HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN, AN IRON WILL & PUSHING TO THE FRONT. Orison Swett Marden

      Chapter XIV.

       Sizing Up People

       Table of Contents

      AFTER Alexander the Great had conquered the Persians he became suddenly very ill. One of his generals sent him a letter saying that his attending physician had resolved to poison him. He read the letter without the slightest sign of emotion, and put it under his pillow. When the physician came and prepared medicine, Alexander said he would not take it just then, but told him to put it where he could reach it, and at the same time gave him the letter from his general. Alexander raised himself on his elbow, and watched the physician’s face with the most searching scrutiny, looking into his very soul; but he did not see in it the slightest evidence of fear or guilt. He immediately reached for the medicine bottle, and, without a word, drank its contents. The amazed physician asked him how he could do that after receiving such a letter. Alexander replied, “Because you are an honest man."

      Alexander was a remarkable student of human nature. He knew men, and the motives which actuated them. He could read the human heart as an open book.

      The art of all arts for the leader is this ability to measure men, to weigh them, to “size them up,” to estimate their possibilities, to place them so as to call out their strength and eliminate their weakness.

      This is the epitaph which Andrew Carnegie has chosen for himself: “Here lies a man who knew how to get around him men much cleverer than himself.”

      People wonder how a Morgan, a Harriman, a Ryan, a Wanamaker, can carry on such prodigious enterprises. The secret lies in their ability to project themselves through a mighty system, and to choose men who will fit the places they are put in, men who can carry out their employer’s programme to the letter.

      Marshall Field was always studying his employees and trying to read their futures. Nothing escaped his keen eye. Even when those about him did not know that he was thinking of them, he was taking their measure at every opportunity. His ability to place men, to weigh and measure them, to pierce all pretense, amounted to genius. When he missed a man from a certain counter, he would often ask his manager what had become of him. When told that he was promoted, he would keep track of him until he missed him again, and then would ask where he was. He always wanted to see how near the man came to his estimate of him. He thus kept track of men of promise in his employ and watched their advancement. In this way, he became an expert in human nature reading.

      Mr. Field would sometimes pick out a man for a position the choice of whom his advisers would tell him they thought a mistake; but he was nearly always right, because he had greater power of discernment than the others. He did not pay much attention to the claims of the applicant, or to what he said, because he could see through the surface and measure the real man. He had a wonderful power for taking a man’s mental caliber. He could see in which direction his strength lay, and he could see his weak points as few men could.

      A man who had been his general manager for many years, once resigned very suddenly to go into business for himself. Without the slightest hesitation or concern, Mr. Field called to his office a man whom he had been watching, unknown to the man, for a long time. With very few words, he made him general manager. And so great was his confidence that he had measured the man correctly, that the very next day he sailed for Europe. He did not think it necessary to wait and see how his new manager turned out. He believed he had the right man and that he could trust him. He was not disappointed.

      Men who are capable of succeeding in a large way are shrewd enough to know that they do not “know it all,” shrewd enough to employ men who are strong where they are weak, to surround themselves with men who have the ability which they lack, who can supplement their weakness and shortcomings with strength and ability. Thus, in their combined power, they make an effective force.

      Many men, because of their inability to read human nature, duplicate their own weaknesses in their employees, thus multiplying their chances of failure. Few men are able to see their own weaknesses and limitations, and tKose who do not, surround themselves with men who have the same weak links in their character, and the result is that their whole institution is weak.

      The leader must not only be able to judge others, but he must also be able to read himself, to take an inventory of his own strong points and weak points.

      Men who have been elected to high office or to fill very important positions at the head of great concerns because of their recognized ability have often disappointed the expectations of those who placed their hopes in them, simply because they could not read people. They may have been well educated, well posted, strong intellectually, may have had a great deal of general ability; but they lacked the skill to read men, to measure them, to weigh them, to place them where they belonged.

      Grant was cut out for a general, a military leader; but when he got into the White House he felt out of place, he was shorn of his great power. He could not use his greatest ability. He was obliged to depend too much upon the advice of friends. The result was that, as President, he did not maintain the high reputation he had made as a general.

      If he had had the same ability to read politicians and to estimate men for government positions that he had for judging of military ability, he would have made a great President; but he felt his weakness in the position which he was not fitted by nature to fill, and made the fatal mistake of putting himself into the hands of his friends.

      The young man starting out for himself ought to make a study of his power of penetration, of his character-reading ability. He ought to make it a business to study men, to estimate their capabilities and the motives which actuate them. He should scrutinize their actions, watch their tendencies in little things, and learn to read them as an open book.

      The involuntary acts and natural manner of a man indicate more than does his studied conversation. The eye cannot lie. It speaks the truth in all languages. It often contradicts the tongue. While the man is trying to deceive you with words, his eyes are telling you the truth; his actions are indicative of the real man, while the tongue may only represent the diplomat, the man who is acting.

      A very successful business man in New York, noted for his ability to read men, will sometimes study an applicant for an important position for a long time, talking very little himself, but all the time trying to call the man out, watching every movement, scrutinizing every word, trying to read the motive behind every glance of the eye. His manner, everything, are all letters of the alphabet by which he spells out the real man. I have been in his office when he was measuring a man. It was a great lesson to watch his face as he seemed to read the applicant through and through, weigh him on the scale of his judgment, penetrate to the very marrow of his being, and estimate his capabilities and possibilities to a nicety.

      After a few minutes’ conversation, and the man had passed out, he would tell me just how large that man was, what he was capable of doing, what his future would be, and what were his limitations. And he seldom makes a mistake. I have never known a man to succeed to any extent when he said there was nothing in him, and I have never known one to turn out badly when he indorsed him without reserve.

      We all know heads of business houses who work like slaves, dig and save, and yet do not make much headway, simply because they do not know how to surround themselves with the right men.

      Some