people they
are going to begin by being imperfect, by talking and acting with labor,
like fellow-imperfect human beings.

In the new business world that began the other day--the day of our last
shot at the Germans, the only way a man is going to long get his way is
to be more human than other people, have a genius for being human in
business, for being human quick and human to the point where others have
talent.

XI

PHILANDERING AND ALEXANDERING

By philandering I mean fooling oneself with self-love.

By Alexandering I mean going to one's Alexander whoever he or she or it
is, some one person--or some one thing, which either by natural gift or
by natural position is qualified to help one to be extremely disagreeable
to oneself--and ask to be done over--now one subject and now another.

Nearly all men admit--or at least they like to say when they are properly
approached, or when they make the approach themselves, that they make
mistakes and that they are poor miserable sinners. Everybody is. They
rather revel in it, some of them, in being in a nice safe way, miserable
sinners. The trouble comes in ever going into the particulars with them,
in finding any particular time and place one can edge in in which they
are not perfect.

This fact which seems to be true of employers and employees, of capital
and labor in general, brings out and illustrates another general
principle in making the necessary excavations in one's own mind and other
people's for new brain tracks--another working principle of technique for
a man or a group in a nation to use in getting and deserving to get its
way.

There are various Alexandering stages in the technique of not being
fooled by oneself.

Self-criticism.

Asking others to help--one's nearest Alexander.

Self-confession to oneself.

Self-discipline.

Asking others to help.

The way to keep from philandering with one's own self-love or with one's
own group or party--is to look over the entire field--the way one would
on other subjects than being fooled by one's own side, strip down to the
bare facts about oneself and facts about others for one's vision of
action and fit them together and act.

In getting one's way quickly, thoroughly, personally--_i.e._, so that
other people will feel one deserves it and will practically hand it over
to one, and want one to have it, the best technique seems to be not only
to utilize self-criticism or self-confession, as a part of