Chapter - 12

Success Is Your Birthright

Life And Progress Are Inseparable

Every historical fact confirms the creativeness of man and glorifies his efforts to improve himself, often against pathetic odds. Both in the Old and New Testaments are many references to the joys of work. Socrates said, "He is idle who might be better employed." Lowell said, "No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him." And by way of bringing these and countless supporting sayings up to date, Dale Carnegie said, "If you don't find happiness in your work, you may never find it anywhere."

At the same time, Myron Clark, past president of the Society for the Advancement of Management had to report more recently, "More than eighty per cent of our working people are in jobs which do not use their best abilities, and which, therefore, do not provide the satisfactions associated with success."

The appalling feature of Mr. Clark's statement is that it caused few raised eyebrows. That 80 per cent of our people should be functioning on their lesser abilities has been true for so many centuries that it is taken for granted, and what is taken for granted is seldom a cause for action. Yet as I pointed out earlier, the man in a job that uses his lesser abilities has to strain himself to the utmost to turn out a mediocre performance, while the man using his best abilities sails through his work with built-in efficiency and satisfaction.

Some day in the not too distant future, the tremendous increase in productivity that can be ours when 80 per cent of the people are using their best abilities will become apparent to all. Then a veritable Manhattan Project of scientists, economists, humanists and industrialists will be turned loose to discover how to release this greatest source of power ever put on earth. A power for peace, production, and universal happiness.

You're On Your Own

In the meantime, it is still each man largely for himself, and to the man who knows what his best abilities are, and uses them, goes the success. That is true regardless of his age, religion, color, education, or current position on the status totem pole. And that is why this book details the procedures by which a man can come to know his best abilities, his Dynamic Success Factors, and use them to make a habit of success.

I believe that in order to feel alive, a man must feel that he is growing, that he is continuously becoming more useful. The alternative—working day after day and year after year at routine tasks merely to keep his physical husk alive—is a form of occupational vegetating that dulls both the mind and the spirit. That kind of work is penal servitude for ambition, and when ambition sees itself sentenced to serve 20 or more years of drudgery before achieving the success of Social Security, it just curls up and quits.

Yet most people trapped in jobs unworthy of their talents claim that security is their goal, and that in attaining a secure job they have achieved success. Don't ever believe it. In today's changing times, jobs that have been "secure" for decades may be declared obsolete tomorrow. Government bureaus are swept by economy waves or "streamlined for greater efficiency"; a newly-elected mayor may be the new broom that makes a clean sweep through the old-timers at city hall; old line companies merge with new companies and whole departments are abolished; and always, of course, there is the chance that the vagaries of health may demand a change of climate. Occupational security exists only when confidence in one's known abilities exists.

Probably the most insidious result of "secure" work is the wilting effect that it has on your best abilities. At first a man may feel frustrated at not using his best abilities, but as time passes, and he "gets used to the work," he eases his frustrations by "making the best of it." In this form of rationalization, he elevates the minor abilities he uses on the job to the status of his best abilities, and his unused best abilities simply wither away from neglect. When this process continues over a period of years, the unfortunate man has so mentally soothed his frustrations that he no longer wants to use his best abilities because he has "forgotten" he has them.

To some extent this withering effect takes place even on a job that may use two or three of your Dynamic Success Factors. Those that are unused lie dormant. But they don't die. When you seek them out through an analysis of your achievements, and revive them with attention they will flourish to make you the complete person you want to be. And in the process you may discover some success factors so long dormant that you didn't know you had them.

It is only through being your best self that you can live up to your potentialities. When every morning you can face the day filled with expectation instead of resignation, you are well on the way to performing at your best. The added factor is that what is best for you is best for the others around you. The successful man is not he who gets ahead by climbing over others, but he who gets ahead by producing the values that are of service to others.

Don't Knock Your Competitor

Remember that you will not be the only one who is producing services of value. Whenever a choice job opens up, you can count on facing some stiff competition in your efforts to land it. In many cases the rivalry can be a bitter, dog-eat-dog affair in which more reputations are destroyed than built. No one profits from such a struggle. In that respect I am reminded of the executive who had three men struggling fiercely for a top spot. "I had to hire a man from outside," he told me. "If I had promoted one of the three, the other two would have quit rather than work for him. Then I would have had to hire three new credit men instead of one new credit manager."

Competitors are really cooperators. You can be sure that if no one else wants the job, it is not apt to be much good. When the rivalry is keen, you are inspired to try with the best that's in you, and if that is not enough, you are inspired to strengthen what you've got for a better try next time. If no one is competing with you, if you never have to dig to find the best that's in you, you may never know just how good your best might be. Never worry about the competition. Worry produces fear and hate, and fear and hate can take up so much room in your mind and so color your thinking that you can't present your best side at all.

Raymond Carmody's case presents a typical example. He was one of three regional sales managers being considered to replace the retiring national sales manager. He was doing everything possible to prepare himself for the job, including coming to me for counsel. I could agree with that line of reasoning, but Carmody hadn't talked to me five minutes before I could see that he was more worried about what the manager of the western division would do than what he could do himself. I think he expected me to produce some trick to circumvent his rival.

After he had completed the procedures described in this book, his confidence in himself was foremost in his mind, but his resentment of Henderson, the western division man, had in no way diminished.

"All right," I said. "You have analyzed the functions of the national sales manager's job, and you have agreed that the most important function is to build and lead the best sales team possible. Where does Henderson fit into this team?"

"I don't care where he fits in," said Carmody, his resentment flaring up. "He can quit if he wants to, and I hope he does."
"Yet you say he is an excellent salesman. Is he better than you?"

Carmody calmed down, and after a moment he gave me an honest answer. "No, though his sales top mine for some months. On a year-round average, however, my sales are ahead of his."

"In that case," I said, "I don't think you should get the national sales manager's job."

Carmody looked at me as though he had been betrayed, but before he could release his rage I said, "Any national sales manager who doesn't care whether a top regional manager quits or not isn't very interested in his team."

A long silence, and the rage Carmody had built up faded away. "I get it," he said. "He's a good man, and I’ll need him if I get the job. Now what do I do?"

We helped him develop a sales management program which could lead to a more effective use of Henderson and the other members of the team. When the three rivals were called in by the president, one at a time, to present their qualifications for the job, Carmody was the only one with a written program that included a plan for the continued cooperation of the team.

He got the job. Furthermore, having stressed Henderson's excellent sales record in his program, he won that salesman around to his side, albeit not overnight. But by sending memoranda of appreciation every time Henderson completed a good sale—with a carbon copy to the president—he turned the once bitter rivalry into lasting friendship, proving once again that if you want others to see good in you, first see the good in others, and let them know you see it.

The Chinese have a proverb that reads: "A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers." This also goes for the verbal or written bouquet. Say something nice to someone, and a bit of its niceness will cling to you. We say that you can't get something for nothing in this life, as negative a statement as ever was made. The positive side of it, equally true, is that you can't give something for nothing. The man who finds good things to say about others will find others saying good things about him. And while one man saying a good thing to another is only one man expressing an opinion, when a lot of men begin saying good things about one man, you've got a consensus.

Alvin Dorset discovered the truth of the above paragraph by what he called at first a "revolting experiment." He had an excellent job with an excellent company, but as he explained it, "There's one guy in that office I just can't stomach, I don't know what there is about him, but just having him seated two desks away is enough to ruin my day. He's become such an obsession with me that either I quit or I'm going to slug him one of these days and get fired. At least that way I'll get severance pay."

Alvin completed the procedures described in this book be-for I returned again to the object of his personal animus. Then I said, "Mr. Dorset, I know you did a lot of soul-searching when you began listing your achievements and analyzing them. But you did locate your Dynamic Success Factors, and you know they are being used effectively in your present job. Now this chap seated two desks away—don't you suppose there must be something good about him that enables him to function well enough to hold a job in your line of work?"

"What do you want me to do?" asked Dorset bitterly, "analyze his achievements and make him successful? Why, I'd—"

"Not at all," I interrupted quickly. "But you told me that you didn't know what there was about him that you didn't like. I suggest you find out, remembering, of course, to look for the good points that count, and not the weak. Oh, I know that in football they say to hunt for the weak points in the line, and run the plays through there, but you can be sure that the coach who uses that strategy has spent many a nervous hour analyzing all the strong points first. He knows his opponent isn't winning games by featuring weak points in the line, and your friend isn't holding down a good job with weaknesses and mistakes. If he didn't have any good points there, he wouldn't be there, either."

"How revolting can you get?" said Dorset. But the idea of seeking some good points in his hated office-mate intrigued him. He became more intrigued when he discovered a couple of points that made his associate look almost human. These are the points that are always invisible when you are looking only for the bad, just as success becomes almost invisible when you study only mistakes. To find more good points, Dorset struck up a coffee-break conversation with his associate that was resumed the next day. After a week of this the associate said, "Dorset, I had you pegged for one of those look-down-the-nosers' that I can't stand. But you seem to be a right guy."

"Now that you describe it," said Dorset, "I guess that was my opinion of you."

Two weeks later, Dorset and his new friend began collaboration on a new car-unloading and materials-handling program for the company that is already saving thousands of dollars a year. And I'll always like Dorset's somewhat dazed comment to me: "So help me," he said, "I didn't get his raise for him. He got mine for me."

This is not "do-gooder" advice that I am thrusting at you. It is cold, practical business advice. When you speak well of and to your associates, they will think and speak well of you, and when there are a dozen men to say, "Well, if anyone deserves a promotion, Hank does," no supervisor has to hesitate in putting the promotion through even though the "annual review" be months in the future.

Good words make good friends; ill words make enemies. No words, meaning staying out of company politics to keep the nose to the grindstone, means no words in return, including such highly prized words as "raise" and "promotion." Look for what's good in others, and they'll look for what's good in you.

In analyzing your achievements, you learned how to seek out and evaluate the best that's in you so you can bring the best that's in you out. You can apply the same process in discovering the best that is in your fellow-workers, and in letting them know that you know they are good. Here you face the challenge of having one or two be so inspired by your constructive words that they will beat you to your promotion. Good! As I mentioned earlier, a keen competitor is your best collaborator in compelling you to seek out every talent you've got, and use it for all it's worth. That's living.

I want to carry that thought one step further. As I have mentioned earlier, the successful man is not the one who climbs over others but who is of most service to others. The higher you go, the more people you can serve, and to be practical about it, the more people you will have serving you. Discouraging, isn't it, to realize that if they are the average employees Myron Clark spoke about, 80 per cent of them are not giving you their best abilities? Your own success is being slowed down by the inertia of employees who are living to punch the time clock on the way home to freedom.

This will not be the case if you have made a habit of recognizing the best that's in you, and the best that's in your associates. The best employer is the man with the best employees, and he doesn't get them until he learns how to recognize and appreciate a good employee when he has one. This invaluable education starts when you begin to look for the best qualities in your associates. Then when you get your promotion, you will be able to use their best qualities in support of your own, and the executive with that kind of support has at least twice the strength of the executive who stands alone.

Top management is gradually becoming aware of this fact. Recently the president of DuPont said, "Each individual should be given the opportunity to exploit his talents to the fullest, in the way best suited to his personality. The uncommon man may be far more valuable than the man who is obsessed with keeping his nose clean." Supporting this statement is one from Chairman C. F. Craig of A.T.&T. "If we want the exceptional qualities of men to emerge to the full, we must remove all limitations to growth. We must encourage each man to grow in his own way." To that I will add that if a supervisor is not able to recognize the best talents in his men, and find room for the development of those talents, he is no supervisor.

The day when each man's abilities will be recognized, and he will be guided to his success through his talents instead of being left to "make a living" by the sweat of his brow is fast approaching, but unless you want to wait for it, each man is still—and excitingly—in command of his own success. It is still up to you, but hard-headed, practical counsellor though I must be, I must also admit that no man can stand alone. You need God.

I'm not going to go religious on you. All I'm going to say is that God is the source of power, and you need all the power you can get. It would be presumptuous of me, a layman, to tell you how to reach this source of power when the house of your own faith is just around the corner. Visit it. And read some of the inspiring books on the power of faith. If you don't know where to start, I would suggest any of the works of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale to put you on the right track. In revealing the power of God, Dr. Peale also reveals the power God gave man to work and achieve for His greater glory. That power is yours for the asking, anywhere, any time, any place. No long distance toll charges and never a busy signal when you call on God.

My layman's sermon ends with this quote from a Detroit industrialist: "Time is my biggest problem. What with planning committees, sales meetings, directors' conferences, and advertising campaigns—not to mention what I go through in figuring out corporation taxes and the annual budget—I have to make every minute pay. So you wonder where I find the time for my work with the Business Men's Christian League on Wednesday night, and my work as deacon and usher of my church on Sunday? That's where I get the strength to make the rest of my work pay. Believe me, your work for God not only pays, but it puts the pay in the work you do professionally."

The Art Of Changing Careers

A few pages back I listed a few of the reasons why "job security" is a myth that must be replaced by the reality of "ability security." But the very reasons that make jobs insecure—obsolescence, automation, decentralization, company mergers and the like—are in themselves symptoms of progress and greater productivity, and hence more security. Ill admit that the senior bookkeeper who found himself reduced to bill collector when his job was absorbed by electronic calculating machines thought he had been sabotaged by progress, but now that he has found his real abilities and is using them as a tax consultant, his proudest possession is a new electronic calculator

Changes like that can vary between painful and disastrous for the man who is unprepared for them, while the man who is prepared welcomes them for the opportunities they provide. And the changes will be coming faster. According to figures from the Department of Labor, new types of jobs are being created at a rate of better than two per cent a year. Project that progress report ahead six years, and it means that one out of seven of us will be employed in a job category that doesn't exist at the present.

Following that same "rate of change" projection, each year I advise my senior students at Fairleigh Dickinson University that fully one-third of them have prepared themselves for careers that will be outmoded within a generation. Invariably this statement is greeted with groans accompanied by such bitter cracks as, "How can you study for a career if it's not going to be there?"

My answer to that is, "You aren't selling the label put on a chosen career, but the intelligence and talents of the man who chooses it. Your career label can change, but there will always be a demand for your abilities. The only real shortage in this world is in the number of people who know how to use their best abilities for the advancement of themselves and others."

Then I add, "When you prepare yourself for progress, you are preparing to double your earning power while doubling your hours of leisure. When you prepare yourself for a label, such as a title on the door, you are saying you want to leave things as they are. Now which do you really want—all the fantastic wonders of the future, or the world pretty much in the condition your fathers have it now?"

To that question they can return only one answer. Let's go! And since that can be the only answer, let's see what that means to you and your success. During the next ten years there will continue to be a serious shortage of men of management caliber. This is due to the relatively low birthrate during the depression years of the Thirties plus the frightful loss of our choicest young men during the war years. This means there will be a continued demand for older men of executive ability, and increasing pressure on the younger men and women to develop their executive abilities and earn their promotions as soon as possible.
Under these circumstances the opportunities have never been greater for men retiring at relatively young ages from military, government, and municipal positions. As of now, to the great loss of industry, most of these highly qualified persons have failed to take advantage of these opportunities because they have failed to relate a lifetime of military or civil service experience with similar backgrounds in industry. From the thousands of case histories in my files, let me mention just briefly two examples. The first concerns a naval architect who had spent 30 years at his profession in the Navy, rising to the rank of Captain. But as he told me, "I'm an expert on armor plating, and the need for that is about as obsolete as I am. The only offer I could get was five thousand a year in a small boat yard because they thought my rank would carry weight when I had to dish out orders."

He saw an entirely different picture by the time he had completed Functional Self Analysis. Though he had enjoyed his work as a naval architect, specializing in armor-plating installations running into millions of dollars, the achievement in which he had found his greatest satisfaction had been in clearing a harbor of sunken ships, and installing new port facilities. Today, as the executive vice-president of a harbor-dredging and dock-building firm at $25,000 a year, he says, "I am a younger man today than when I was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy."

The second case history concerns a retired Colonel who found through Success Factor Analysis that he was a fully qualified city administrator. For 25 of his 30 years in the Army he had been either training or leading combat troops, but for what he called "five glorious years" he had been an occupation officer in charge of restoring one war-ravaged city after another. His greatest success had been achieved through working with local city officials, not all of whom had reason to love the Yanks whose shells had driven out the Germans to the great detriment of personal and public property.

Today he is the city manager of a town of 40,000, and though the town has switched its political allegiance from Democrat to Republican and back again, no one has ever suggested a switch in city managers. He is one happy man. And when you consider the hundreds of types of managerial jobs that are open and begging for occupants, and when you consider that you need but "functionalize" your past achievements in terms of these open opportunities to make them attainable, you may discover the full significance of the quotation from Lowell stated earlier: "No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him." The entire career to which you thought you had devoted your professional life may have been merely a preparation of your talents for this new job you were really born to do.
To the young men just starting out to meet a future filled with change, I would like to sound, of all things, a note of caution. When technical changes come to an industry, as when transistors and diodes nearly wiped out the booming electronic tube industry, whole companies are affected. During the next few years you will see multi-million dollar companies changing careers with the flexibility of individuals, and even in the big old-line companies, old products will be dropped and new ones added with bewildering rapidity. The paint company you worked for today may be a plastics firm tomorrow, and the plastics firm may find itself in the automobile business a few weeks later, molding car bodies. At the same time, diversification will be the order of the day. The company with five major products on the market can survive the over-night obsolescence of one as long as it has four to carry it while it is reaching for two more.

All of this means that companies faced with changing products and changing careers are also faced with changing attitudes and changing philosophies. Only a few years ago a firm described as a "staid old business house" was a bulwark of security. Today, unless it has changed its attitude and philosophy, it is on the way out. Thus the young man entering this challenging world of tomorrow must bring with him a new understanding of things as they will be. Your father could groom himself to be the head of a department and achieve his goal; today you have no assurance that either you or the department will be there.

Don't groom yourself to become the head of a department. Groom yourself to be a department head, and you can let the changes come as they may. This same rule applies to all jobs in government, commerce, and industry. Job labels and career labels are going to change, but when you know what your talents are, and where they can function to best advantage, you don't have to worry about labels. It's the product inside— the best that's in you—that you have to sell, and you can write your own label.

Write a good one. Executives heading new departments, developing new products, are like impulse buyers in a new super-market—they can't be sure of what they want, but they are eager to give a tempting package a try.

A Word To The Ladies

During the next ten years the demand for women in management will increase at three times the rate for men. At the same time there will be a substantial increase in the demand for women in all forms of service activities, from international diplomacy to community youth training programs. Our increasing leisure, too, will have the effect of providing more work for women as travel agents, recreational supervisors, airplane and ship hostesses, resort manageresses, national park guides and allied occupations.

An urgent word to women who may have special talents in the fields of teaching, nursing, and religious works. I am only saying what has already been said when I say the need for you is already desperate, but I want to add my own plea. You may not think you are qualified to work in these areas, but please take a second look at your achievements in the light of what you have read.

Listen to what one school superintendent told me. "I've gotten teachers on my staff that I pirated from another school that is worse off than we are. Five of my senior teachers are working double sessions to make up for the teachers I still lack. Yet I know there are at least fifty women in this town who have all it takes to be excellent teachers if only they realized it. I'm not saying they 11 get rich, but we're not paying peanuts, either. How do you wake them up?"

Well, you don't. I can't wake you up. The superintendent can't wake you up. But you can awaken yourself. You may have all it takes already, or you may need only a refresher course in night or summer school to make good in the job you were born to do. The same applies to nursing, religious work, and community service. Please, won't you analyze your success factors, and see if your best job might not still lie ahead?

What Is This Thing—The Best That's In You?

In answer to the question above, I hope you never find out. When you have made a habit of success, the best that is in you will be still in the process of development when you make at some venerable age that final try. Recently I attended an award dinner for a retiring executive, in the course of which he received the traditional gold watch and the following accolade from the president: "Mr. Johanns, known to all of us as Joe, has served this company for forty years, and has left an enviable record all of us can shoot at. From his start as a sander in the finishing department to his present position as vice president in charge of production, he has never been satisfied with doing an average job. It had to be better-than-average, or he didn't want his name connected with it."

The voice droned on, but I had heard all I wanted to hear. It was all there in those words—"better-than-average." They explained why a vice-president of 65 was being handed his gold watch by a president of 47. In terms of achievement, doing an average job means you are holding your own. It follows, then,that to get ahead, you must do better than average, which is not necessarily very much. That happens to be a loaded statement.

In any business, average performance is a known quality. It is calculated in production units and plotted on graphs, and may well be the backbone of the theory called "Management by Exception." Anyone with the power of observation has but to look around him to see what the average performance of his fellow-workers amounts to, and nudge his own performance a notch above. In so doing, he is dealing with the known. So well known, in fact, that it can be plotted on a graph.

But the best that is in you goes far beyond anything that can be plotted on a chart. When you have analyzed your achievements and discovered through Success Factor Analysis the areas in which success becomes your domain, you are only at last beginning to appreciate what you can really do. I wish I had you in front of me, so I could pound on the desk if necessary, to deliver this final truth:

For the man who doesn't know his real abilities, and therefore turns in the average performance, the chart is drawn.

For the man who recognizes the average performance of his fellows, and sets his course a notch above, the way is more remunerative but still confined to paralleling the known average.

But for the man who knows his own abilities and uses them, there is no ceiling. He is not content with the average performance of others. For him "above average performance" is not the course, nor even the start of it.

Success is his goal, and each success achieved leads on to greater ones. And thus in making a habit of success, he will find that success has made a habit of him. That's all.

In establishing this habit, may you find it incurable.

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