of differentiation that you could get to the point where someone like Warren Buffet can identify one or two people to take over.