Learn To Give Off Sparks
Editor’s note: The following selection comes from The Technique of Building Personal Leadership (1944) by Donald A. Laird. It has been condensed from the original chapter.
A group of ambitious management executives attended a conference in the Societies’ Engineering Building in New York City. Almost all the men were college graduates. They were well dressed, well fed, polished. Each stated his opinions carefully and fluently. The meeting simply reeked of logic. But it was getting nowhere. It needed some magnetism to pull it together.
When it seemed that the conference might break up with nothing accomplished, a shrimp of a man sprang to his feet. He wore poorly fitting clothes, cut, in the fashion of a bygone day. The other men seemed amused at his appearance — at first. He began to speak, rapidly and in a high-pitched voice. He seemed excited. He had an accent like a Swedish comedian.
Before he had uttered fifty words the dignified men were listening attentively. Their amusement had disappeared. Soon the little old man had the group in the palm of his hand.
Why? Because he was the first to give off sparks!
Neglect to be brief, and one becomes a bore. When Lord Dufferin arrived late at a luncheon, he apologized to the hostess by explaining that he had been detained by the Earl of Kimberley. Then he whispered: “A wonderful man! It is amazing how much he knows. He knows everything — everything! — all the corners of the earth and all the men in it. He knows everything, except — except when to stop!”
In his early days as a toll collector on the canal, John H. Patterson had a small retail coal business as a sideline. He was continually short of money because people were slow to pay for their coal. His business was too small, too insecure, to serve as a basis for bank credit. But he borrowed, solely on his own credit. One morning he went to his banker and said:
“Mr. Phillips, I want to borrow $500 until Friday.”
“Write out a check for $500 to Mr. Patterson,” the banker instructed a clerk. Then he turned to the embryo businessman. “Let me give you a little advice. If you had not asked for it the way you did, if you had asked me how I felt and how business is, you would not have the money. Always be brief. And another thing, be sure to have the money back on Friday.”
Busy businessmen appreciate brevity.
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