187. Eisenhower

Ike, as he was affectionately called, could have been re-elected several times, if the constitutional prohibition had not been there. Fearing that Roosevelt would be President for life, it was the Republicans that enacted a ruling that no President could hold office for more than two terms. One rising to world eminence will have multiple gifts as aspects of his personality. I wish to deal with one aspect of it where he reached the spirit of things.

Army officers constantly engage themselves in missions, campaigns projects, etc. at the end of which they submit a detailed report to their superiors. Each time Ike submitted a report, his boss took out its kernel or essence, and  spoke it back to him. It was a revelation to him. It is obvious that the one who writes a long report without realising the subject on which he is writing is plodding along and the one who reaches the essence sits on top. It is there Ike learnt the value of the difference between work at length and its essence. In truth, the essence is the Spirit of the work.

When he became the President, he sent back wordy reports of length to be written briefly, bringing the essence out. He discharged his duties from the centre of responsibility and not from the details of work. In every work, one can go to the essence by insight and to him time will not be in short supply. A reviewer reading this incident in a management book laughed at the explanation and declared that it is merely due to lazy reading habits. He overlooked the simple truism that all men who rise quickly in all walks of life go straight to the essentials of a situation without losing themselves in a plethora of details. That is the route for a reporter to become an editor.

The Spirit of things in any walk of life lays itself bare to insight. Insight comes from Intuition which is the door to the Spirit above.