This chapter concerns the kind of thinking necessary for success:
- Mental attitude.
- Creative ability.
- Educational growth.
- Efficiency and organizational sense.
- Failure stamina.
There is no formula, except the one that works for you. If the pap works for you-and, judging from the testimonials, it must for some-use it; but don't be discouraged if it doesn't. As you can see from the variety of opinions offered here by the executives, the ways to stimulate your own creative approach are countless. There are, however, certain patterns which can be followed.
1. Mental Attitude
Some executives who have climbed high in their businesses and who have been consistently creative and productive have seemingly had a negative approach to their jobs. The pap-peddlers would have you believe this is impossible, and it may be. The innermost drive of this successful naysayer is probably a positive one, since productivity is surely a positive thing. Most of the men quoted here emphasize the "I-can-do-it" attitude, and I would be guiding you falsely if I said otherwise.
There is no question that you should get down to the business at hand, without all the, ands and buts. Produce, no matter what your view of life is. If you prize your caustic wit, you would do well to express it with caution on the job. Your sour outlook may not stop you from being productive, but it could have an adverse effect on co-workers and subordinates-to say nothing of superiors. Although getting your boss's job is still possible, it will be more difficult.
So let us concede this one to the formula men. Develop the "can-do" frame of mind, and you will be surprised how much you really can do.
This "can-do" attitude applies to your application for new jobs as well as to tasks on your present job. If you approach interviews with the idea of testing the company's suitability for you rather than your suitability for the company, your confidence will be immeasurably improved.
One word of caution: although a positive attitude is recommended, make certain that your approach is realistic. Avoid living in a world so dreamlike that any setback will upset you.
Experts on Mental Attitude
What a man can imagine or conceive in his mind he can accomplish. Impossible are impossible as thinking makes them so. Henry J. Kaiser
A young man on my staff once said to me that a good general should go into battle knowing his lines of retreat. I sacked that young man. Leonard Matcham
One must work, if not from taste, then at least from despair. For, to reduce everything to a single truth: work is less boring than pleasure. J. Pieper
Don't be a fault-finding grouch; when you feel like finding fault with somebody or something stop for a moment and think; there is very apt to be something wrong within yourself. Don't permit yourself to show temper, and always remember that when you are in the right you can afford to keep your temper, and when you are in the wrong you cannot afford to lose it. J. J. Reynolds
The world has a way of giving what is demanded of it. If you are frightened and look for failure and poverty, you will get them, no matter how hard you may try to succeed. Lack of faith in yourself, in what life will do for you, cuts you off from the good things of the world. Expect victory and you make victory. Nowhere is this truer than in business life, where bravery and faith bring both material and spiritual rewards. Preston Bradley
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much. Walter Lippmann
"I can't do it" never yet accomplished anything; "I will try" has performed wonders. George P. Burnham MENTAL ATTITUDE 41
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. Bruce Barton
Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs. Andrew Carnegie
Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease. Henry Ford
There are two kinds of discontent in this world: the discontent that works, and the discontent that wrings its hands. The first gets what it wants, and the second loses what it has. There's no cure for the first but success; and there's no cure at all for the second. Gordon Graham
My general theory is that sound management is merely sound thinking coupled with effective execution. The problems of all businesses are essentially the same. Yet there is some justification for the man who insists that his business is different. It is different. Therefore, while the principles of management are undoubtedly the same throughout business, the applications differ of necessity, and it is in the application of principles which anyone can understand that management proves itself good or bad. Herman Nelson
You all have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations in your own mind as to what you cannot do. Don't think you cannot. Think you can. Darwin P. Kingsley
Remember; the essence of a living philosophy is that it must be alive. To be alive, it must be lived. To be lived, you must act! Actions, not mere words, determine the validity of a man's living philosophy. W. Clement Stone
- Know yourself and decide what you want most of all to make out of your life. Then write down your goals and plan to reach them.
- Use the great powers you can tap through faith in God and the hidden energies of your soul and subconscious mind.
- Love people and serve them.
- Develop your positive traits of character and personality.
- Work! Put your life's plan into determined action and go after what you want with all that's in you. Henry J. Kaiser
To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination. Jeremy Collier
The big salaries in business always go to those who have what it takes to get things done. That is true not only of those executives who guide the destinies of a business, but it is true of those upon whom those executives must depend for results. J. C. Aspley
It has been said that the difference between a thorough bred horse and a scrub is that a scrub goes until it can't go another mile-and then goes that other mile. The rich rewards of tomorrow come, not to those who wilt, not to those who show the white feather, but to those who have faith and vision and confidence enough to buck the tide, to grit their teeth and forge unswervingly ahead. Winners prove to be those who have the manhood, the fortitude to say, "Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead." B. C. Forbes
If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get committees working on it. C. F. Kettering
The pursuit of a successful career requires a sincere application. One of the best ways to advance is to actually "live" the part. Think that you have already achieved success. Live your life as though you were already there. You will be amazed at the results. . . . You will realize methods and ways of getting closer to your goal almost daily. Siegfried Schlindwein
We never spent time dreaming about what Standard Oil might someday become. We just tried to make the best of each opportunity that arose, attending to one day's business at a time. John D. Rockefeller
For just experience tells, in every soil, that those who think must govern those that toil. Oliver Goldsmith
2. Creative Ability
Cultivate your imagination. Find ways of waking it up. Few people use their creative possibilities to the fullest, but it is hooves ambitious you to exercise everything you have. There are nearly as many ways to fire your imagination as there are people. The quotes below should provide some hints.
The first groups of remarks are from non-business creators -novelists, composers, playwrights. We in the corporate world could do well to listen to them on this subject. The principles they follow will also work for us. All we must do is add a few dollar concepts: "Will it sell?" "Will it make the organization run smoother?" "Will it add to the public image of the company?" "Will it increase the income of the company?"
The second groups of quotations are from businessmen who have managed to be both imaginative and dollar-wise.
Experts on Imagination-Artists
The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. Ernest Newman
Many writers have told me that they have built up mnemonic devices to start them off on each day's writing task. Hemingway once told me he sharpened twenty pencils; Willa Gather that she read a passage from the Bible (not from piety, she was quick to add, but to get in touch with fine prose; she also regretted that she had formed this habit, for the prose rhythms of 1611 were not those she was in search of). My springboard has always been long walks. Thornton Wilder
The formula for a good novelist: Ninety-nine percent talent . . . ninety-nine percent disciplines…ninety-nine percent works. He must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. William Faulkner
I don't know that it [the idea of a novel] comes. A more appropriate image for me might be that I start with the idea of constructing a tree-house and end with a skyscraper of wood. Norman Mailer
When asked to say something about inspiration, Jean Cocteau replied:
It is not inspiration: it is expiration.
He also said that there can be some help toward inspiration from a depressant.
Extreme fatigue can serve.
Experts on Imagination-Executives
The age of change is not an age for the unimaginative, the frightened, and the timid. It is an age for the bold thinkers, the ingenious, the pace setters. It is to these pathfinders that success and all its fruits will accrue. William C. Ridgeway, Jr.
Most companies are interested in performance, not conformance. This is not to say that a young man who comes into a large company and looks for the protective coloration of conformity cannot find it. He can. All he has to do is perform exactly and without imagination the tasks he is asked to perform, shun additional responsibilities of all kinds, and keep silent except possibly to discuss a change in the weather-and no one will ever notice him. Nor will he ever rise above his routine tasks to a managerial position.
Certainly, he misses the point of managing-and I am not at all sure that he doesn't miss the point of living. Henry Ford II
You can't sit on the lid of progress. If you do, you will be blown to pieces. Henry Kaiser
In business the earning of profit is something more than incident of success. It is an essential condition of success; because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure. Louis D. Brandeis
If you wait for inspiration you'll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street. Ben Nicholas
Our vast progress in transportation, past and future, is only a symbol of the progress that is possible by constantly striving toward new horizons in every human activity. Who can say what new horizons lay before us if we can but maintain the initiative and develop the imagination to penetrate them-new economic horizons, new horizons in the art of government, new social horizons, new horizons expanding in all directions, to the end that greater degrees of well-being may be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.
Five minutes, just before going to sleep, given to a bit of directed imagination regarding achievement possibilities of the morrow, will steadily and increasingly bear fruit, particularly if all ideas of difficulty, worry or fear are resolutely ruled out and replaced by those of accomplishment and smiling courage. Frederick Pierce
The important thing is that each of us do his part and do it as well as he can-do, as Carlyle says, not what lies dimly at a distance, but what sits clearly at hand. In doing so, we find that there is ample room within our society for individualism, just as there is ample necessity for cooperation. And it is as we learn to distinguish the conformity of behavior from the conformity of thought that we approach the real significance of the term "success," Crawford H. Greenewalt
A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing. Charles M. Schwab
The practical man is the adventurer, the investigator, the believer in research, the asker of questions; the man who refuses to believe that perfection has been attained. . . . There is no thrill or joy in merely doing that which any one can do, . . . It is always safe to assume, not that the old way is wrong, but that there may be a better way. Henry R. Harrower
An office boy with an eighth-grade schooling who has developed his creative imagination has a greater chance for success in life than the university graduate who has failed to put his imagination to work, Irwin Ross
There are some people who think that an idea is to be rated like wine: the older, the better. The resort to antiquity's cellar may yield vinegar as often as it produces wine. Aaron Levenstein
Ideas lose themselves as quickly as quail, and one must wing them the minute they rise out of the grass-or they are gone. Thomas F. Kennedy
Tame a wild idea but don’t break its spirit. Harry Pesin
. . work hard, think big, and always have a dream. And, above all, concentrate on implementing that dream, beginning with a detailed blueprint and plan for your agenda, your priorities, your first things first. Put a firm foundation under your castles in Spain; in the form of these step-by-step, play-by-play specifics that make your dream come true. M. Linclon Schuster
I can't give you any formula for success, but I can give you a sure formula for failure-try to please everybody. Herbert Bayard Swope
Everyone knows the basic steps in creating-absorption, assimilation, gestation, creation, evaluation. But knowing about them is quite different from understanding them. The enlightened management knows the creative process is a series of directional acts that move toward the most accurate resolution. Lawrence D'Aloise
Today, 15 billion dollars will be invested in research and development. I'll qualify that to this extent-a-bout 5 billion is in government. But 10 billion dollars of that investment is for American industry to bring out the exciting, the newer and the better product or service. In that connection, I have no validation for this, but I believe about 10,000 new products will have been introduced to the marketplace in 1966.... It takes an average of 405 ideas, channeled into research and development, before one successful product goes to the market place-405 ideas to produce just one successful product. Fen K. Doscher What the world needs, and what American business needs, is a steady stream of creative men with a broad knowledge and a capacity for independent thinking. We need men who pursue ideas, who will seek to solve problems, although they may have nothing to do with the immediate business problems before them; men whose thought processes do not end with the business day, who, through their education, have learned that one of the greatest joys in life is to be able to think for oneself. Gilbert W. Chapman
If you take away all of Motorola's factories, all of our inventories, and leave me with ten scientists and engineers of ideas, we could rebuild our corporation in a few short years. But if you leave me all of our physical assets and take away all of our ideas, you leave me virtually nothing. Robert Galvin
When you try to solve a problem, do you have ideas you don't put down because you think them impractical, or too costly or not worthwhile? Judging while trying to think up ideas is a typical example of a detrimental block. Most of us tend to judge or edit our ideas before we put them down, and this greatly inhibits the free association of ideas and therefore the production of new ideas. M. O. Edwards
Most executives agree that creativity is the most profit-producing possession their company has, and many wish they had more, but very few are doing much about it. As one candidly explained, "Sure, I'd like to have creative people around me if I didn't have to put up with all the inconveniences they cause." . . . Brilliant pioneers built American business on ideas that wouldn't survive the first lower-echelon management meetings of today, because they would be vetoed by "the cautious, caretaker management teams," who would shiver at the risks. Stanley A. Gill
Ideas are developed by individuals. They can be refined by many people, but the basic concept is usually the product of one mind. It is difficult, for example, to imagine the Mona Lisa being painted by a committee. Committees are essentially, of course, for evaluation, refining, and implementation-but they must have the products of individual fertile minds to work with. Dr. Charles F. Jones
The majority of businessmen are incapable of original thinking, because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked. David M. Ogilvy
It is a fallacy to think that ideas come to you only when you are at work at your desk. A questionnaire sent to a number of men who had distinguished themselves as inventors brought a surprising response: seventy-five percent of their ideas came to them while they were off the job taking it easy. Wilfred A. Peterson
When Thomas A. Edison faced a tough problem, the brilliant inventor would carefully review all pertinent facts at his command and then deliberately forget the entire mat ter. More often than not, a solution would suddenly pop into his mind before the day had elapsed. Likewise, one successful businessman habitually drops into an easy chair in his office for half an hour each day and forgets his business concerns. As soon as he relaxes, ideas begin to boil up from his inner mind. It is behavior like this-setting the stage for hunches to be born-that sets the highly productive person apart from the mediocre and unsuccessful. Frank L. Remington
An idea a day will keep the sheriff away. Don E. Roseman
3. Educational Growth
The businessman who stops learning will stop climbing; this is a truism. It seems almost unnecessary to say, but the number of executives and clerks who act as if they know it all shows that it must be repeated. There are many executives who once accomplished something unusual and who ever after have tried to apply the same principle to the new challenges they have faced. In the meantime someone else invented the wheel. And there are many clerks who walk around as if they invented the few jobs they perform. Time and the world will pass all of them by.
Continually study the small facets and extensions of your present job. Study them in relation to the larger goals of your company. Listen and learn from those more experienced than you. Listen also to the greenhorns who have just arrived on the scene; they may be more in touch with new developments than you. Read constantly the trade-related magazines and papers to keep up with any new discoveries or market changes.
Most mediocre company men will instinctively follow these principles of job-survival, but you must do more. If you keep up only with the developments in your own field, you will have moderate job security; but if you are to be chosen for higher positions you must expand your horizons. Learn as much as you can about the difficulties and techniques of the other departments in the company. Learn to look at the problems of suppliers as your own.
Even more important, broaden your general education daily. Whether you received a formal liberal arts education or not, continue to acquire an informal one now. Because of the survival pressures in big business, many men tend to narrow their sights within their own field. These men, if they reach the top, become increasingly dull and tend to stagnate their companies.
Read everything you can get your hands on. If a friend or a wife teases you about your one-track mind or your constant shop talk, take him or her seriously . . . and do something about it. George Bernard Shaw wrote:
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his court ship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
Your learning goals should likewise always be in front of you. This is a secret not only of education and business, but also of a happy life.
Experts on Learning
I make progress by having people around me who are smarter than I am-and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am, Henry Kaiser
My undergraduate days were spent in a school of engi neering. After four years of this highly specialized training, I immediately began my business career in an American corporation. Since that time, it has become increasingly apparent to me that the problems of an executive become less specialized and more general or basic as the man ad vances toward the top. ... At that level, the daily prob lems call for broad general knowledge, open-mindedness, an understanding of human nature, an insight into human frailties, a fairness of mind, a clarity of thought-all these beyond the ordinary knowledge of a complex business prob lem. There must be an intellectual cultivation through which an individual views the main current of life around him. Gilbert W. Chapman
Specialized training alone is not enough. It may get you that first job; but if it is all you have to offer an employer, it may also bury you in that first job. Henry Ford II
Fear, in fact, is the most destructive of the little foxes that try to steal effectiveness from executive performance. . . . But the executive isn't frightened if he has learned to learn -and knows it. Every time he proves this capacity by successfully attacking an unknown, fears of other unknowns recede from his consciousness. Finally his fears no longer exist. Norman G. Shidle
Quite frankly, I don't care how much education you have or how many degrees you have earned, you still can't come into business and hold your own if you expect to depend solely on your schooling or what you learned from books. Business doesn't just move; it flies. What you learn from textbooks, the details in textbooks, may be of little use to you by the time you try to use them. No amount of formal education can make anyone a profit or pay a dividend, until it is adapted to his particular business and to the demands of his immediate market. Herman W, Lay
There is no such thing as a completed education in this complex, changing world. We hear a great deal about high school drop-outs and college drop-outs, but not enough about executive drop-outs. The manager who stops learning stifles his personal growth and the profit growth of his company. It is a prime responsibility of the president to act as a kind of academic pacesetter and to establish in the company an environment of healthy respect for the accumulation of knowledge. W. F. Rockwell, Jr.
The opportunity for the average workman to rise to the management positions in industry was never better than it is today. These opportunities will continue to grow in the next decade. If the average intelligent and honest workman supplements his practical work experience with study of the general problems of business he will find privileged opportunities and promotion awaiting him. Henry H. Heimann
The young man of native ability, the will to work and good personality will, in the long run, get the equivalent of a college education in the tasks he will set for himself. If he has ability and determination, he will find ways to learn and to get ahead. Edward G. Seubert
Most men believe that it would benefit them if they could get a little from those who have more. How much more would it benefit them if they would learn a little from those who know more. Wm. J. H. Boetcker
Many men absorbed in business show such a rare quality of culture that we are surprised at it. The reason invariably is partly because hard work and even the weariness it leaves nobility with them, but also because there is no room in such lives for inferior mental occupation. Ernest Dimnet
I do not believe you can do today's job with yesterday's methods and be in business tomorrow. Nelson Jackson
Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. Henry L. Doherty
I came to the conclusion years ago that any man could claim to be liberally educated-whether he attended college or not-if, first, he had a storehouse of facts; second, he had trained his mind to think straight; third, he had acquired mental humility; and fourth, he had developed within himself a sense of the fitness of things which we in business call judgment. H, W. Prentis, Jr.
Future management development will doubtless make use of formal academic courses. Businessmen who need to bring their knowledge up to date in science, technology, or economic and political affairs can often do so best by going back to the campus. The same is true of specialists who show management potential and need a broader educational background. This is the human counterpart of investment in modernizing plant and equipment, and the returns on it can be just as important. In return, business must and will find more ways of being useful to the academic community. M. J. Rathbone
Computers aren't replacing anybody, but people who know how to use computers will likely be replacing those employees who don't know how to use them. The term "use" here, should be properly understood. It doesn't mean that every employee is going to require professional proficiency in the precise operation of computers. Generally, it means that the employee who wants to advance in his field and move up in his form is going to be the employee who knows how to organize his work so that it can be processed by computers. Louis T. Rader
. . . master the art and technique not merely of rapid reading but creative reading and creative research. . , . Forget your diploma, or throw it away, but save your books and use them night and day, M. Lincoln Schuster
Reading is, in fact, the principal means by which one is able to continue his self-education in life. I agree also that it is essential to find a certain amount of time for reading books not related to one's vocation, and there is probably nothing more useful than this to develop the "whole man" that is needed in our society today. John S. Reed
Reading and self-improvement should be done after the important things that can't be done any time have been accomplished. People must be willing to improve themselves on their own time and to think up ways of getting things done. . . . Computers aren't going to make all the management decisions of the future. They will give management information on which to base decisions, but we are going to need more men to make the decisions. The men who will make these decisions are going to have to "burn midnight oil" now, instead of watching television. Guy Fergason
The type of executive we know today was best described by a friend of mine who is a university chancellor. He was referring to a well-known industrialist, and he described him as a man who read James Joyce and a corporate bal ance sheet with equal comprehension. James F. Gates
In management thirty years of experience does not count for much if it merely means ten times three of the same kind of experience. It is exposure to a variety of greatly differing situations that makes experience a treasure house. Neil J. McKinnon
How can an individual, particularly if he is a business executive, hope to adjust to the pace of change. . . . M. J. Wamock, who is the president of the Armstrong Cork Co., believes he has worked out a set of mental exercises that can enable an individual to keep in tune with the rapid techno-logical, social and industrial changes of our era. . . . First, says Warnock, force changes in your habit pattern so that you do not get into such a behavior rut that you limit your ability to accept new ideas rapidly. . . . Second, make an all-out effort to develop new skills and abilities. . . . Third, make a real effort to meet people outside your usual contacts. . . . Fourth, adopt a "Why?" attitude in your job or business. Raymond Brady
Education gives a man a great opening wedge; there is no question about that. But there is always the fellow who had to go to work, who never had the college education, who seems to shinny up between these fellows just the same. Good basic education is a very important thing. If I had had it, I might not be where I am. I might be twice as far ahead. Howard Johnson
Most men can learn anything, but it's a clever man who knows what to learn. The basis for everything we hope to achieve in life depends upon our ability to consume, digest, and employ knowledge. A. J. Barran
Suppose you were engaging a man today to fill your job. Among other candidates for the job would you feel justified in hiring yourself? ... In the unfolding atomic era, body age will not limit our usefulness, if we keep alert, informed and fascinated by the possibilities of our work. But, if there is any doubt about our willingness to hire ourselves, let's look around and see what should be added to our attitude, our knowhow and our enthusiasm. Waldo C. Wright
It is fashionable nowadays to scorn overspecialization, and indeed the specialist who learns nothing about allied fields is not likely to go far. But specialization will always be with us. It is narrow, to be sure-but so is the cutting edge of a knife. A modern business requires a great variety of specialists. However, every specialty should be built on a broad, solid foundation. M. J. Rathbone
It is the man who stops learning, whether he is twenty or eighty, who is really old. Henry Ford
I had six honest serving men They taught me all I knew: Their names were Where and What and When And Why and How and Who. Rudyard Kipling
4. Efficient Planning
A business magazine reported in 1967 that most men in business work fifty-three to seventy hours a week. Some ambitious ones work as much as eighty hours. A survey of seven hundred executives showed that they spent their time, exclusive of traveling, like this: oral communication, eighty per cent; reading, thirteen percent; writing, four percent; planning or creative work, three percent. Because a large percentage of executives, and aspiring executives, don't plan, they allow too many repetitive activities to creep into their daily routine-and they do too many non-executive tasks. The worst problem of all, however, is that they talk too much.
Your ability to plan, both in the management of time and in the organization of procedures and programs, will play a huge role in the degree of success you attain.
Examine the periods of the day when you are most creative. If your most productive hours are early in the morning, for instance, it is foolish to spend them reading trade magazines. Do that in your "dry" hours-say, immediately after lunch, You must, of course, be flexible about times for conferences, but try to keep them at one period instead of scattered throughout the day.
One wise executive keeps his door shut in the morning, leaving instructions not to be disturbed except in extreme emergency; but in the afternoon anyone, even those in the lowliest positions, can walk in unannounced. In this way he remains easily accessible and at the same time can have four hours of uninterrupted work.
Organizing and outlining can be an immeasurable help in many activities. Staff meetings are one of the major showcases of your ability, and an important rule to remember is that the man who has prepared and organized is the one who will run the meeting-no matter who is theoretically in charge.
Being more organized than those above you and having planned and outlined when they have not are excellent methods of taking over more responsibility and power.
Experts on Planning
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight, Henry R, Luce
A professional is one who does his best work when he feels the least like working. Frank Lloyd Wright
The difference between an effective speaker and one who isn't is not their experience, or the creative competence of their ideas, but their ability to organize and prepare an effective address, both informally and formally. Harry Rotenbury
Hunches won't do. Intuition won't do. Simple rules-of-thumb won't do . . . what it really takes to achieve order and steady progress is system. Henry Ford II
An expert is someone who knows no more than you do, but who has it better organized and uses slides. Anon.
There is danger when a man throws his tongue into high gear before he gets his brain a-going. C. C. Phelps
Concentration is my motto-first honesty, then industry, then concentration. Andrew Carnegie
One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth 100 shallow faculties. The first law of success in this day, when so many things are clamoring for attention, is concentration-to bend all the energies to one point, and to go directly to that point, looking neither to the right nor to the left. William Matthews
There is no easy method of learning difficult things. The method is to close the door, give out that you are not at home, and work. Joseph de Maistre
Rapidity does not always mean progress, and hurry is akin to waste. The old fable of the hare and the tortoise is just as good now, and just as true, as when it was first written. C. A. Stoddard
If necessary, stand on the street corner, cap in hand like a mendicant, and beg all the passers-by for the seconds and minutes and hours and days they waste. M. Lincoln Schuster
It's not easy to keep a meeting on target. . . . Meetings can be tremendously valuable tools for planning, problem-solving, information and training. . . . Nothing helps keep a meeting on the track as effectively as running summaries.
Without such progress reports the meeting wonders where it's going or whether it's going at all. By pointing out the progress that's been made, you encourage the participants to make even more. . . . One wonders how politicians ever accomplish much in the legendary "smoke-filled room."
Scientific tests indicate that a person's mental efficiency drops sharply when there's not enough oxygen. Make sure there's fresh air and that the meeting participants are comfortable enough and concentrating on the business at hand. John S. Morgan
I think business has to be guided by military history. You've got to plan campaigns and strategies. It's just the same in business; you've got to plan for all the things that can go wrong. The only difference is there is good history on military situations. And I think most military history would show that the decisions in a military campaign can't be made by committees. Of course, every general is bound and limited by the resources at his disposal, and his staff may lay out the details, but the most successful military campaigns have been made by one man. Look at the Civil War, for example. The general strategy was laid down by the government, but until they got Grant nobody could do anything. J. Paul Getty
Whoever you are, systematize. If you are a man possessing authority, deputize. Business is not busyness. It's all right to be rationally busy; it's all wrong to be buzzy. Little men are the busiest, busiest, the fussiest. The fellow who "hasn't time" for anything will one day wake up and find that other people "haven't time" for him. B. C. Forbes
Two things are as big as the man who possesses them-neither bigger nor smaller. One is a minute, the other a dollar. Channing Pollack
Time is an asset that all competitors share in common, but the management of time can be one of the decisive elements in success or failure. The top executive needs to sense when the market is ready, when the technology is ready, and when the organization is ready. Ralph J. Cordiner
Be methodical if you would succeed in business, or in anything. Have a work for every moment and mind the moment's work. Whatever you’re calling, master all its bearings and details, its principles, instruments and applications. Method is essential if you would get through your work easily and with economy of time. W. Mathews
With some people you spend time; with others you invest it. Anon.
Be true to the best you know. This is your high ideal. If you do your best, you cannot do more. Do your best every day and your life will gradually expand into satisfying fullness. Cultivate the habit of doing one thing at a time with quiet deliberateness. Always allow yourself a sufficient mar gin of time in which to do your work well. Frequently examine your working methods to discover and eliminate unnecessary tension. Aim at poise, repose, and self-control. The relaxed worker accomplishes most. H. W. Dresser
The purpose of learning to employ every minute properly is to un-clutter your hours, deliver us of feverish activity and earn us true leisure. Robert R. Updegraff
Qualifications for success: First is a big wastebasket. You must know what to eliminate. Second, it is as important to know what to preserve. Third, it is important to know when to say "no." Four, developing the power to say "no" gives us the capacity to say "yes." A. P. Gouthey
One of the best lessons that anyone can learn in life is how to use time wisely. Consider what can be done in ten minutes. If you need a little mental relaxation, you can sit down with a friend and play a game of cards. If you need some physical recreation, you engage in a few exercises that will help tone up your body. Perhaps you have a friend who for weeks or months has been looking for a letter. Then there may be among your acquaintances someone whose friendship you would value highly and whose counsel would be profitable. Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay huge dividends. William A. Irwin
The man who saves time by galloping loses it by missing his way; the shepherd who hurries his flock to get them home spends the night on the mountain looking for the lost; economy does not consist in haste, but in certainty. Ramsay MacDonald
A career, like a business, must be budgeted. When it is necessary, the budget can be adjusted to meet changing conditions. A life that hasn't a definite plan is likely to become driftwood. David Sarnoff
Goal-setting isn't dream stuff. It's hard-boiled realism. It begins with those things that are immediate and pressing. But it goes on from there. There are cases on record to show it can go on at an astonishing pace. That from such beginnings people have gone on to achieve what they would once have thought impossible. We need our dreams and aspirations. But to move toward them-we must set realistic goals, and attain them, one by one. John Perry
Henry Ford had no use for a private office in his company's administration building. The reason: I can get out of the other fellow's office a lot faster than I can get him out of mine.
A program lives today and dies tomorrow. A mind, if it be open, may change with each new day, but the spirit and the heart are as unchanging as the tides. Owen D. Young
Most men talk too much. Much of my success has been due to keeping my mouth shut. J. Ogden Armour
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. Shakespeare
5. Positive Mistakes
Nothing is worth doing, it has been said, unless there is possibility of disaster. An extreme philosophy? Maybe, but you are not executive material if you avoid something because you fear catastrophes.
Everyone can learn from mistakes. Moreover, the better a man is, the more mistakes he will make because he will attempt more things. A New York management expert says that he would never promote into a top-level job a man who is not making mistakes-and big ones at that. "Otherwise, he is sure to be mediocre."
Positive mistakes-not disorganized bumbling-teaches you how to spot errors early and how to correct them, in yourself and in those under you.
Tenacity, patience and the ability to learn by failures and to turn them into successes are the traits you must develop in yourself. Never be afraid to start over as many times as necessary to get results.
Experts on Mistakes
When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power. Hugh White
No man ever progressed to greatness . . . but through great mistakes. Frederick W. Robertson
The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually to make a new man of himself, Wang Yang-Ming
Try to be your own severest boss. There is genuine fun in self-discipline. If you haven't yet learned to adopt the "I'll boss you, old fellow" attitude towards yourself, you haven't begun to know the full joy of work and effort and inspiration. No boss can boss you half so efficiently as you can boss yourself. You can begin where he leaves off-and still find much to find fault with, much to check up, much to eradicate. B. C. Forbes
Mistakes remembered are not faults forgot. B. H. Newell
Mere lack of success does not discredit a method, for there are many things that determine and perpetuate our sanctified ways of doing things besides their success in reaching their proposed ends. James Harvey Robinson
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character; and we must learn that the setbacks and grief’s which we endure help us in our marching onward. Henry Ford
"Safety first" has been the motto of the human race for half a million years; but it has never been the motto of leaders. A leader must face danger. He must take the risk and the blame, and the brunt of the storm. Herbert N. Casson
The most important thing in life is not to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your losses. That requires intelligence; and it makes the difference between a man of sense and a fool. William Bohtho
The priceless gift of self-confidence can only be acquired when you succeed after being exposed to possible failure. Exposure to risk is the only route to real self-confidence.
Self-confidence cannot be inherited. It must be earned by each individual, each generation, and each new regime. And the only way to earn it is by taking a noble risk, an honorable chance, a glorified gamble. Self-confidence cannot be taught; it must be caught! And risk-running, chance-taking, is the only way to catch it. Mountain-moving faith succeeds in building self-confidence through chance-taking. Without self-confidence, faith will never muster and demonstrate mountain-moving power. Robert H. Schuller
You will never stub your toe standing still. The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere. Charles F. Kettering
Successful businesses don't talk of minimizing risk-they talk of maximizing opportunity. The role of the business man is to take risks. The sure loss is the reckless investment. Peter F. Drucker
John D. Rockefeller was a master at analyzing his mistakes as well as his successes. Each night Rockefeller set aside ten minutes during which he reviewed and analyzed what he had done during the day. He was critical of all of his actions and judgments and studied them carefully to sort out the mistakes when they occurred, to analyze them, to learn from them.
In his way Rockefeller was using the "scientific" approach to benefit from his mistakes... Here are the steps:
Step one-Determine carefully just what it is you are trying to accomplish and why. . . .
Step two-What are the pertinent facts involved? Can you get additional facts . . . ?
Step three-Determine various possible courses of action and consider each possible course carefully. . . .
Step four-Narrow down the possible courses of action to the one that comes closest to accomplishing your purpose.
Step five-The important step is to do something about it, beginning now. Douglas Lurton
In the last resort nothing is ridiculous except the fear of being so. Henri Fauconnier
Business is always a struggle. There are always obstacles and competitors. There is never an open road, except the wide road that leads to failure. Every great success has always been achieved by fight. Every winner has scars. . . . The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and willpower to develop them. Herbert N. Casson
That the birds of Worry and care fly above your Head, this you cannot change, But that they build Nests in your hair, this you can prevent. Chinese Proverb
Ideas to Remember
Develop the "can-do" frame of mind.
Develop constructive discontent.
Develop your imagination by doing.
Don't wait for inspiration; get down to work and it will come.
Be a student all your life.
Listen to those more experienced and less experienced.
Learn about the difficulties of other departments.
Get rid of the one-track mind; broaden your knowledge in all fields.
Plan your day to get the best use out of your most productive hours.
Develop the ability to think and plan in outline form.
Never be afraid to start over in order to get results.
Take calculated gambles.
Study your mistakes and learn from them.
