The Templeton Plan

by Sir John Templeton

  Templeton is fond of this quotation from the Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel: “He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions—such a man is a mere article of the world’s furniture—a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being—an echo, not a voice.”

  Young Templeton’s ability to guide his own life was put to a severe test on his very first paid job away from his hometown. For a shy young man, selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door was agonizing work. He felt totally unsuited and wanted to quit. But it was the summer before he was to enter Yale; he was seventeen and in real need of money.

  Few people in 1930 had money to buy anything, let alone “extras” such as magazines. For that reason, selling magazines required more than just a hard sell; it required all the skills of persuasion and all the perseverance and patience one possessed. The sales supervisors even told the salesmen to run from house to house so they would seem breathless with excitement when they approached a prospect—just to make the sales impact greater.

  For Templeton, it was a true test in perseverance. By temperament, he was all wrong for the job. He was uncomfortable in the role of salesman, and he considered the high-pressure methods unfair both to the customer and the salesman. But it was the only job he could find that summer. So he not only took the job but threw himself heart and soul into the challenge.

  The company’s policy was to give each salesman one dollar for each two-dollar subscription. And if a salesman happened to last through the entire summer and hit the 200-or-more subscription mark, he would receive a bonus of $200 over and above his commissions.

  Templeton managed to stay the entire summer and he won the bonus as well. Perhaps equally as important, he learned the value of perseverance. He knew that once he had decided to sell magazines for the summer, he had to sell them as well as they could be sold. That meant putting his total self into the job; it meant being willing to make sacrifices, if necessary, to achieve his goals. It meant learning to persevere.

  Perseverance in all of your daily activities leads to the formation of an orderly mind instead of one that is full of loose ends. It leads to a mind that is purposeful and capable of planning ahead. It leads ultimately to success in life because the habit of sticking to a given task, having now taken an interior form, helps you to convey facts more accurately and quickly.

  If your thoughts are organized, you can explain more clearly to a customer the advantage of purchasing a particular stock. If you have an orderly mind, you can marshal your facts, present them with forceful logic, and persuade your client that one market position is superior to another.

  The same principle applies to reporting to your boss. A young man in an automotive factory in China was interviewed by the Chinese leader Deng Zhao Ping, who was on a plant inspection tour. The leader listened intently to the young man’s briefing and was so impressed with his clear and factual explanations that he promoted the worker to be his personal aide.

  The moral? If you practice perseverance you will rise quickly. Perseverance will lead you to key people who can use you in their organization. It is a virtue that will make you an important person.

  Persevering people will teach themselves to speak with economy, because they are the kind of people who persist at a given task and try to accomplish it with a minimum of waste. What we take a hundred words to say often may be said in ten well-chosen words. Practice paring down your speech. You will find that you are presenting your ideas more logically and that the information you convey is more accurate. You will be surprised, and pleased, at how attentively people listen to you when your delivery is crisp and to the point.

  Pretend you are sending a cable; that is one of the best methods for learning economy of speech. Cables are charged for by the word. Soon you will eliminate extraneous clauses, unnecessary words, and other forms of fuzzy thinking. You’ll begin to drive your points home with a force you never realized was within your power.

  The persevering person will learn that in speaking and writing it is important to keep an outline in mind: This is idea 1, idea 2, idea 3, and this is the basic point I’m making. By using such a technique, you will be sure to present your ideas in a logical sequence. If you use the loose style of normal conversation, your audience will be left wondering what you were trying to say.

  The outline approach is particularly useful when making business telephone calls. In the years when John Templeton was working eighty-four-hour weeks, he was dealing with literally hundreds of stockbrokers by telephone. The ones who said what they had to say succinctly and got off the line quickly were the ones he tended to call back. He knew that with them he wouldn’t waste valuable time.

  To persevere—to overcome opposition and fierce competition, both realities of the business life—you must use all the tools at your command. Templeton remembers one stockbroker, Norman Weiden, who made the telephone a brilliant success tool. “He got more of my business than anyone else,” Templeton recalls, “because I could ask him a question on the phone and get back an answer within five seconds, and the answer was always on the mark. That efficiency made him valuable to me.” Weiden eventually became a senior partner in one of the country’s leading stockbrokerage firms.

  Honesty and perseverance are the qualities you will find among the highest-caliber professionals. Always give your business to such people, regardless of the fee. You will learn from them and will receive superior service. Follow their example and you will become one of the highest-caliber professionals yourself.

  Some people hire the lawyer who charges the least; that is a mistake. Chances are that in the long run it will cost you more. So whether you are dealing with a lawyer, doctor, or an accountant, find out who is the most knowledgeable, the most honest, and the hardest working, and you will find that is the one who will give you top service for your money.

  John Templeton believes that his success in business is rooted in his honest relationship with his clients. He often quotes James F. Bell, a midwestern grain tycoon, who said: “Aside from the strictly moral standpoint, honesty is the best policy from the standpoint of business relations. The fulfillment of the pledged word is of equal necessity to the conduct of all business. If we expect and demand virtue and honor in others, the flame of both must burn brightly within ourselves and shed their light to illuminate the erstwhile dark corners of distrust and dishonesty. The truthful answer rests for the most part within ourselves, for like begets like. Honesty begets honesty; trust, trust; and so on through the whole category of desirable practices that govern and control the world’s affairs.”

  John Templeton says: “I feel a strong duty to the 500,000 investors in our mutual funds. I consider it my duty—an act of faith—to see that their money is handled wisely. No matter what it costs, we try to seek out the best lawyers, accountants, and custodians for our business. And if we pay twice as much for their services than another company might consider sensible, they’re still cheap—cheap because they do the job right.

  “Because we have worked so hard to be faithful, honest, and responsible to our investors, and have put their financial well-being before all else, we have managed to create a superior record. For every dollar that an investor put in Templeton Growth Fund thirty-two years ago, he has eighty-two dollars today, if he reinvested all distributions.

  “My favorite investor story has to do with Leroy Paslay, an old friend and a genius at electronic invention. We met many years ago when we both worked for an oil exploration company in Dallas. I thought so highly of him that we stayed in touch over the years. When I was ready to start the Templeton Growth Fund, I telephoned Roy and asked him if he would like to put some of his investments in a mutual fund. He said yes, he would put in $100,000, and he did. He has never taken a penny out. He has invested each distribution to buy more shares of stock. Today, he and his family have $8,200,000 in shares of this mutual fund.

  “But nothing pleases me more than
the attendance at our shareholders’ meetings. In July of 1986, in Toronto, 1,400 people came from all over the world. I have never seen that many shareholders at a meeting of even the largest corporations. Maybe they come to us in such numbers because they trust us. Because we try to deliver good results consistently. Because we’ve worked for them honestly and have persevered on their behalf. Perhaps even because we start and end all of our meetings with prayer.

  “We have never quit trying to improve our methods—and to provide our investors with high-quality service. The only success worth having, you know, is success that reaches out and touches others.”

  Honesty and perseverance—if, like John Templeton, you try to follow these two principles of success, you will be investing wisely in your own development. And you will find that others will want to invest in you.

  To summarize Step 9:

  Successful people finish what they begin. Be sure to think carefully before you take on a task, but, once you start it, complete it with thoroughness, energy, and resolve.

  Handle all of your business relationships—and particularly other people’s money—as a sacred trust.

  Before going on to Step 10, ask yourself these questions:

  When you are hired to do a job, do you give it your all?

  Do you avoid cutting corners and give as much as promised or even more?

  Do you accept each assignment as a fresh challenge and a chance to grow in your profession and as a person?

  If you are able to answer yes to these three questions, or can spot your weak areas and are ready to improve on them, you are ready to proceed to Step 10.

  STEP 10

  MAKING TIME YOUR SERVANT

  THERE IS AN old saying in the U.S. Navy, “Loyalty up and loyalty down.” The same principle applies to all the steps to success, including the ability to be the master of time and not its slave. There are people who will make a point of being prompt with their bosses but keep their own assistants waiting. But promptness with everyone, regardless of rank, and on all occasions, is a prerequisite of success.

  Promptness is putting the others first. It tells others that you have regard for them, that you refuse to waste their time.

  Nothing will impress your boss more than promptness. John Templeton, who has served as the chief executive of many corporations, looks above all for a job done correctly and on time. If you are asked to deliver a report at noon on Friday and you deliver the results at noon on Friday, you are bound to get ahead.

  Some people, given that same job, will let it slide a little. Friday noon will come and go. They will wait a day or two, or a month. Or forever. But the people who time and time again deliver their assignments promptly are the ones who will forge ahead.

  Many important people have been involved in the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion. Templeton says: “It has been our practice from the beginning that anyone who participates in a charity program will receive a thank-you letter within twenty-four hours of the time they helped us. You don’t wait a month, or even a week. You thank the person right away. In this case, we have letters prepared, and as soon as they’ve finished their part of the ceremony a messenger dispatches notes of thanks to them.

  “Promptness is politeness and consideration. It’s also good business.”

  Success-bound people learn early in their careers to avoid procrastination. Too many people have what could be called a mañana attitude. Why do it now? Tomorrow is soon enough. And the job is shunted off the main track—not necessarily until tomorrow either, as mañana would suggest, but to some future time, who knows how far away. Someone once said, “I’m going to conquer this problem of procrastination. I just keep putting off getting started.”

  Those afflicted with the procrastination habit are never likely to be successful. Who wants to deal with anyone, or rely on anyone, who suffers from the mañana disease?

  Nothing is truer than the old saying, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” If it is possible to do it today, do it today. Squeeze all that you can into today’s schedule.

  Only once in John Templeton’s seventeen-year school career did anyone ask him if he’d done his homework assignment. Because young Templeton found Latin a difficult subject, his mother, who had studied Latin for seven years, would sometimes help him. She once asked him if he’d finished his work. He hesitated but finally told her: “Mother, all my life I’ve gotten nothing but As. Even in Latin. Not a single grade lower than an A. So please leave it up to me. I love you for your solicitude, but you needn’t worry.” She never asked him again.

  John Templeton understood the virtues of promptness and stick-to-itiveness at a tender age. When he was in the first grade, he took his report card home and showed his father, with understandable pride, that all of the subjects were marked A. His father was very pleased and said that he would like to set up a contest. On each of John’s half-year reports that showed nothing lower than an A, he would give his son a bale of cotton. Each time there was a grade lower than an A, however, John would have to give his father a bale of cotton.

  The theory was that son would wind up owing father many, many bales of cotton, which would be a lesson to John. But the older Templeton did not reckon with his son’s willpower, desire to succeed, and his early ability to get the most out of the minutes in an hour. He worked hard at his lessons, he was always prompt with them, and he went through grammar school and high school without a single grade below an A. Thus, eleven years later, his father owed him twenty-two bales of cotton.

  John Templeton says, “Promptness in business is a must. We manage six large mutual funds and have over 300 stocks and bonds in those funds. They are in more than twelve nations. And yet, within one hour from the close of the New York Stock Exchange, every last item we manage is priced worldwide and multiplied by the number of shares; all the dividends and distributions are calculated. We know in less than an hour the exact price to the penny of our stock so that those results can be published in the financial sections of newspapers.

  “I can think of no better way to operate than to do now what should be done now. It is a hard way, but the best way, and a useful principle for success.”

  There are two quotations on the virtues of promptness that John Templeton feels will aid the reader searching for success.

  The first is from William Mathews, the philanthropist: “Nothing inspires confidence in a businessman sooner than punctuality, nor is there any habit which sooner saps his reputation than that of being always behind time.”

  The second, from author Sir Richard Tangye: “During a very busy life I have often been asked, ‘How did you manage to do it all?’ The answer is very simple: It is because I did everything promptly. Tomorrow is never. Yesterday is gone. The only moment is now.”

  Step 10 deals with the difficult subject of time management. Answer the following yes-or-no questions:

  Are you the master of time and not its slave?

  Do you manage your schedule so that you don’t have to rush—and risk carelessness—to be on time?

  Are you equally prompt with your superiors, your peers, and those who work under you?

  Do you set your watch ahead in order to be prompt for appointments?

  When you are given an assignment, do you complete it when requested or even ahead of time?

  If you cannot answer yes in all five cases, go back to Step 10 and read it over carefully. Be sure to set your watch ahead. Keep a chart of appointments and activities hour by hour, and write out a list of tomorrow’s engagements today. Before long you will begin to master the all-important art of promptness.

  STEP 11

  GIVING THE EXTRA OUNCE

  EVEN AS A BOY, John Templeton was an observer of people. He watched them in every phase of their lives, studied them, and questioned why they did certain things—and what impact those things had on their happiness and level of success. He was strongly impressed by the discovery that the moderately successful person did
nearly as much work as the outstandingly successful one. The difference in effort was quite small—only an “extra ounce.” But the results, in terms of accomplishment and the quality of the achievement, were often dramatic.

  Templeton called this principle the “doctrine of the extra ounce.” And he quickly noticed that the doctrine was confined not to just one field of endeavor but could be applied in all fields. In fact, it seemed to be a kind of universal principle that could lead to success in life.

  For example, when it came to high school football games, Templeton discovered that the boys who tried a little harder and practiced a little more became the stars. They contributed the key plays that won games. They tended to be the ones who gained the support of the fans and were complimented by the coaches. And all because they did just a little bit more than their teammates.

  Templeton also noticed that same doctrine of the extra ounce at work in his high school classrooms. Those who did their lessons reasonably well received good grades. But those who did their lessons a little bit better than anyone else—who exerted the “extra ounce”—received top grades and all the honors.

  The same principle applied to his experiences at Yale. Templeton made sure that he had his lessons not just 95 percent right but 99 percent right. The result? He got into Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year and was elected president of the Yale chapter—an accomplishment that went a long way toward helping him be selected for a Rhodes scholarship.

  Out in the business world, Templeton refined his doctrine of the extra ounce even further. He came to realize that giving that single extra ounce results in better quality. Those who try harder are capable of a higher level of performance. And the person who gives seventeen ounces to the pint rather than sixteen will achieve rewards all out of proportion to that one ounce.