SECRET 16

Find the Right Watson

Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.

—“HIS LAST BOW”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pity poor Watson. Of all the characters in literature, he is perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented. Over the years, through endless pop-culture incarnations of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries on radio, television, and in the movies, Watson has been reduced to a buffoon, a clownish character who follows Holmes around like a lost dog. Every time Holmes discovers a clue or makes an observation, Watson is right there to spit out his pipe and exclaim wide-eyed, “Impossible!” or “Blimey! However did you solve it, Holmes?”

But in fact, the Watson of Conan Doyle’s original stories is a very different character: a solid, intelligent war veteran with steely nerves and a strong sense of honor and loyalty to Holmes. As Watson tells us himself in the very first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, he served with the British Army in Afghanistan after receiving his medical degree and was seriously wounded in the battle of Maiwand; the bullet “shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery” in his shoulder. “I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines,” Watson recalled.

Not exactly a dimwitted old fool, to say the least! London Times columnist Ben Macintyre also believes that Watson has gotten short shrift over the years. In 2009 he wrote a column in praise of the doctor, highlighting the contrast between the two characters’ personalities. “Holmes is flashy, brilliant and extraordinary,” he writes, “but it is Watson’s blunter, quieter virtues of simple decency that we are called on to admire, and it is his voice that we trust.... Watson is the man you would want to go into the jungle with or, for that matter, into the Afghan mountains.”

Although Holmes gets most of the glory, Watson was nevertheless a significant factor in the detective’s success. He was in many ways the perfect junior partner and friendly companion for the prickly genius; the two complemented one another quite well. The actor Jeremy Brett, who memorably played Holmes on a BBC TV series in the 1980s, once noted in an interview, “Watson and Holmes are two halves of the same person. They are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle . . . you can’t have the one without the other, it’s impossible.”

If your plans for success require you to work closely with someone else for a long period of time, you could do a lot worse than Watson. Let’s look at some of the qualities that made him such a valued business partner:

• Watson had parallel skills and training. It makes sense that Conan Doyle, himself a physician, would make Watson a doctor as well. Holmes, too, was quite skilled in medicine and chemistry, especially poisons (of course!). This meant that the two had something in common; they could speak the same language. Holmes wasn’t a certified doctor like Watson, and Watson wasn’t a freewheeling detective like Holmes, but their knowledge and experience overlapped enough to provide them with a comfortable rapport.

• Watson was independent. Watson didn’t need Holmes; he had a successful medical practice and a life of his own. Shortly after moving to London, he married and settled down, and sometimes months would go by between his visits with the famous detective. It wasn’t a master–servant relationship; Watson didn’t need Holmes’s approval to maintain his own sense of self-worth, nor did he show up at 221B Baker Street every morning desperate to win Holmes’s praises. It was a healthy and mutually agreeable partnership, and Watson eventually earned Holmes’s greatest respect.

• Watson was a good sounding board and knew how to listen. Earlier, I quoted a passage from “Silver Blaze” in which Holmes tells Watson the facts of the case as a means of getting a clearer picture of the situation. And in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” Holmes says, “Look here Watson . . . just sit down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don’t know quite what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a cigar and let me expound.”

• Watson wasn’t afraid to challenge Holmes and make him think harder. Watson spent a lot of time on cases asking Holmes questions and demanding that he explain himself. This was good for Holmes, whose antisocial tendencies sometimes made him almost impossible to work with. By constantly engaging him and not allowing him to curl back into his intellectual shell, Watson helped humanize Holmes.

• Watson didn’t try to take Holmes’s place. Over time, Watson came to understand that the best way he could serve Holmes—and, by extension, help solve cases—was not to try to compete with him but to allow the detective to do what he did best and then assist Holmes by using the special talents and skills that he himself brought to the table.

• Watson believed in Holmes’s work. This might seem to be an obvious point, but in many partnerships, one person is in it for ideals, while the other is just out to make a quick buck or steady paycheck. Successful long-term partnerships need emotional and intellectual buy-in from both parties. As the chronicler of Holmes’s amazing adventures and the person entrusted with portraying the detective to a large audience, Watson believed he was performing an important service, not just for law enforcement but for society in general.

Success is never a one-person job. Regardless of how independent you are (or think you are), you’ll still need help along the way. Finding the right partners to help you reach your goals is just as crucial as securing funding from a venture capitalist or putting the finishing touches on your first novel; the quality of feedback you receive is as important as the product or service you ultimately provide. Watson was a fictional character, but his virtues are very real—always be on the lookout for them.