A Message to Garcia - Softcover

Hubbard, Elbert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 161104443X ISBN 13: 9781611044430

Publisher: ReadaClassic.com, 2011

Synopsis

Reading and discussing Hubbard's small classic, "A Message to Garcia" should be a pre-requisite for anyone about to work anywhere for a boss. Much is written about leaders, and this book helps to fill the huge gap in what is written for and about followers. The few minutes it takes to read this book could change the rest of your life. I first read it back in 1985 and I re-read it frequently. Hubbard's inspiration for his "preachment" was an obscure but important event in the 1898 Spanish-American War. President McKinley needed someone to quickly deliver a message to an insurgent general somewhere in the jungles of Cuba. An army officer was recommended and McKinley personally handed the message to this officer with the mission to deliver the "message to Garcia." This officer's unhesitating acceptance of his mission with no superfluous questions and his subsequent completion of the mission is Hubbard's definition of an invaluable subordinate. Hubbard's lessons of initiative (doing the right thing without being told) and loyalty to yourself, your boss, and your organization (doing the right thing when told only once) are timeless and well told. Hubbard spoke to all leaders and subordinates when he wrote, "It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing - 'Carry a message to Garcia.'"

About this title

About the Author:

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856 –1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. He was an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement and is, perhaps, most famous for his essay A Message to Garcia. Owing to his prolific publications, Hubbard was a renowned figure in his day. Contributors to a 360-page book published by Roycrofters and entitled In Memoriam: Elbert and Alice Hubbard included such luminaries as meat-packing magnate J. Ogden Armour, business theorist and Babson College founder Roger Babson, botanist and horticulturalist Luther Burbank, seed-company founder W. Atlee Burpee, ketchup magnate Henry J. Heinz, National Park Service founder Franklin Knight Lane, success writer Orison Swett Marden, inventor of the modern comic strip Richard F. Outcault, poet James Whitcomb Riley, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elihu Root, evangelist Billy Sunday, political leader Booker T. Washington, and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Hubbard is an ancestor of singer Brodie Foster Hubbard. Another book which was written by Mr. Hubbard is entitled "Health and Wealth". It was published in 1908 and includes many short truisms that are in line with the Truth movement and Transcendentalists concerning using intelligence to rid one of fear and, thus, to bring the body back to health and happiness which leads to true wealth through service to others.

About this edition

• Publisher: ReadaClassic.com
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 161104443X
• ISBN 13: 9781611044430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 42