Forging Ahead in Business Part 7

Mr. Samuel Cochrane, President, Cochrane Chemical Company, Jersey City, sums up the argument in this remark:

"If I had enrolled with you a year or two ago, I should be better able to handle the problems put up to me every day."

More leisure

The secret of leisure is not to do less work, but to organize work so that a greater volume can be handled in less time. No active man wishes to cut down his productive efforts. A great many men, however, are so tied to their business tasks by detail and routine that they have little time or energy left for constructive thought. Frequently they do not get enough recreation and physical exercise to keep them in prime condition. As a result, they are frittering away the best years of their life in handling small details that never bring them anywhere.

To a greater or lesser extent, this is true of all of us. How to escape from the time-wasting energy-absorbing routine and details is a vital question.

Being "swamped with too much detail" is in reality a kind of business disease--and a very dangerous one. It is most likely to attack the officers of rapidly expanding concerns and energetic, ambitious men who are constantly taking on new responsibilities. Unless one can shake off this disease, it will probably go on eating away more and more of his time and energy until he loses his grip on large affairs and to his chagrin, sees other men of smaller ability rising above him. It is as bad for a man to be "too busy" as for him to be not busy enough.

As a matter of fact, it is unnecessary for any man to be so hara.s.sed with details--except as a temporary condition--that he cannot give a reasonable amount of time to recreation, reading and thought. The company burdened by the detail-type of executive is not getting what it pays for. His natural abilities are being diverted to things that cheaper men could do equally well. He owes it to his company, as well as to himself, to reorganize his work.

Cutting out the details

It is necessarily true in all such cases that many of the over-busy man's duties recur day after day. They are of a semi-routine nature and could be made wholly routine by giving the proper instructions to some one else. In other words, this is a problem of organization similar to that of organizing a factory, a store, or a body of men. The principles that are discussed in the Modern Business Course and Service apply to an individual just as well as to a company. A man can organize his desk very much on the same plan that he would organize a factory. When he does so, he invariably finds that his efficiency is increased, his work is more productive, and he himself has more leisure.

Accordingly, any business man who desires to forge ahead should reduce the details of his work to routine which can be carried on without special thought. The Modern Business Course and Service is a direct and invaluable aid to the man who feels himself tied down by details.

Of course, we must consider in this connection the man who thinks that he is much busier than he really is. There are spare moments in every man's day. There is the half-hour before or after the evening meal; the time spent in traveling to and from work; the one or two evenings a week that even the busiest man should spend at home. The measure of a man's chances of success may readily be taken by learning the manner in which he uses--or wastes--his spare time.

No better use can be made of these odd moments than in reading the Modern Business Course. This reading is not tiring; it is recreative and stimulating. It will enable any man to organize his work so as to increase his leisure for reading and study. It will help him to rise to a higher level where his thought and energy will be more productive.

Many of the big business executives are investing their spare moments in just this way. They realize the great results that are bound to follow. It is unquestionably true that the use of one's spare moments count heavily in determining how much will be accomplished a year or two hence.

The following also give their opinion:

"For a good many years as a practising mining engineer, I gradually began to realize that there was something wrong with engineers in regard to their business success. Something that seemed to stand between the most brilliant of men and success in business. After a long study of men and conditions, I subscribed to your Course. From then on I began to take greater responsibilities and larger fees because of my added confidence and business knowledge. I truly feel that your course ferried me across to that phase of professional grasp where I became successful in business as a professional engineer."

GLENVILLE A. COLLINS, _Consulting Engineer of Seattle._

Much the same thoughts are admirably expressed by another busy executive, Mr. J. H. Carter, Vice-President, National City Bank of New York:

"You will no doubt be interested to know that the cla.s.s formed under the auspices of the City Bank Club to follow the Alexander Hamilton Inst.i.tute Course, which you helped start about two years ago last Spring, is just completing its study.

"The majority of the original enrolment of fifty members have followed the Course regularly. It has held the interest of the men throughout and has proved unusually stimulating and interesting.

"The official staff of the bank has given the cla.s.s its hearty moral support, and, in addition, has offered to refund a part of the fee to those completing the Course successfully. We feel that this policy has not only encouraged the men, but has benefited the bank as well.

"Personally, I cannot speak too highly of the Course. I feel that the time I have given to it during the past few years could not have been employed to greater advantage."

Increased ability to handle men

There are just two factors that determine a man's competence to direct the work of other men:

1. His superior knowledge of the work in hand.

2. His ability to command respect.

As a matter of fact, the second factor is almost wholly included in the first. The man who really knows what he is talking about always commands respect. The man who is largely a "bluff," no matter how "magnetic" or forceful his personality, is soon found out and retired in favor of the man of smaller pretensions, but more knowledge. The history of almost any business success demonstrates the truth of this statement.

Modern business affairs are so complex that it is wholly out of the question to put an untrained man in command. One might as well talk of putting an untrained man in charge of a modern battleship. In both positions broad-gauge knowledge and judgment are absolutely essential. The same principle applies equally to the minor commands. The leading business men of the country are for the most part quiet, self-controlled men, who think before they speak and who are constantly studying business problems.

This is the type of man best fitted to control and direct the work of others.

The man who develops himself, develops his ability to handle men. Through the Modern Business Course and Service the training can be secured that makes for self-development and for success.

T. H. Bailey Whipple, of the Publicity Department of the Westinghouse Electric Company, writes:

"Your Course unquestionably does for men what experience and native ability alone can never do."

Mr. G. E. Lucas, Office Efficiency Engineer, Sayles Finishing Plants, says:

"I am indeed glad that I took the opportunity to enrol for the Modern Business Course and Service. What I have obtained has been of very material benefit to me. My own experience bears on the experience of my other colleagues who have been getting help and information from you in the past two years. All the reports that we have obtained have been thoroughly satisfactory and very complete."

The experience of Mr. S. G. McMeen, President, Columbus Railway Power and Light Company, Columbus, Ohio, is equally to the point:

"My experience began many years ago in technical lines and continued along them to engineering and construction practice.

As often happens, this technical work led me into executive matters. It was in them that I missed some of the advantages enjoyed by men who have specialized earlier in commercial and financial work.

"Naturally I formed a habit of appropriating the needed knowledge wherever I might find it, and found much more than I could a.s.similate. The long-felt need, therefore, was for a source of cla.s.sified information for reference and study, a source of training by the use of intelligent problems and a source of advice to which I might turn when in doubt. This source I found in the volumes, periodical literature and service of the Alexander Hamilton Inst.i.tute."

Larger income and success

As the diagram on page 49 indicates, the seven direct aids which subscribers obtain from the Modern Business Course and Service are:

1. Better understanding of business principles

2. Ability to plan more effectively

3. Increased confidence in handling big problems

4. Quicker and more accurate decisions

5. More time for constructive thinking

6. Greater ability to handle men

7. Knowledge that prevents mistakes

All of these aids to personal efficiency are bound to result in increased income and greater success. Even though a man should gain only slightly in any one of the seven qualities named, he would become a far better business man. He would either advance in position or expand his business--in either case raising himself to a higher level of income and success. The effect is all the more striking when a man increases his efficiency in respect to all seven qualities. To cite examples seems almost unnecessary. Yet a few typical expressions from subscribers may be of interest:

"It is very hard to put into words just how much good I have derived from the Alexander Hamilton Inst.i.tute Course, but I do realize that as problems present themselves, they are much easier to solve, and I have a better conception of the future outlook of business since having the benefit of your Course, and there is scarcely a day but what some matter comes up for which I use your Course."

Mr. W. C. ROOSE, _Sec'y and Gen. Mgr._ _Beacon Shoe Company_, _Manchester, New Hampshire_