business dog, but that it is, in itself, the whole animal.
meetings and interoffice memoranda.
I’m still a wildcatter at heart, I suppose. I don’t hold
theories at all. I still believe that the less overhead there is
in business, the better. The world-wide complex of firms
paperwork. For example, there are only some 50 people
operation. The Getty Oil Company of Italy—which, in
administrative staff of only 15 persons. This proves—at
empires. The thought may not please exponents of the
tainly improves efficiency and boosts production. The resul-
very happy, indeed.
specialize. The young man who understands all aspects and
phases of business is a rare bird these days. The average
young executive has a thorough theoretical knowledge of
one single facet of business but knows little or nothing
about what goes on in any office or department save his
own. He is like the mythical medical specialist who is so
specialized that he only examines left nostrils.
If the trend continues, the real businessman—the man
who can actually coordinate and run a business because he
knows what makes it tick and how it operates—will
disappear from the scene entirely. His place will no doubt
be taken by some sort of super cybernetic machine. The
machine will establish policy, make final decisions and give
orders after bits and pieces of information encoded on
punched tapes are fed into it by ultra specialized company
executives.
To succeed in a business, to reach the top, an individual
must know all it is possible to know about that business.
He must be acquainted with the duties and responsibilities
of each and every section, offi
ce and department of the firm.
He must know something—the more the better—about ac-
counting as well as production, about sales as well as
purchasing. Like the old time
wildcatters, he should know a
dozen— or a hundred—different
jobs well enough so that he
can exercise direct supervision, increase efficiency and
product quality, reduce costs and still make a profit and
continue to expand.
Any executive can do a much better job if he peels off his
business suit once in a while, climbs into a set of overalls
and gets his hands dirty down in the plant. The vice-
president in charge of purchasing who has fed the raw ma-
terials he buys into a processing vat or a molding oven can
do a much better job of purchasing. He can often learn more
by listening to the conversation of a few production workers
for an hour than he can by reading 10,000 specification
sheets. Advertising and sales
managers who have operated
a lathe or punch press and have actually made a component
of the product about which they rhapsodize will be much
more convincing and successful in their sales campaigns.
The employee-relations expert will have a much clearer and
better understanding of employee problems and psychology
if he spends more time among the employees and less in his
paneled office dreaming up new “morale-building”
gimmicks or bowling parties.
I don’t suppose there are any finer examples to prove my
point than the companies in the Bell Telephone System.
There are few Bell System companies in which the top
executives didn’t work their way up through the ranks.
They began as linemen, cable-splicers, bookkeepers. They
generally moved around as well as up during their careers.
They run their operations with remarkable efficiency.
Walter Munford, the late president of U.S. Steel, began
his career as a die-reamer, working 78 hours per week—
and came up the hard way. Harry B. Cunningham,
president of S. S. Kresge, started as a stock boy and worked
his way up through the various departments and levels of
the giant retail chain. The list of such examples could be
extended indefinitely, but the point, I think, is clear.
Another error that unseasoned businessmen make is
that they relegate, rather than delegate, authority. I
suppose it’s natural for an executive or a man who owns a
business to feel that he should take things as easily as
possible. That’s human nature—but it’s hardly good
business. A businessman can never afford to let down—nor
can he afford to relegate his authority. If he allows others
to run his business without maintaining close and constant
supervision over their policies and operations, he’s most
likely to find that he has made a mistake and that he and
his business are in trouble. All too often, by the time he
makes that discovery, it’s too late to do anything about it.
“If you have a business, make sure that you’re the one
who’s running it,” is a piece of advice I received many years
ago. “If you don’t want to accept the headaches of being
boss, then either close the business down or sell it to some-
one who
will
accept the responsibilities.” I’ve found this to
be sound counsel. A businessman
should delegate authority
—he must, in fact, for no one man can be everywhere and
do everything. But he must also remember that the final re-
sponsibility is his—and thus, he should always retain final
authority.
This brings me to the last of the mistakes I’ve observed
that young businessmen make frequently: their growing
habit of pampering themselves—complaining that they’re
overworked and constantly laboring under “terrific strain
and tension.” They flaunt their real or imagined ailments—
particularly their ulcers—as badges of honor. They spend
huge amounts of time and money on medical checkups,
cardiograms, X rays and test
s and examinations of every
conceivable kind. Nothing could be more nonsensical.
The National Office of Vital Statistics reveals that “men
of the managerial, technical and administrative level as a
whole have lower . . . than . . . average mortality rates.”
Business executives enjoy the lowest rates when buying life
insurance. Medical studies indicate they are less
susceptible to heart trouble—a favorite executive’s
bugaboo—than clerks or laborers, are no more inclined to
contract cancer or most other fatal diseases than
bricklayers or streetcar conductors.
“There’s nothing really wrong with most executives,” the
head of a famous clinic once remarked to me. “They aren’t
overworked or overstrained. They’re just over worried
about holding their jobs and become nervous wrecks as a
result of the office politics they
so often play.” Other doctors
have told me they believe that many executives’ morbid
preoccupation with their health is a by-product of the
status-seeking mania.
“Executives who are secretly afraid they aren’t good
enough to be promoted build up health alibis in advance,” is
the way one physician explained
it. “In the event they fail
to make good, they can convince their wives, their friends—
and themselves—that their health, not their incompetence,
was responsible for their failure.”
One doctor even says that many executives who claim to
have ulcers have nothing of the kind. “Having ulcers has
become a status symbol,” he grins. “There are certain types
of executives who would rather die than admit they have
nothing wrong with their
stomachs. That would be
tantamount to admitting that they were like the hoi polloi!”
Not being a medical authority, I can hardly pass judg-
ment on any of these theories. I can, however, enjoy a
hearty private laugh whenever I hear a 28- or 30-year-old
executive who works at most 48 hours a week—less the
time he spends having three-hour “business lunches” and
playing golf—wail that he’s “overworked” or “laboring
under terrific strain.” The truly great giants and geniuses
of American business habitually worked 16- and 18-hour
days—often seven days a week— and seldom took
vacations. As a result, most of them lived to a ripe old age.
For example, Andrew Mellon was 82 when he died,
Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford lived to be 84, George L.
Hartford and Samuel H. Kress died at 92. John D.
Rockefeller, Sr., was 98 when he died.
Nor is this true only of businessmen of the past. Hugh
Robertson was 72 in 1959 when he turned over the presi-
dency of the Zenith Radio Corporation to Joseph S. Wright,
and moved up to be a very active chairman of the board.
Walter Johnson—in his eighties—is famous for the energy
and ambition with which he runs two giant companies—
Friden, Inc. and the American Forest Products Co. There
are uncounted others like them.
The “half-strength” executive who complains about his
“overwork” and its menace to his health would do well to
buy a
Who’s Who o f American Businessmen
and study
it carefully. He’d find that the hardest-working and most
successful businessmen most often live longest.
These, then, are the various categories of blunders I’ve
seen young businessmen make so frequently during my
more than 40 years in the
business world. Some are
mistakes that a beginner will almost inevitably make until
he is seasoned and matured in
business. Others are errors
that can be avoided, particularly if an individual is
forewarned about them. Most of the blunders I’ve listed are
errors I’ve committed myself at one time or another. In
business or out of it, there’s nothing unusual or shameful
about making a mistake—once. But, as Cicero said, to
stumble twice against the sa
me stone is a proverbial
disgrace.