Analyzing Character Part 7

Thus the personal equation is glorified and mystified. But men who really have this valuable Something seldom make much mystery about it. They insist it is largely a matter of common sense, which everyone ought to have at their disposal.

[Footnote 4: Henry Altemus Company, Philadelphia.]

The personal equation has an interesting way of raising moral issues.

One morning in August, 1863, a young clergyman was called out of bed in a hotel at Lawrence, Kansas. The man who called him was one of Quantrell's guerrillas, and he wanted him to hurry downstairs, and be shot. All over the border town that morning people were being murdered. A band of raiders had ridden in early to perpetrate the Lawrence ma.s.sacre.

The guerrilla who called the clergyman was impatient. The latter, when fully awake, was horrified by what he saw going on through his window. As he came downstairs the guerrilla demanded his watch and money, and then wanted to know if he was an abolitionist. The clergyman was trembling. But he decided that if he was to die then and there, it would not be with a lie on his lips. So he said, yes, he was, and followed up the admission with a remark that immediately turned the whole affair into another channel.

He and the guerrilla sat down on the porch, while people were being killed through the town, and had a long talk. It lasted until the raiders were ready to leave. When the clergyman's guerrilla mounted to join his confederates he was strictly on the defensive. He handed back the New Englander's valuables and apologized for disturbing him, and asked to be thought well of.

That clergyman lived many years after the Lawrence ma.s.sacre. What did he say to the guerrilla? What was there in his personality that led the latter to sit down and talk? What did they talk about?

'Are you a Yankee abolitionist?' the guerrilla had asked.

'Yes--I am,' was the reply, 'and you know very well that you ought to be ashamed of what you're doing.'

This drew the matter directly to a moral issue. It brought the guerrilla up roundly. The clergyman was only a stripling beside this seasoned border ruffian. But he threw a burden of moral proof on to the raider, and in a moment the latter was trying to demonstrate that he might be a better fellow than circ.u.mstances would seem to indicate.

After waking this New Englander to kill him on account of his politics, he spent twenty minutes on the witness stand trying to prove an alibi. He went into his personal history at length. He explained matters from the time when he had been a tough little kid who wouldn't say his prayers, and became quite sentimental in recalling how one thing had led to another, and that to something worse, and so on, until--well, here he was, and a mighty bad business to be in, pardner. His last request, in riding away, was: 'Now, pardner, don't think too hard of me, will you?'

The personal equation is eternally throwing the burden of proof on the people it controls, and forever raising moral issues. The man who has it may operate by no definite plan, just as this clergyman had none for saving his own life. But he will be a confidence man of the most subtle character. His capacity for expecting things of those under him will be tremendous. Subordinates may never have demanded much of themselves. But for him they will accomplish wonders, just because he expects them to.

Three men were placed at the foreman's desk of a growing factory. Each had technical knowledge enough to run a plant three times the size. But all failed. The first was an autocrat, who tried to boss from a pedestal, and the men didn't like him. The next was a politician, whom the men liked thoroughly--which was his shortcoming, for he tried to run the place as they thought it should be run. As for the third, he tried to run it on nerves, to do everything himself, to be everywhere at once. He didn't fail, really--he snapped like a fiddle-string. By that time working tension was relaxed and production wabbling on the down-peak. n.o.body knew who was in charge, or what would happen.

Then along came a fourth candidate, with an abnormally developed b.u.mp of expectation. He knew how to approve and encourage. Sometimes he said pleasantly: 'I knew you could do that, Bill,' Again, he put it ironically: 'I didn't think you had it in you.' But his strong point was expectation. With apparent recklessness he gave out work two sizes too large for everybody. If a subordinate was a No. 7 man he handed him a No.

9 job as a matter of course, and usually the latter grew up to it. The politician had tried this same scheme, but introduced it backward. Taking a No. 7 man into a corner, he told him impressively that he was a No. 9 and promoted him on the spot, and warned him to say nothing about it to anybody else. Then the man tried to swell to fit the office instead of growing to fit the work. But this fourth candidate made everybody see that doing No. 9 was more creditable than just being it. So everybody became interested in the work, and nothing else.

There was another suggestive point. Taking charge after three foremen had failed, the factory was naturally full of nasty cliques, each with its unhealthy private interest. The new man broke up these cliques by introducing a new interest so big that it swallowed all the little interests, like Aaron's rod. That interest was to turn out work of such quality and in such quant.i.ties that the factory could get contracts in compet.i.tion with an older rival, and provide steady employment.

That this faculty for putting people under obligation is more the man than a method, however, is shown in one of Daudet's delightful little sketches, the story of a head clerk in a French Government bureau who, on getting a fine promotion, wrote home to his father describing his new chief's homely appearance with light-hearted raillery. Next morning on his desk lay his own letter, initialed by his chief. It had been intercepted by the secret service. The chief allowed him to suffer in apprehension one day, and then told him that his indiscretion should rest between themselves. 'Try to make me forget it,' he said, and the incident hung like a dagger over the clerk's head.

Some time after, the latter caught one of his own subordinates stealing from the cash box, and repeated his superior's tactics, even to the formula, 'Try to make me forget it.' With tears in his eyes the subordinate thanked him for his clemency--and a few days later, rifled the safe and fled! The moral of which seems to be that, if the clerk had been enough of a judge of men to use his chief's method effectively, he would never have fallen into the asininity of writing such a letter.

"Those who complain that it is impossible to win the confidence of subordinates might observe the extremely simple fashion in which the man with this Something does the trick--by giving people his own confidence first.

"He has the knack, not only of interesting others, but of keeping up his own interest; in fact, he is often so absorbed in his existence, his work, and the people around him that he is not aware that there is such a malady as lack of interest.

"He has a heartiness and vitality and geniality quite characteristic, or a misanthropy that is hearty, vital, and optimistic--geniality inside out.

The milk of human kindness sometimes comes in a dry form."

THE MAN OF SUPREME ABILITY

In his valuable treatise on "The Twelve Principles of Efficiency,"[5] Mr.

Harrington Emerson says:

Industrial plants remind me of automobiles. The plants themselves may be more or less good, but on what kind of roads are they running? The philosophy of efficiency is for an industrial plant--for any enterprise, activity, or undertaking--what a network of good roads is for automobiles.

Undoubtedly, even on poor roads, automobiles may make some progress, but the worse the road, the more elementary must be the means of locomotion.

[Footnote 5: The Engineering Magazine Company, New York.]

Railroads, high-roads, by-roads, bridle-paths, footpaths, mountain climbs!

The unlettered mountaineer of all countries is the best man for the last, and it takes the best kind of trained climbing expert to emulate him; but as the road is improved shoes are exchanged for horses, horses for bicycles, a change from one kind of muscular effort to another; bicycles for automobiles, automobiles for railroad trains, both these latter using incarnate energy instead of muscular or incarnate energy. The all-round skill of the mountaineer becomes the subdivided, specialized skill of many different men, who are supplemented with increasingly complex equipment.

The philosophy of efficiency is to be used to build roads along which any organization can travel with the least friction and the greatest advantage, and the more ramified and involved the business, the more is the philosophy needed.

However, no highly complex automobile, even with the best network of roads, can make any great progress unless in the hands of a skilled directing intelligence; no highly complex human enterprise, though it uses all the principles of efficiency, can make any great progress unless guided by a skilled intelligence.

On personality, on the wisdom of the individual, whether locomotive engineer or von Moltke, whether the manager of a plant employing ten men or Judge Gary, chairman of the board of the gigantic Steel Corporation, will depend the ultimate value of all that creative physical or philosophical ability has brought together.

Recently there was submitted to me in the office of one of Chicago's greatest businesses the draft of its organization. No man can pa.s.s on the merits of the details of a complicated organization without long and intimate acquaintance with its workings. Seeing the plan of the Chicago plant, pressed for a suggestion, I said: 'Your chart is upside down; the president belongs at the bottom, sustaining and carrying, through his organization, all the operations of the plant. Because he is in supreme authority he has the responsibility of making available for everyone, down to the tool, all the wisdom in the universe in order that each may fulfil perfectly its special duty and task.'

Whether on the grounds of Long Branch, on the desert trail, in a section, department, division, or plant of a great manufacturing concern or railroad; whether on the deck of a battleship or on a battlefield, what is wanted is a leader who can swing and manage what has been entrusted to him.

It has become the fashion in history to decry the strong-man theory, to turn for understanding to evolution, to explain the strong man as the inevitable accident of the moment. There is evolution; there comes, at last, opportunity, but only rarely does the strong man arise; hence we have England, not Norway or Sweden or Holland; hence we have Prussia, not Saxony; Germany, not Russia; Italy, not Portugal; France, not Spain; j.a.pan, not Siam or Korea.

In 1536 was born in j.a.pan an undersized, monkey-faced boy of good but poor parentage, who, at the age of thirteen, resolved to make himself the chief power in the distracted kingdom. For 200 years the militant barons had warred against each other, each trying to grab, annex, and hold what he could.

The boy, Hideyoshi, deliberately visited the different courts, picked out the baron he thought most endowed with suitable character, succeeded with great difficulty in entering his service in the humblest position, and then steadily and inevitably rose, firstly because he could read human character and always knew almost as soon as they did themselves what his and his lord's enemies were plotting, and secondly, because he was always prepared in advance for any undertaking and skilled in carrying out. Thus, when scarcely more than a child, he reduced the cost of firewood used in the palace to less than one-half; a little later he rebuilt the castle walls in three days, a task estimated as requiring sixty days; again, single-handed, he secured provinces that armies had failed to conquer.

By gifts of tact, of insight, of diligence, of readiness, that each one of us thinks he possesses, that any one of Nippon's 30,000,000 inhabitants might have possessed and exercised, Hideyoshi rose, step by step, until he directed and guided the whole country, his general, Iyeyasu, becoming the first of the Tokugawa dynasty, which lasted from 1603 to 1867, with headquarters at Yeddo (Tokyo).

Temuchin, Jenghis Khan, born in a tent in 1162, son of a petty Mongolian chieftain, succeeded his father when only thirteen years old. Many of the tribes immediately rebelled, but Temuchin held his own in battle and in counsel against open enemies and insidious traitors, until his empire extended from the China Sea to the frontier of Poland--an empire larger than modern Russia, the largest the world has ever seen.

The man of supreme ability is the one who has supernal ideals, who recognizes and uses those underlying principles without which human effort is futile, its results ephemeral. The man of supreme ability is the one who can create and control an organization founded on and using principles to attain and maintain ideals, who then is able to a.s.semble for the use of his organization the incidentals of land, of men and money (Labor and Capital), of buildings and equipment, of methods and devices. All these incidentals make for volume, for quant.i.ty, for man's work instead of woman's work, but they do not make for the spirit, nor for the quality, nor for the excellence of work.

THE ELEMENTS OF EXECUTIVE ABILITY

We have quoted thus at length from Mr. Collins and Mr. Emerson to show the inbornness, so to speak, of real executive ability. The art of handling men depends upon certain inherent apt.i.tudes plus a certain amount of the right kind of training. A very large cla.s.s of executives lacks the apt.i.tude; a still larger cla.s.s lacks the right kind of training. It is possible, of course, to give training to those who have the apt.i.tude. It is impossible to give training which will make efficient executives of those who are deficient in the natural apt.i.tudes. The result of all this is that we have a very large cla.s.s of misfits; men who, for some reason or other, have been promoted into executive positions and who do not have the proper qualifications. These men suffer; those under them suffer; those who employ them suffer.

Some men are too active themselves ever to be good directors of the activities of other men. They cannot sit back quietly and direct others.

They demand expression in action. They are, therefore, always thrusting aside their subordinates and doing the thing themselves, because they lack the ability to teach others to do the work and to do it correctly. When such men are compelled to wait for others to accomplish things, they grow irritable, impatient, and lose control of themselves and, therefore, of the situation. They are not ideal executives and do not, as a general rule, rise to very high executive positions. They ought not to attempt to do executive work.

There are others who are too easy-going to command men. They permit their men to get too close to them, and they feel too sympathetic toward them.

They are likely, also, to be partial, not to demand or exact enough, and, therefore, their departments are always behind, never quite coming up to quota.

TWO TYPES OF EXECUTIVES

There are two distinct types of executives. There is the impatient, driving, quick, keen, positive, irritable type. This man can get good results from a certain type of worker, but he only irritates, frightens, and drives to sullen resistance other types. The other is the mild, kindly, persuasive, patient, enduring, persistent, determined type of executive, who wins his success by attracting to himself the intense loyalty and devotion of his men. Both types are successful, but they are successful with different kinds of men. The employer who selects executives, therefore, needs to bear this in mind, and to select the right type of men to work under his various lieutenants. On the other hand, men who take executive positions should see that they secure for themselves the type of workers from whom they can secure results. This will not be easy, because, as a general rule, an executive tends to surround himself with men of his own type, which is usually a mistake. Men, in selecting positions, should also bear this truth in mind. They should know the kind of executive under whom they can do their best work, and, if at all possible, work under this kind of superior officer.

SLAVES TO MACHINERY

In an earlier chapter of this book we referred to the type of boy or girl who is too restless to study, to continue in school; who is eager to begin his life work; who therefore leaves school at an early age and takes up some work for which he is then fitted, but which, in after life, he finds to be uncongenial and unprofitable. As a general rule, such individuals are ambitious--oftentimes exceedingly ambitious. They find, as they grow older, however, that they have not sufficient education and training to enable them to realize their ambitions. Thousands upon thousands of these condemn themselves to mere unskilled manual labor.

It is not to be wondered at that these boys and girls leave school, because in school they are compelled to sit quietly and to try to learn things in which they are not interested out of dry, unprofitable books.

Such pupils need to spend a great part of their time out-of-doors. They can be thus taught far more easily, will take a greater interest in their studies, and can gain both knowledge and skill which will be more valuable to them in the world of work. They also need to be taught indoors manual training, domestic science, printing, laundry work, scientific horticulture, scientific agriculture, dairying, and many other such branches. The recently projected vocational schools, continuation schools, half-time schools, and other such contrivances for giving the boy or the girl an opportunity to learn a useful trade while he is mastering the three R's, are a very important and valuable step in the right direction; With an opportunity thus to find expression for his mechanical ability and his great activity, the boy will be encouraged to remain longer in school.

Those who have left school at an early age on account of restlessness should take very seriously to heart the fates of tens of thousands of men and women before them who have done the same thing and who have made a failure of their lives, because they did not have sufficient education and training with which to realize their aspirations.