7. Willingness to leanz.—Some men have a curious distaste for instruction. Often they are well edu cated, well-read, industrious and studious, but if you tiy to show them a better way of doing anything you will be astonished either by their lack of interest and gratitude, or by their apparent inability to discover anything worth while in what you have to say. This peculiarity may be the result of conceit, or it may be the manifestation of an acquired mental habit, the mind being incapable of taking in a new idea except thru the eye, by reading. It is a well-k-nown fact that the confirrned bookworm often gets nothing what ever out of lectures and discourses. He may read them greedily, but Ile does not care to bear them, and when listening to them his mind wanders.
The real business man is so eager to learn, that his ears as well as his eyes are of service. He wants to know the best -way of doing things, and if you can show him or tell him, he will be really grateful, not at all irritated.
The junior executive is the man who ought to get the most help out of the Alexander Hamilton Insti tute's Modern Business Course and Service, for all the authors have had his needs specially in mind. No man knows how much physical strength he might ac quire, or how heavy the weights he might be able to lift, if he were to devote himself to the systematic training of his body. In the same way no man knows the limits of his intellectual powers, but he may be sure that systematic mental exercise will yield results quite as remarkable, or startling, as any produced by sys tematic physical exercise.
Let the junior officer, therefore, cultivate a taste for knowledge. The more he reads and tbinks, the better will be his understanding of all that he hears and sees in business, and the more valuable will be his service.
8. Ideas and initiative.—Because I have insisted upon the junior executive's obeying instructions and being adaptable, in order that there may be smooth team work, it must not be assumed that he is to be a business automaton incapable of originality or initia tive. It must not be forgotten that he is a sub-execu tive, that in his department he represents the chief executive, and that he should be doing there all that the chief himself would do if he were there. If the costs in his department seem out of proportion to re sults, he must plan for their reduction just as the chief himself would plan. If one of his problems is so baffling that the chief, if it were his problem, would take it home and think of it at night and on Sundays, then the sub-executive himself must take it home with him. He nmst be constantly planning to make his
department more efficient—that is, to make results bigger and costs smaller.
Many of the big ideas of business have come from the brains of obscure minor officers or employes. A poor clerk in a cigar store conceived the idea of the great chain of stores k-nown as the United Cigar Stores. The Woolworth Building in New York City is a monument to the genius and initiative of a lad who was clerk in a country store when he discovered the commercial importance of the nickel and the dime. The history of American business during the last two generations could be made to furnish thousands of similar illustrations of originality and initiative on the part of men in subordinate positions.
The junior officer owes his position to his display of intellectual quality as a routine worker. He knows the steps up which lie has climbed. He should knoi,v better than anybody else where effort is wasted, where time is lost, where there is unnecessary friction. His chief, therefore, has a right to expect from him. ideas and suggiestions that will enlarge the business and en hance the profits.
9. Capacity for I have already said, the need for the junior officer arises when a business gets so large that one man cannot look after all its details, or carry easily all its responsibilities. Grad ually, as his business grows, a man attends less and less to the details and places increasing reliance upon the subordinates he has selected; A single business detail is a very small matter, but the details as a whole are tremendously important and must be looked after by men who are competent and conscientious. It may not matter much whether the stationery be blue or white, or whether employes be paid by check or by cash, or whether the day's work shall begin at 8 or 8 :30 ; but details of this sort, taken together, make the business and are so interrelated that changes cannot be carelessly made. In every department there must be system and discipline. Each worker must per form his task in the way that bas been decided upon as best. Letters must be written and mailed on time. Orders received must be promptly acknowledged. Goods must be shipped in accordance with the sched ule. In no department must there be enforced idle ness thru lack of work.