Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

undertakes. He is eager, responsive, emotional, ambitious, and erratic. He is often brilliant, nearly always resourceful, conceives large projects, attempts big things, makes friends with important people, and often secures a very enviable reputation, at least for a time. But this man has his faults. He is emotional and enthusiastic. He throws himself intensely into the accomplishment of one ambitious plan after another. He has not the calmness of dispassionate judgment and the deliberateness necessary to be a good judge of men. He lacks real courage and therefore attempts to cover up his deficiency by bluff and bluster. Because of his poor judgment in regard to human nature, he frequently selects employees on the impulse of the moment, absolutely without reference to their fitness for the work he wants them to do. The ruling emotion which prompts him in selection may be any one of a dozen. We have seen men like this select important lieutenants because of their personal attractiveness, because someone else wanted them, because of similarity of tastes in matters wholly irrelevant, because the fellows knew how to flatter, out of sympathy for their families, and, in one pathetic case, because the young man thus chosen had painstakingly read through an immense set of books supposed to be representative of the world's best literature.

INJUSTICE TO EMPLOYEES

In many cases, enthusiasm and optimism on the part of such executives have placed men in positions far beyond their capacity and loaded them with responsibilities for which they had no aptitudes. Oftentimes such rapid promotion and such sudden increase of income have utterly turned the head of the victim, setting him back years in his normal development and his pursuit of success.

Because the sudden infatuations of such executives are based upon emotion and not judgment, they flicker out as quickly as the emotion evaporates. Then ensues a period of suspicion, oftentimes wholly unjust. Because the executive lacks real courage, every word and every act of the employee makes him afraid that there is something sinister and dangerous behind it. This is accentuated by the fact that, deep down in his own heart, the executive knows that he does not understand men. When this condition of affairs arises, both the executive and his employee are utterly miserable unless the employee, being a man of judgment, and understanding the situation in its essence, has the good sense either to bring the executive willy-nilly to a complete readjustment of their relations or to resign. Oftentimes, however, the employee has a larger salary than he ever received before—he also feels certain that if he resigns, he cannot secure so large a salary in any other place—and so he hangs on, hoping against hope that the attitude of his superior will change. The executive, on his part, feels that he ought to discharge the employee. He is not satisfied with him. He is suspicious of him. He is afraid of him. He realizes that he has used bad judgment in selecting him. But he lacks the courage to discharge the man and oftentimes, for this reason, resorts to a series of petty persecutions in an attempt to make him resign.

HOW TO STEER A DIFFICULT COURSE

The employee who is suddenly taken up, flattered, and offered an unusually good position by a man of this type would do well to hesitate long before accepting. If he does accept, he should take care that he does not attempt anything beyond his powers and that he does not accept a larger salary than he is able to earn. Once in his position, he should be modest, efficient, and do his best to keep out of cliques and inside politics. At the same time, he should take great care not to offend those who are powerful. The employees of every "Napoleonic" executive are, by the very nature of the organization, forced into politics. Tenure of office, promotion, and increase in pay all depend, not upon real service—although real service counts; not upon efficiency and merit—although these also count; but primarily upon the whims and caprices of an employer of this type. Every employee of any importance, therefore, does his best, first, to keep his own relations to his employer on a frank, easy, confidential basis; second, in so far as in him lies, to be at peace with all his fellow employees. We have seen some of the most valuable men of their kind we have ever met suddenly discharged without a word of explanation by employers of this type. The trouble was that someone who could get a hearing carried a bit of scandal, perhaps without the slightest foundation in fact, to the ever-suspicious ears of the boss. The boss, because he lacked the courage to admit that he had listened to such gossip, removed a man who had served him satisfactorily for years without a word of warning, and without a hearing.

Unless you understand human nature, and if you are at all responsive to appreciation, there is probably no greater pleasure than to work for such a man as we have described, so long as the sunshine of his favor falls upon you. But, as a general rule, we find their employees anything but happy. Almost without exception they feel that their tenure of office hangs by the slenderest of threads and that it is necessary to regard all of their fellow employees with suspicion. Some men enjoy working in this fevered atmosphere. If you are one of them, there are excellent opportunities for you in the employ of a man of this type. But you will do well always to have a good safe place prepared in which to land if you should suddenly be dropped.

THE BLUFFER

In all of your dealings with the man who lacks real courage, remember that his blustering and show of bravery is only an assumption to cover up his deficiencies and that if you yourself have the courage to face him and, in the language of the street, "to call his bluff," he will quiet down and be perfectly amenable to reason. But be sure to observe your man carefully and accurately before trying to call his bluff.

SUCCESS AS AN EMPLOYEE

The ultimate success of every employee depends, first of all, upon his selection of the kind of work for which he is pre-eminently fitted; second, his selection, so far as possible, of the kind of employer and superior executive under whom he can do his best work; third, upon his study and mastery of every possible resource of knowledge and training connected with the technical and practical aspects of his work; fourth, upon his careful and scientific development of all of the best and most valuable assets in his character; fifth, upon a thorough understanding and application of the principles of personal efficiency; sixth, upon an accurate knowledge of the character, disposition and personal peculiarities of his employer or employers and superior executives; seventh, upon an intelligent and diplomatic adjustment of his methods of work, his personal appearance, his personal behavior, his relationship with his fellow employees and with his employers, to the end of building up and maintaining permanently the highest possible degree of confidence in him and satisfaction with his service.

PART FOUR PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF CHARACTER ANALYSIS CHAPTER I THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF CHARACTER ANALYSIS

A few years ago we were content to guess, to follow tradition, and to charge up to the caprices of fate or an all-wise Providence the failures we experienced as a result of our ignorance. Then someone, less bound by tradition than the average, discovered that exact knowledge was obtainable about most subjects. Scientific research took the place of guess-work or mere haphazard leaps in the dark. We began to observe, classify, measure, weigh, test, and record, instead of guess. Thus science was born.

As far back as human records go men have made observations upon others, have formed certain conclusions as a result of these observations, and have recorded them. Some were accurate and valuable; others merely ludicrous and misleading. Tens of thousands of men and women have attempted to analyze human character, but most of them became lost in a maze of apparent contradictions and gave up in despair, content to follow impression and intuition. Though they became discouraged and abandoned the field, each of these workers contributed something of value to the subject, and to-day we have a science of character analysis exact enough to add very greatly to our wisdom in dealing with humanity and its problems.

LIMITATIONS OF THE SCIENCE

We do not wish you to misunderstand our claims for the science. Character analysis is not a science in the mathematical sense. As we said in our introduction, we cannot place a man on the scales and determine that he has so many milligrams of industry, or apply measurements and prove that he has so many centimeters of talent for salesmanship. Nor can we, using the method of the chemist, apply the litmus to his stream of consciousness and get his psychical reaction in a demonstrable way. We are glad we cannot, else humanity might lose the fine arts of coquetry and conquest. Perhaps we never shall be able to do these things, but that is small cause for discouragement. What we do claim for the science of character analysis is that it is classified knowledge based upon sound principles; that it is as accurate as the science of medicine; that it can be imparted to others; and, best of all, that anyone can test it for himself beyond any question of doubt.

TESTS SHOW UNTRAINED JUDGMENT UNRELIABLE

"Oh, I'm a pretty good judge of men," people say to us. We have heard this declaration thousands of times in the last seventeen years. Occasionally it was, no doubt, true, but more often not, even when the statement was made in the greatest sincerity. So we determined to test the ability of the public to analyze men. The first test appeared in a number of magazines, giving a profile and full-face view, showing the hands of a young man. A few simple questions were asked concerning him, such as these:

"Would you employ this man?

"If so, would you employ him as salesman, executive, cashier, clerk, chemist, mechanic?

"Is he healthy, honest, industrious, aggressive?

"Would you choose him as a friend?"

Of 5,000 replies but 4.1 per cent were right or nearly right. Some of the replies were astounding. One manager of a big business wrote: "This man would be an exceptionally honest and trustworthy cashier or treasurer." One sales manager replied: "I would like to have this man on my sales force. He would make a hummer of a salesman, if I am any judge of men. His hands are identical with my own," etc., etc. But the climax was reached with this letter from a young lady: "He would be a devoted husband and father. I would like him as a friend."

Our own analysis of this man, from photographs on a test, was as follows:

"We would not employ this man.

"He is not healthy.

"He is intelligent.

"He is not honest.

"He is not industrious.

"He is aggressive in a disagreeable way.

"We would not choose him as a friend.

"John Doe is a natural mechanic who has had very little training in that line of work. Being exceedingly keen and intelligent, without right moral principles, he has used his natural mechanical ability in illegitimate lines."

Here is a brief sketch of John Doe, furnished by a gentleman who befriended him and has followed his career for years:

"John is thirty-one years of age and has just been released from a term in Sing Sing Prison. The crime for which he served sentence was burglary. He made a skeleton key with which he gained access to a loft where were stored valuable goods. He stole three thousand dollars worth of these from his employer. He admits that he has committed other crimes of forgery and theft. Perhaps the cleverest of these was forgery which was never discovered. He