Analyzing Character Part 37

ADVANTAGE OF PERSUADER'S POSITION

In closing this chapter, we cannot forego the opportunity for a word of counsel to you in your efforts to persuade others. Remember that if you do your work well in securing favorable attention, arousing interest, and creating desire, the person with whom you are dealing is like a man standing on one foot, not quite knowing which way he will go. Even if he is more or less obstinate and should be on both his feet, he is at least standing still and considering which direction he will take. If this is not true, then you have failed to create a desire, or, having created it, have not augmented it until it is strong enough. But, granting that this is true, do you not see what an advantage it gives you? The man who is standing on one foot, undecided, is quickly pulled or pushed in the way you want him to go if you yourself vigorously desire it. Even the man who stands obstinately on both feet is at a disadvantage if he does not know which way to go, and you very decidedly know which way you want him to go.

THE VALUE OF COURAGE

We have seen more sales skillfully brought up to the point of desire and then lost through the indecision, the wavering, the fear, or the hesitation of the salesman than for any other one cause. Of all of the qualities and characteristics which contribute to success in the persuasion of others, there is, perhaps, none more powerful than that courage which gives calmness, surety of touch, decisiveness, and unwavering, unhesitating action.

Some years ago we saw a huge mob surround a building in which a political speaker was trying to talk upon an unpopular subject. The longer the mob remained waiting for their victim to come out, the more violent and the more abusive it became. There was an angry hum, sounding above the occasional cries and shouts, which betokened trouble. Presently a large man scrambled upon the pedestal of a statue in front of the building and began to harangue the crowd. He argued with them, he pleaded with them, he threatened them, he tried to cajole them. But through it all he could scarcely make himself heard and the mob remained solidly packed about the door. Then the police were brought and attempted to force a pa.s.sageway for the escape of the speaker, whose address inside the building was nearing a close. But the police were powerless and some of them were badly hurt.

Then a quiet little man came down the steps of the building. He was dressed in ordinary clothing and was unarmed. His open hands hung idly at his side. He stood near the bottom step, where he could just look over the heads of the crowd. He stood perfectly still, perfectly calm, and yet with a look of such iron resolution on his countenance as we have seldom seen.

Those next him grew strangely quiet. Then the semi-circle of silence spread until the entire mob stood as if holding its breath waiting to see what this man would do.

"Make a pa.s.sageway there," he said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice; "there is a carriage coming through."

Instantly the crowd parted, a carriage was driven up to the steps, the speaker came down and entered it, and it was driven rapidly away, followed only by a few hisses and cat-calls.

When all is said and done, that is the spirit which secures the decision and action of others.

CHAPTER V

EFFICIENT AND SATISFACTORY SERVICE

Marshall Nyall was an excellent workman. He was keen, quick of comprehension, practical in his judgment, and unusually resourceful. He was energetic, industrious, and skillful. Being blessed with considerable idealism, he took pride and pleasure in putting a fine artistic finish on everything he did. He studied his work in all its aspects and was alert in finding ways of saving time, materials, energy, and money. He was, therefore, personally efficient. As an employee of the Swift Motor Company, he rose rapidly until he became superintendent. In that position he made a good record. So valuable was he that the White Rapids Motor Company coveted him and its president and general manager began to lay plans to entice him away. Negotiations were begun and continued over a period of weeks. Larger and larger grew the inducements offered by the White Rapids Motor Company until, finally, Nyall's employers felt that they could not afford to meet them any longer, and this highly efficient man became works manager for the White Rapids Motor Company, at a very greatly increased salary.

Now, the White Rapids Motor Company was larger and wealthier than the Swift Motor Company. The position of works manager was a more important and responsible position than that of superintendent. Nyall was accordingly delighted and had high ambitions as to his career with his new employers.

HOW THE TROUBLE STARTED

"You have a reputation," said the president and general manager to Nyall, "for efficiency. Efficiency is what we want in the works here, and if you can put these factories on as efficient a basis as you did the shops of the Swift Motor Company, your future is a.s.sured."

"I can do that all right, Mr. Burton," Nyall replied confidently, "provided I get the right kind of co-operation from the front office."

"Call on us for anything you want, Nyall," returned the president sharply.

He was a proud, positive man. He loved power. He had the ability to lead and to rule, and he resented even the slightest imputation that any lack of co-operation on his part might defeat his plans for efficient management.

A few days later Nyall made some changes in the plan of routing the work through the factories. These changes were rather radical and sweeping and necessitated a considerable initial expense. Naturally, Burton was not long in hearing about it. Instantly he summoned his works manager.

"Haven't you begun your work here in a rather drastic manner?" he inquired. "Surely you have not studied this situation carefully enough in a few days to justify you in making such sweeping changes in the system which we have built up here after years of patient study and research. I have given the routing of the work through the factories days and nights of careful study, Nyall, during the years that we have been standardizing it. I believe that it was just as nearly perfect as it can be just as we had it."

"Your system was all wrong, and I can prove it to you," returned Nyall.

"Just wait a minute until I bring you in my charts."

RUBBING IT IN

Stepping into his office, he secured a number of charts and also several sheets of tabulated figures. The charts were beautifully executed and in a most admirable manner made graphically clear the sound reasoning upon which Nyall had ordered the changes made. The tabulated figures proved that his reasoning had been correct. He was positive, forceful, and insistent in driving home his argument and in compelling his superior to admit their force and cogency. When it was all admitted and Burton, fighting to the last ditch, had been over-whelmed, Nyall's unconcealed air of triumph was keenly and painfully exasperating to the defeated man.

This was only the first of the clashes between these two positive minds.

Ordinarily, perhaps, Burton would have preferred efficiency in the factory to the triumph of his own opinions and ideas, much as it hurt him to be found in error, But Nyall's disposition to wring the last drop of personal triumph out of every victory was more than the good man could endure. With his highly-strung nature, and goaded as he was by intense irritation, the pa.s.sion to prove Nyall in the wrong overrode all other considerations.

Thus he began to "cut off his nose to spite his face," as Nyall expressed it--to conspire against Nyall's success.

If you have ever witnessed a fight for supremacy between two positive, powerful, high-strung natures, with unusual resources of intellect and capacity on both sides, we do not need to describe to you what happened in the White Rapids Motor Company during the months that followed. Nyall simply could not understand why Burton should jeopardize the success, and even the solvency, of his enterprise by plotting against his own works manager. To his friends he confided: "Honestly, I think the old man is going crazy. The things he says and the things he does are not the product of a sane, normal mind." Similarly, Burton could not understand, to save his life, why Nyall should jeopardize the brilliant future which lay before him "by bucking his president and general manager," as he put it.

"It is rule or ruin with him," he told his friends. "I never saw a more stubborn man in my life. He is crazy to have his own way. He wants to take the bit in his teeth, and if he were permitted to do it, he would run away and smash himself and everything else."

BOTH BELLIGERENT AND STUBBORN

Why did not Nyall resign or, in default of his resignation, why did not Burton discharge him? Such action was obvious for both men from a mere common sense point of view, under the circ.u.mstances. The answer is that both men were so obstinate and so set upon winning the fight upon which they had entered, that neither of them would give up. It all ended when the board of directors finally took a hand and removed Nyall in order to save the inst.i.tution from shipwreck.

Naturally enough, the word went out that Nyall could not stand prosperity; that when placed in a position of authority and responsibility, he had lost his head and had nearly wrecked the concern for which he worked. He found that he could not go back to his old position with the Swift Motor Company and that his reputation had suffered so seriously that he had to be satisfied for a long time with a minor position in a rather obscure concern.

THE KEY TO THE DIFFICULTY

Nyall was efficient--unusually efficient--but he did not give satisfaction with the White Rapids Motor Company. Perhaps we do not need to point to the moral of this tale. If Nyall had understood his superior and had conducted himself accordingly, he might himself have been president and general manager of the White Rapids Motor Company to-day. He would have known that Burton was not a man to be brow-beaten, not a man to be defied, not a man to be proven in the wrong. With a little tact and diplomacy, he could have effected all of the changes he wished without even the semblance of a clash with his chief. He might even have insisted upon the first ones he advocated without serious trouble if he had done it in the right way and if he had not permitted his feeling of personal triumph to show itself so plainly.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

In the first place, if he had known Burton as he should, he would have gone to him before making any changes and said: "Mr. Burton, I understand that you have given a great deal of time and thought to the routing of work through the factories; that you have personally directed the building up of the present system. I usually begin my work by studying the routing, but if you feel satisfied with this routing, as a result of your study; and experience, I will devote my time to something else." Approached in this way, Burton would unquestionably have directed the new works manager to make a complete study of the routing system and to suggest any possible improvements.

This story is typical of many others which we have observed more or less in detail. Nyall was a great success in the Swift Motor Company because the chief executive of that company was a little mild, good-natured, easy-going fellow, who not only needed the spur and stimulus of a positive nature like Nyall's, but was quite frankly delighted with it. If Nyall had approached him with questions and suggestions and a spirit of constant bowing to his authority, he would have been as exasperated in his own quiet way as Burton was with the opposite treatment. His constant injunction to his subordinates was: "Do not come to me with details. Use your own judgment and initiative. Go ahead. Do it in your own way. I hold you responsible only for results."

ALWAYS "SOME OTHER WAY"

In his "Message to Garcia," Elbert Hubbard has the following to say:

"You, reader, put this matter to a test:

"You are sitting now in your office--six clerks are within call. Summon any one of them and make this request: 'Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.'

"Will the clerk quietly say, 'Yes, sir,' and go do the task?

"On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

"'Who was he?'

"'Which encyclopedia?'

"'Where is the encyclopedia?'

"'Was I hired for that?'