5. Robert Nardelli of Chrysler

Persuading someone to hire him so quickly.

One would think that Robert Nardelli would be stuck reading the "Help Wanted" section for a while following his ignominious ouster from Home Depot. After all, an embarrassingly bloated pay package, poor stock performance, and abysmal shareholder relations are not exactly resume gold.

But in August, Cerberus made the surprising announcement that Nardelli would replace Thomas LaSorda as C.E.O. of Chrysler. However, Cerberus has learned from Home Depot's mistakes—Nardelli's base salary will be $1, and all compensation will be performance based.

6. Michael Dell of Dell Computer

Taking matters into his own hands ... again.

In the three years since Michael Dell turned his company, Dell Computer. over to Kevin Rollins, it began missing earnings, lost its lead in the P.C. market to Hewlett-Packard, and saw the start of an S.E.C. investigation for possible accounting improprieties.

It was, to say the least, an uncomfortable position for a company that until 2004 was mowing down its rivals as numero uno in P.C. sales, and gaining market share. So in January, Dell stepped back into the C.E.O. seat to fix what Rollins had broken.