Personality in Business

By Sylvester L. Weaver, President, The Weaver-Henry Manufacturing Co.

Personality in business has been the subject of many talks and miny papers. It is a large subject an4 -cov,els many things including heredity, bodily size and health, menlal strength and agility, environment and many oth-er phases that enter into one's work including even the weather.

One of the basic reasons for the high type of citizenship in California, and the personality that enters into the industrial and commerciai life, both executive and co-worker, lies in the fact that our equable and delightful climate makes for a more cheerful yet ambitious personality.

With the advance of machinery, with the great increased production of industrial processes and the constant- progress in the use of machines and machinery in place o-! men ind women, it would seem that the factor of personality in these affairs rnight be less important than in years past, yet such is not the case.

In the service of the world by all crafts and professions of business, the element of personality now enters as never before and it must be an even finer, more intelligent and more willing human being to take charge of or work with the gigantic motions of present day industry and commerce.

The tremendous programs of serious importance to the civilized world, embracing as they do the employment of vast sums of money in rvhich capital must have its wages as well as labor and management, makes necessary from this industrial standpoint more careful and more intelligent guidance by the human element as an absolute necesiity. Any deflection from a fairly perfect normal in the present day (and increasingly so in the near future) merely becomes more serious in its loss and waste than during the period q'hen operations were smaller.

The above holds true not only in industrial processes but in all other forms of business and professions. For instance in the transportation field, the personality and efficiency of the engineer who guides safely the fast twenty- hour "Limited" train from New York to Chicago, the greater number of lives involved and the immensely more costly equipment used, must be more keen, more careful, more vigilant than the engineer of olden days who guided the smoky rattletraps of smaller size and capacity on that important journey in a former generation.

There is no more outstanding example of the element of personality as applied to inanimate machinery and the necessity of skill and high character in leadership than the recent heroic flight of Lindbergh, THE EAGLE, to Paris.

It was my good fortune to be in New York the morning of May 21st when he hopped off, for the continent and the world waited with anxiety and suspense for thirty-six hours. Undoubtedly the admiration and the approval of the world goes out to the beautiful and efficient machine, his plane, "The Spirit of St. Louis," that carried him safely on that memorable voyage, but the acclaim of the world from the hearts and the minds go to that slim personality, the lone pilot, Col. Lindbergh.

In present day industrial operations and nearly every field, production is assured by the use of tremendous machines. These require human superintendence and that intelligent direction through the personality of its human attendants in a more intensive manner than ever before is necessary to avoid tremendous waste and inevitable loss.

Even in the retail field where great investments are involved and the great establishments in chains of stores and of banks, the attitude of the persons in charge, both men and women, towards the general public, may mar or make the institution. Years ago in smaller enterprises the boss might be mean and unpleasant to his employees and to the public and still succeed in a small measure. That day has passed. All who serve together must be pleasant, cheerful, willing and thorough; and just as these qualities are lacking in those who are associated together in business, large or small, does business suffer by disagreeable personalities.

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