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Conversations in Management

James A. Garfield

If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

James Garfield was a man who always had a little bit more to give and when opportunity knocked, he was always ready to answer. He was the last of the log cabin Presidents. The youngest of five children, he was raised on a hard scrabble farm by his widowed mother. Like many before him and many since, he decided that the life of a farmer was not for him. At 16 he ran away from home to pursue a career as an Ohio bargeman. The glamour of that profession, however, was short lived. In six weeks he managed to fall overboard 16 times and came down with such a serious fever that he was sent home. Undeterred, Garfield determined to earn a college degree. He enrolled in the Eclectic Institute and supported himself by working as a carpenter and as the college janitor. In his junior year he transferred to Williams College and graduated with honors two years later. He returned to the Eclectic Institute as a professor and within a year assumed its presidency. During the next three years he became a Disciples of Christ minister, taught himself law and was admitted to the Cleveland Bar. With the onset of the Civil War, Garfield helped raise a regiment of volunteers and within two years distinguished himself in combat and achieved the rank of Major General. His military exploits had gained him so much notoriety, that in 1862 he was elected to Congress without ever having campaigned. He would spend the next 18 years of his life in the House of Representatives. In 1880, he emerged as a dark horse candidate for President and won the general election by a razor thin margin of 7,368 votes. Tragically, his presidency was limited to just 100 days before he was shot by a disgruntled office seeker. But even in this brief period, Garfield shook the political establishment to its roots by challenging and defeating the political machine of Senator Roscoe Conkling. Garfield was a man who was ready.

A lot of folks consider their employment to be a job instead of a career. People with jobs tend to have a static view of themselves. They plug along—meeting expectations—and don’t spend much time thinking about what their futures might look like. They may even become cynical and decide that personal initiative isn’t necessary because they don’t make enough money or have enough prestige. Of course, it never occurs to them that more money and added prestige require some additional effort on their part. These are the folks who also become suspicious when a newcomer shakes things up with innovative ideas and a positive attitude. They’re also the first to gripe when a chance for promotion comes along and they discover they aren’t qualified, or rather, they haven’t made themselves qualified. Ultimately, just doing enough to get by diminishes a person both professionally and spiritually. It’s a process of personal shrinking.

That’s what Garfield was getting at—you have to make yourself ready now so that when the opportunity to do more than what you’re doing comes along, you can take it. One of the saddest realizations you’ll ever face is that you could have done so much more, but have run out of time. Don’t let it happen to you. Take stock today. Are you where you want to be? What do you have to do to be ready for the next opportunity? Give yourself a chance for a better future. Start working on it now.

—Ebert