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By and Large
By and Large
By and Large
AN AUTOMOBILE
OR A LOAF OF BREAD.
A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 137
COMMENTARY
To recap, the Master Mind is a mental state that is developed through the harmo-
nious cooperation of two or more people who ally themselves for the purpose of
accomplishing any given task. The Master Mind harnesses the dedicated effort of
a group of people, pools their resources, both tangible and intangible, and creates
a new whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
A Master Mind operates (or should operate) among the members of the
board of directors for huge international corporations. It operates among a team of
engineers designing a new car. It operates in the production of a movie, the conduct
of a political campaign, or the launch of a new advertising strategy. A Master Mind
occurs when a church begins a fundraising program for a new building, when a
group of neighbors organizes to increase the safety of their community, and when
a couple commits to a lifetime of marriage.
A Master Mind is not simply teamwork. People can work together on a team
simply because they like the leader, or because they are paid to. But in a Master
Mind alliance each member must be passionately committed to the same goals.
Let me lay before you a brief outline of what this lesson is and what it
is intended to do for you.
Having prepared myself for the practice of law, I will offer this
introduction as a statement of my case. And the evidence with which to
back up my case will be presented in the seventeen lessons of which
the course is comprised.
The facts out of which this course has been prepared have been
gathered through more than twenty-five years of business and profes-
sional experience, and my only explanation of the rather free use of the
personal pronoun throughout the course is that I am writing from first-
band experience.
Before this course on the Law of Success was published, the manu-
scripts were submitted to two prominent universities with the request
they be read by competent professors-with the object of eliminating
138 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERY
COMMENTARY
Anyone who has ever participated in a "Quality Circle" at work knows how business
employs the Master Mind. The assembly teams that have replaced assembly lines
at the most modem and efficient factories reflect the same use of the Master Mind.
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Fireside),
speaks of the Master Mind when he writes of the "interdependent person. "
'~s an interdependent person . .. " he says, "I have access to the vast resources
and potential of other human beings. "
Dennis Connor, the two-time winner of sailing's America's Cup, has a philos-
ophy of teamwork that is a perfect expression of the Master Mind, emphasizing the
power of commitment and dedication to a task. Read his book The Art of Winning
(St. Martin's Press) for a vivid explanation of how Connor used the Master Mind to
create a winning team.
From restaurant kitchens to football teams, from factories to scientific labora-
tories, the Master Mind harnesses the potential power of a group of minds focused
on a goal. Can you afford to ignore this valuable resource in your quest for success?
"Young man, before 1 answer your question will you please define
your term ,success.'')''
After waiting until he saw that 1 was somewhat embarrassed by
this request, he continued: "By success you make reference to my
money, do you not?" 1 assured him that money was the term by which
most people measured success, and he then said: "Oh, well, if you
wish to know how 1 got my money-if that is what you call success
- I will answer your question by saying that we have a Master Mind
here in our business, and that mind is made up of more than a score
of men who constitute my personal staff of superintendents and man-
agers and accountants and chemists and other necessary types. No one
person in this group is the Master Mind of which 1 speak, but the
sum total of all the minds in the group, coordinated, organized, and
directed to a difinite end in a spirit of harmonious Cooperation, is the
power that got my money for me. No two minds in the group are
exactly alike, but each man in the group does the thing that he is
supposed to do and he does it better than any other person in the
world could do ie'
Then and there, the seed out of which this course has since been
developed was sown in my mind. But that seed did not take root or
germinate until later. This interview marked the beginning of years
of research which led, finally, to the discovery of the principle of psy-
chology described in the introductory lesson as the Master Mind.
1 heard all that Mr. Carnegie had said, but it took the knowledge
gained from many years of subsequent contact with the business
world to enable me to assimilate what he said and to dearly grasp and
understand the principle behind it-which was nothing more nor less
than the principle of organized iffort upon which this course on the Law
of Success is founded.
Carnegie's group of men constituted a Master Mind and that mind
was so well-organized, so well-coordinated, so powerful, that it could
have accumulated millions of dollars for Mr. Carnegie in practically any
sort of endeavor of a commercial or industrial nature. The steel business