Probably the most accurate way to determine a person’s position on the Tone Scale is speech.

Unless a person talks openly and listens easily, he cannot be considered very high on the Tone Scale.

An observation of how a person both listens and talks will give an accurate measure of his position on the Tone Scale.

With this understanding, you can do what we call a Two-minute Tone Scale Test on someone.

In this test, you are measuring the communication level of the person. The way to do a Two-minute Tone Scale Test is to simply start talking to someone at the highest possible tone level, creatively and constructively, and then gradually drop the tone of your conversation down to the point where it gets a response from the person.

A person best responds to his own tone level. In doing this type of test, you should not carry any particular tone level of conversation too long (not more than a sentence or two) because if you talk to the person for longer, you will bring him up the Tone Scale and spoil the accuracy of the test.

Two-minute testing, then, is done first by announcing something creative and constructive to the person to see whether he responds with something creative and constructive. For example, tell the person about some great new discovery or a new development project that is going to help thousands of people who are unemployed get work.

If you don’t get an enthusiastic response back, then perhaps say something about sports and see if the person responds to that.

If you again get no response, try talking antagonistically about something which the person knows (but not, of course, about the person himself) to see if he gives any response. For example, you could talk about the prices of everything just going up and the cost of living going up and how much it costs just to drive a car today.

Then say a sentence or two at the tone level of anger against something that is happening that you feel he will know something about.

Next come up with some things to tell the person that communicate the tone level of hopelessness and misery.

Somewhere in this range, from the top to the bottom, the person will agree with the type of conversation that you are offering him. That is, he will respond to it with the same tone level and start talking back to you about that subject. A conversation can then be carried on, along this tone level where the person has been discovered, and you will rapidly gain enough information to make a good estimate of the person’s position on the chart.

The Tone Scale is one of the most important tools ever developed to tell you how someone is going to behave or what he is likely to do. Use this tool and you will at all times know who you are dealing with, who to associate with and who to trust.