Who Can You Trust?

To win the game of life, you need to pick the right teammates. You need to answer questions like these.

Who should I work with?
Who should I love and support?
Who will help me . . . or hurt me?

When businesses, groups and teams pick the right people, they win! If they pick the wrong people, they struggle and fail.

If you surround yourself with winners, you also succeed. You need strong people who are honest with you, who support your purposes and who do their jobs.

If you pick the wrong people, you fail. These losers are liars. They get in your way and do not do their jobs.

So how do you pick the right people for your team?

The Supreme Test of a Competent Person

When looking to add someone to your team, one skill is incredibly important.

It’s not a skill people learn in college. They cannot pretend to have this skill. They either have it or they do not.

It’s their ability to make things go right.

They do what they promise to do. You can count on them. They are responsible and trustworthy. They do their jobs, every, single, time.

They go by many names: “Megastars,” “A-Performers,” “Superheroes,” “Champions” and “Big Beings.” They are rare.

Whenever you find winners, get them on your team! Support them! Work for them! Hire them! Marry them! Be partners with them! Be their friends!

Such people are described in “A Message to Garcia.”

“A Message to Garcia” by Elbert Hubbard

Lieutenant Rowan (center) with General Garcia (right)

(Note: L. Ron Hubbard’s great uncle, Elbert Hubbard, wrote a pamphlet called “A Message to Garcia” in 1899. Leaders and executives at the time were so interested in sharing the story with their workers, it was printed over 40 million times. Below are excerpts from that pamphlet.)

“When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba — no one knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly.

‘What to do!

“Someone said to the President, ‘There is a fellow by the name of Rowan who will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.’

“Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How ‘the fellow by name of Rowan’ took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia — are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

“The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?’

“By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing — ‘Carry a message to Garcia.'”

“You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office — six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request: ‘Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio.’”

“Will the clerk quietly say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and go do the task?

“On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye, and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don’t you mean Bismarck?
What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?
Is he dead?
Is there any hurry?
Sha’n’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?
What do you want to know for?

“Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?”

“Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village — in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, and needed badly — the man who can carry a message to Garcia.”

10 Signs of “Rowans”

Question: How do you identify a “Rowan”?
Answer: When you say “Jump!” they ask “How high?” on their way up.

In the real world, you can identify the people you want on your team by how they handle agreements with you. Examples.

“If I make the car payments will you maintain it?” “Yes.”
“Our agreement is you will plant new grass in my yard and I’ll pay you $500. When will you start?” “Today.”
“So you’ll handle our delivery so I can promote and sell, correct?” “Correct. I put our agreement in writing for us and I’m ready to sign it.”
“You’ll do the tax forms by tomorrow?” “Right.”
“Go take over the southern office, okay?” “Okay.”

Once they understand and agree to do something, “Rowans” do the following.

1. They get started with no hesitation.
2. Unless you tell them to give up, they will persist until they succeed.
3. They support your purpose; they do not get in your way. They make you feel powerful.
4. They never waste your time; they save you time.
5. They let you do your job while they do theirs.
6. They accept any help you offer to them, but happy to simply do the task on their own.
7. If they find a better way to do the job, they take the initiative and do what they see is best.
8. If they hit a barrier, they go around it, merge through it or blast it out of the way. They never give excuses.
9. They are honest. They never lie or cheat. They take responsibility for their mistakes.
10. Most important of all: When they agree to do a task, easy or difficult, they ALWAYS get it done.

You can count on these types of people. You are on the same team. Everyone wins!

Learn more about “Rowans” in “Make it Go Right.” For advanced study, listen L. Ron Hubbard discuss his uncle’s pamphlet in “The Purpose of Human Evaluation” of August 13, 1951.

Cuban Mountains