___, and never let any other company take control

• A. Maintain your autonomy
• B. Aim for high efficiency and productivity
• C. Reward employees only on the basis of merits
• D. Outsource decision making

Answer: (A)

Preserving control over your own decisions is what this line is about. Keeping your autonomy means you set the direction, make strategic calls, and operate without someone else overstepping you. That directly matches the idea of never letting another company take control—you stay in charge. The other ideas focus on performance, how you reward people, or shifting decision power to others, but none of them inherently protect your control in the way autonomy does. Outsourcing decision making, for example, would introduce external influence, not prevent it. So maintaining autonomy is the best fit because it directly embodies keeping control and independence.