Planning Your Day and Delegating Responsibility

IF you have been carefully following this series of articles on getting ahead in the modern business world, you now have a position of some importance with the right company and are scampering up the ladder of success.

It must always be remembered that hard work is the lifeblood of modern business. You, too, must be ready to pull your share of the load. This may call for personal sacrifices on your part -- but no matter -- your work should come first.

Know Your Own Breaking Point

Willing as you may be to dedicate your life to your business, remember that you will be of small value to your company if you reach the breaking point.

Know your limitations, and stay within them!

After-Hours Management

The conscientious businessman will make every moment count, and the moments that count most are those spent after regular business hours.

If you manage after-hour planning skillfully, you can achieve pleasing and surprising results and also free your mind for truly High Level thinking, which is your major function.

Remember, the hours you are assumed to be at work, the regular office hours, are of little value. The hurly-burly of office routine will interfere with long-range thinking.

Any good after-hour planner can find ample reason to be away from his desk from nine to five on week days. At nine-thirty, remark:

"Oh, J.B., anything you want from me before I take off?"

"Going out, Finch?"

"Yes, sir. Don't trust that survey at all. Think I'll get out and ring some doorbells. Got to get down to the grass roots, you know."

"Good boy, Finch."

You may then proceed to any calm, restful spot. A day out in the open will stimulate your brain. When you return to the office in a day or two, your mind will be clear, and bursting with ideas. Some alternative approaches are:

"Want to get out and check the stores. Got to see if we're really moving off the shelves."

Or:

"Think I'll run out to the plant. Quality check, you know."

But the after-hour planner will be careful to be in the office after hours at the right times!

If you hear, for example, that the boss is going to drop in to the office Saturday morning, if only to pick up his golf clubs, be there a half hour ahead of him.

Roll up your sleeves, tousle your hair, and loosen your collar. Several empty paper coffee cartons and a few hundred cigarette butts will also help. (The cartons and butts can be kept in a drawer and used again.)

You will be noticed!

"Oh, working this morning, Finch?"

"Is it morning already, sir?"

"Great Scott, been here all night?"

"No, not all night! Just trying to clean up a few things. Shouldn't be here much longer."

(Avoid any hint of self-pity!)

"Oh, that's good."

"Is there any way I can get in tomorrow, sir? Just in case. The night watchman is very fussy."

After the boss goes, wait ten or fifteen minutes and leave. It will not be necessary to come in Monday. Never fear; your employer will defend you hotly.

"Finch isn't in again today, sir!"

"I should think not! Poor devil worked all week end. I ought to know. I was in here with him, working side by side!"

(You may count on the wise employer's knowing his afterhour techniques, too. He will be Setting a Good Example.)

"Too bad," he may continue, "that there aren't more men like Finch around here!"

Be a Commuter

Another way to conserve your strength is to establish early that you are a commuter, and that you have a frightful problem with trains.

If, for example, you have to lie abed late, wrestling with a knotty problem, you need only say:

"Damned Long Island Rail Road!"

"Oh, train late again, Finch?"

"Almost two hours."

"Funny. Mine was on time."

"But we're on the extension, you know. Always a bottleneck."

The same approach may be used in the evening:

"Have to run, J. B."

"Now? It's only three-thirty!"

"Train trestle. Blazing like hell this morning. Lucky if I get home at all."

It is not necessary to be a commuter, as long as everybody thinks you are one. A chap we knew who had bachelor's quarters three blocks from the office left regularly every day at 4:38 on the dot.

"Have to, you know. Got to get the 5:01. Next train doesn't come till eight!"

"Poor devil. Well, see you tomorrow!"

"May be late, though. Damned thing doesn't get in till 10:17!"

He avoided strain and overwork, and by devoting his extra time to clear thinking, rose rapidly to the top.

The more obscure and mysterious your form of transportation, the better. Fictitious railroad lines are good, if the names are well chosen. Some recommendations: South Jersey Central; Newark, Hackensack, and Quogue; New York, Hartford, and Providence. One expert maintained for years that he lived on "the Putney Division," commenting only:

"Nothing like that ride through the mountains every morning. Never seems like three hours!"

Some helpful phrases:

"Third rail, you know. Ice."

Or:

"Did the last twelve miles by bus!"

You will no doubt find other and perhaps better ways to conserve your strength.

How to Delegate Responsibility

Your task as a Junior Executive will be to assume responsibility, to take cares and worries on your powerful young shoulders, and remove them from older, grayer heads.

The more responsibility you can assume, the better. Some useful phrases are:

"Why not just roll it all into one ball of wax, J. B.?"

Or:

"The whole thing needs to be buttoned up."

However, keep in mind that your real function is Formulating Policy and Making Decisions, the work for which you were chosen, and work which is best done in a relaxed, semireclining position.

Therefore, your first duty on assuming extra responsibility is to find capable assistants who will do the actual routine work.

The first step, of course, is to select the right secretary.

Hand-Pick Your Secretary

By the time you have reached a position (continued on page 50) Planning Your Day (continued from page 48) of real responsibility you will probably be in the one-window stage, and will be able to say good-by forever to the steno pool.

You are ready to have your own private secretary. Choose her carefully! Many a rising young man has been broken by careless or frivolous choice of secretaries. A Secretary is Not a Toy. She will be a girl selected for her ability, at one thing or another, and she will only too often be skillful with the typewriter, and perhaps even shorthand. She will be entrusted to your care as a helpmate in your work, and should not be used for pleasure, except in emergencies.

Does She Belong to Another? if the young lady assigned to you is so attractive that you feel things are too good to be true, tread carefully.

Ask yourself this question: Does she belong to another?

It may be that one of the really big men in the company has become Interested-in-Her-Career, and has given her to you as a secretary. He will want to be sure she is kept busy during the day. Keep her busy! But keep your distance.

If your flesh is weak, avoid temptation. Help her to rise to the top. You, too, can rise with her. Approach your immediate superior, the man whose niche you feel destined to fill, and say:

"Oh, Mr. Gatch, I hardly know how to say this, but Hedy just happened to remark how much she admired you."

"Oh, did she, Finch? She's quite a girl, all right, quite a girl!"

"She was wondering whether you, uh, might be interested in having her work for you."

"Frankly, Finch, I'd love it, but I kind of suspected that old J. B. might, well, you know -- "

"Nothing to it, Mr. Gatch! Broke up months ago -- if it existed at all!

(Note: Little white lies like this are to be encouraged if your intentions are good.)

She will be grateful to you, and when, after a short time, your superior is fired, you will be moved in quickly to fill his shoes.

Do not be too hasty about advancing the young lady to the next man ahead of you. It is well to wait until the dust settles and tempers cool.

Go to Extremes. The wise young businessman practices moderation in most things. However, this is not true in the choice of secretaries. Go all out. Take no halfway measures.

You must decide for yourself which choice you will make, the beauty or the beast.

The Beauty. If you decide on this course, select a girl of ravishing beauty, first making sure that she does not belong to another.

Soon your little corner will become a mecca for influential men.

"Thought I'd drop around and see what Finch thinks about it."

"Finch? He in on this?"

"Well, not exactly. Good head on the boy, though. Real pleasure to be around him."

You will make many valuable and lasting friendships.

If the young lady looks to you for comfort and guidance, be generous. Supply it. Emotion and sentiment have their places, even in the workaday world.

The Beast. Some prefer to take the opposite tack. Select the oldest, fattest, and least attractive woman in the building. Leave no stone unturned. With thirty or forty years experience in the company, she will be able to do all your dull, routine work better than you can. This will leave you free to think, decide, and endear yourself to those around you.

And she will give you an immediate and enviable reputation.

"Solid citizen, that boy Finch!"

"Oh?"

"Well, I mean, just look at his secretary! No fooling about that boy!"

And you'll have no worries about her getting married, having babies, or other nonsense. She'll be yours for keeps.

Have Plenty of Assistance

You cannot have too many able helpers! If the management is balky at first, it will be your duty to educate and indoctrinate.

"As I see it, J. B.," you begin, "the job breaks down like this. I drew up a little chart."

(Organizational charts filled with little lines and rectangles are valuable here.)

"Oh?"

"Now we'll need three more men -- A, B, and C, here."

"Three more men? I thought you were going to do the -- "

"I'll hold the reins of course. Have a pretty clear idea who the men should be, too!"

The Work Demonstration. If the above doesn't succeed, you may be forced to put on a Work Demonstration.

For two or three days and nights -- two should be ample -- remain in the office, consuming nothing but black coffee and cigarettes. Send your secretary around occasionally to borrow benzedrine tablets. Do not change clothes, but have a barber come in daily to shave you -- while you dictate.

On the morning of the third (or fourth) day, walk cheerfully into your superior's office.

"Lord!" he will say. "You're looking frightful, Finch!" (You will be.)

"It's nothing, J. B. Feel like a million."

(Assume an over-hearty expression.)

"You were absolutely right about the assistant, J. B. Think I can carry on alone. Four or five months like this and I'll have the whole thing whipped into shape."

At this point sink slowly to the floor with a brave smile, and twitch for a few seconds. Then lie still, eyes closed. Maintain just the trace of a smile!

You will be sent on a long vacation, and will return to find your assistants, ready for your instructions.

By this time you will surely be On Your Way. But we have not yet -- as you will see -- really scratched the surface.

From "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying," © 1952 by Shepherd Mead.(Simon and Schuster)

Hand-pick your secretary

"Oh, working this morning, Finch?"