Jim Baker came by the house a few minutes ago and showed me a copy of last week’s bulletin in which was the announcement of your promotion to the position of District Manager. Your letter of a few days ago didn’t say anything about it, although you must have known at the time. Guess you wanted to surprise your old Dad, eh—what? But you didn’t surprise me much after all, for I’ve been expecting something like that to happen to you for a long time.
Well—Boy—Howdy! I know you’re proud of the promotion and I’m sure proud too, but I’m not going to do much back slapping for two reasons. In the first place, it makes your arm tired and the second place, it will not help you a bit to fill a District Manager’s shoes. The very fact that you didn’t wire me right after the job was given you is a good sign. I’m giving you credit at least for inherited modesty and if I am right in my diagnosis, I’m more proud still for I never knew a big man in my life who wasn’t personally modest and I’m happier than I can tell you to think that at the outset you are exhibiting the ear marks of the man I’m hoping you are.
No doubt you are full of plans of what you are going to do in the new work and probably don’t need any advice from me, but I know that by this time you realize that it’s the old man’s prerogative to make a few comments in each letter, so I’m not worrying a bit about whether you want them or not.
The position of District Manager is a big one—a whole lot bigger than some think. It’s one of those jobs that a fellow can make just about as big as he wants to and, on the other hand, it furnishes an opportunity for a fellow to make about as big a jackass of himself as the proverbial Missouri mule, if you don’t watch your step.
In the first place, I hope you haven’t acquired the idea that the place was given you because you were the best branch house manager on the force; the seventh son of a seventh son or because they thought you were too big for a branch house manager. Of course, I don’t know how they arrived at their conclusion, but if I were you I think I’d figure that probably they were pretty short of District Manager material and just decided to try you out on the job for a few months to see how you’d work out.
Don’t get the idea that I’m trying to make light of your ability—far from it. The only reason I’m advising you that way is, I believe that thought on your part would make for a more healthy condition and provide more of an incentive. At any rate, the officials of your company, to all practical purposes, are “from Missouri” and you’ll do well not to kid yourself into thinking you have been especially ordained a modern Moses to lead the children of Israel out of the wilderness.
Of course, I know you don’t think so, but I want to impress upon you that your new job is no sinecure. Unless you have a perverted sense of what is expected of you, you’ll find that your previous positions were child’s play in comparison. You have taken upon yourself a world of responsibility that must not be discounted. While you may believe yourself to be popular with the organization under your jurisdiction, it’s a hundred-to-one shot that—especially at first—you’ll be about as popular as the village drunkard at a Sunday School Picnic. Your managers might have liked you as a brother manager, but it’s only natural that they’ll accept you only on suspicion until you’ve demonstrated to them that you’re a rudder on the boat instead of a barnacle.
That’s your first and biggest job, old Red Top, and if you’re smart you’ll realize that although the title may carry some prestige, the most important commodity you have to sell at first is—Red. Be sure to differentiate between the class of men you have been directing and those now under your jurisdiction. Although your managers were once salesmen—they’re managers now. Big, broad, clear-thinking, hard-hitting business men. You cannot succeed without their respect and you haven’t got that to start with, because you’ve yet to demonstrate. You cannot buy respect of these men with fancy dinners, too much dignity, funny stories or “old maid” tactics. Your authority of title or position don’t mean anything to them. You must be first a “he-man,” the happy medium between a “yes-ser” and a chronic debater, an exponent and amplifier of your company’s policies, a happy mixture of hard work, tolerance, constructive suggestion and leadership.
Don’t hold that respect to be attained lightly—worry about it! If there’s a single manager that will not co-operate and the others do, it would look as though it were his fault—not yours, but if six out of the ten are luke-warm after you’ve been on the job a while, that’s a condition and looks like your fault and is plenty big enough to worry about. After you’ve burned the midnight oil long enough on either of the two cases, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that you will sell yourself to that one man, or get rid of him, because a balky manager—a man not in step with the aims of the company—the fellow who doesn’t believe in the policies and methods one hundred per cent, is like a rotten apple in a barrel of good ones—if you leave it there long enough, it will have the whole barrel on the garbage wagon. But in the case of the six out of ten who are not working right, it should be obvious that it’s another case of “they were all out of step but Jim” so you’d better take yourself off to one side, hold a few star chamber sessions and operate on Red. You’re the point of contact, Boy, between the officers and directors and the sales organization.
During the war you heard a lot about morale, and morale is nothing more-or-less than mental attitude—point of view. Yet, morale has overthrown dynasties, won battles and brought success out of failure. The sales battle of your company will not be won unless it is ever-apparent in the salesmen—the salesmen cannot be expected to have it unless their managers believe, with an infinite faith, in the aims, policies and personnel of your institution and those managers cannot be expected to have it unless their point of contact with the dynamos in the power house are capable of carrying the proper voltage with an unbroken current, rather than be merely a broken live-wire that can only sputter, fuss and shock those with whom it comes in contact.