The Force of Habit

There was a time when I was a fairly heavy cigarette smoker. Then, several years ago, I was on a vacation and motoring through France. One day, after driving for hours through some particularly foul rainy weather, I stopped for the night at a hotel in a small town in the Auvergne.

Tired after the long and difficult drive, I had dinner and went up to my room. I undressed, got into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

For some reason, I awoke about two A.M., acutely aware that I wanted a cigarette. Switching on the light, I reached for the cigarette package I'd placed on the nightstand before retiring. It proved to be empty.

Annoyed--but still wanting a cigarette--I got out of bed and searched the pockets of the clothes I had been wearing. The search proved fruitless, and I went on to grope through my luggage in hopes that I might have accidentally left a pack of cigarettes in one of my suitcases. Again I was disappointed.

I knew the hotel bar and restaurant had closed long before and guessed that it would be worse than useless to summon the crotchety night porter at such an hour. The only way I could hope to obtain any cigarettes was by dressing and then going to the railroad station, which was located at least six blocks away.

The prospect was not very pleasant. The rain still pelted down outside. My car was garaged a considerable distance from the hotel and, in any event, I had been warned the garage closed at midnight and did not reopen until six o'clock in the morning. The chances of getting a taxi were virtually nil.

All in all, it was clear that if I was to have the cigarette I wanted so badly, I would have to walk to the railroad station--and back--through the pouring rain. But the desire to smoke gnawed at me and, perversely, the more I contemplated the difficulties entailed in getting a cigarette, the more desperately I wanted to have one.

And so I took off my pajamas and started putting on my clothes. I was completely dressed and reaching for my raincoat when I abruptly stopped and began to laugh--at myself. It had suddenly struck me that my actions were illogical, even ludicrous.

There I stood, a supposedly intelligent human being, a supposedly responsible and fairly successful businessman who considered himself sensible enough to give other people orders. Yet I was ready to leave my comfortable hotel room in the middle of the night and slosh a dozen blocks through a driving rainstorm for no other reason than that I wanted a cigarette--because I felt that I "had" to have one.

For the first time in my life, I was brought face to face with the realization that I had developed a habit so strong that I was willing--automatically and unthinkingly--to let myself in for a very great deal of personal discomfort merely to satisfy it.

Instead of simply enjoying the pleasure of an occasional smoke, I'd allowed myself to form a habit that had grown completely out of hand and was obviously operating contrary to my best interests, producing no commensurately beneficial results.

Suddenly sharply aware of this, I rebelled mentally. I needed only a moment to arrive at a decision. I considered it an excellent idea--and an ideal time and place--to rid myself of a habit that was certainly doing me no good.

Having made up my mind, I took the empty cigarette packet that still lay on the nightstand, crumpled it up and tossed it into the wastebasket. Then I undressed, once more put on my pajamas and got back into bed.

It was with a sense of relief--even of triumph--that I switched off the light, closed my eyes and listened to the rain beating against the windows of the room. In a few minutes, I drifted off into a sound and contented sleep. I haven't smoked a cigarette--nor have I felt any desire to smoke one--since that night.

Now, I do not intend any of this as an indictment of either cigarettes or smoking. I recount the anecdote solely to show how, in my own case, a habit got out of control to the extent that it controlled me, rather than the other way around.

"Abeunt studia, in mores"--"Practices zealously pursued become habits," Ovid wrote.

"Magna est vis consuetudinis," declared Cicero. "Mighty is the (continued on page 100) Force Of Habit (continued from page 81) force of habit." Practices do become habits--and the force of those habits can, indeed, be mighty. However, human beings have a considerable degree of latitude. They are, after all, endowed with the ability to form their own habits and to break or discard those which they find undesirable.

Nowhere do habit patterns count for as much, and nowhere does the force of habit demonstrate its might more emphatically than in the business world. A businessman's habits are among the most important factors that determine whether he will be a success--or a failure.

Whether an individual's habits can be chalked up on the plus or the minus side of the ledger is a matter that depends on many factors. Not the least of these are the individual himself, the nature of the habit and how, why, when and where he applies it. Needless to say, what may be a very good habit for one person may not be so good--or may even be extremely bad--for the next.

For example, it is certainly to a professional prize fighter's advantage if he acquires the habit of exercising strenuously every day. But a daily three-mile run and a two-hour workout in a gymnasium hardly constitute good habits for a middle-aged, paunchy, desk-bound executive with a weak heart.

A portrait painter will benefit from the habit of occasionally standing back from his work in order to obtain a better perspective of what he is doing. On the other hand, this is not a habit recommended for window cleaners or steeple jacks. The factors determining whether a habit is a good or a bad one can also be a matter of degree or of prevailing conditions.

For instance, it is a helpful habit for a businessman to be optimistic and enthusiastic. It will make his own work better and easier and will also serve to hearten and inspire his associates and subordinates. However, habitual optimism and enthusiasm can be carried to dangerous--and even disastrous--extremes of over-estimation and overzealousness.

I recall the case of a brilliant and highly capable businessman--Bill Smith is as good a name for him as any--whose optimism helped him greatly in establishing and operating several manufacturing firms that showed good profits and great promise. Unfortunately, all of Bill Smith's business experience was obtained during a boom period. Consequently, his rosiest outlooks and hopes were always realized by developments in what was a steadily rising market.

Then, suddenly, there was a relatively mild economic recession. It was a time when seasoned businessmen pulled in their horns somewhat, did a little retrenching and proceeded cautiously while they waited for the business situation to become stabilized.

Bill Smith was totally unable to adjust to what, for him, were new and unfamiliar conditions. His habits of optimism and enthusiasm were too deeply ingrained. Instead of applying his brakes, he continued to move at full speed, supremely confident that everything would turn out fine.

Within a very short time, Smith had bitten off far more than he could chew under the business conditions that then prevailed. He overextended himself and his companies and eventually went bankrupt.

It is the widespread custom to say that people "develop" good habits and "fall into" bad ones. The implication, of course, is that the former are difficult to achieve, that the individual must make a constant conscious effort to form them, while he will slide easily and effortlessly into the latter. This is true--but needlessly so and almost solely because of the perversity of human nature.

Actually, a habit is a habit. There should be no valid reason why it is any more difficult to form good ones than bad.

For instance, I--along with a great many others--contend that promptness, or the lack of it, is largely a matter of habit. One either forms the good habit of being on time--or forms the bad habit of being chronically tardy.

It is to any individual's advantage and best interests to be prompt, whether it is in keeping an appointment, paying a debt, meeting an obligation or keeping a promise of any kind.

The habitually late dinner guest discommodes his hosts and the others who have been invited to the affair. He quickly becomes unpopular and, sooner or later, he is dropped from guest lists.

Habitual promptness is an especially valuable asset for any businessman. That ancient adage "Time is money" has always been valid and it is more valid today than ever before.

The pace and complexity of contemporary business place a premium on every hour and minute. Businessmen and executives must run their workdays on the tightest of schedules. They cannot afford to waste their productive time any more than they can afford to have needless stoppages on the production line.

Witness the constantly increasing number of corporations that operate their own aircraft so that they can move their executives from one place to another faster--to get them wherever they must go on time. There are more than 34,000 corporate aircraft in the United States today. General Motors, for example, maintains a fleet of 22 planes.

Montgomery Ward openly admits that the cost of flying its executives aboard its own aircraft is a third more than it would be to send them to their destinations on regular scheduled airline flights. But the use of corporate planes saves nearly 60 percent of the company executives' traveling time--and Montgomery Ward, like so many other companies, understands that the time saved is well worth the additional cost.

In short, the man who is where he said he would be at the time he promised to be there is not only making an excellent impression, he is saving--and thereby making--money for himself or for his company.

The need for promptness extends to every phase of business. The businessmen and firms most likely to succeed are those that fill their orders, deliver their merchandise, provide their services, pay their bills and meet their notes and other obligations on time.

Customers who are made to wait for delivery on their orders beyond the promised time are likely to place their next orders elsewhere. Individuals and firms that pay their bills when they fall due establish good credit ratings--while those that lag behind soon find that it becomes extremely difficult or impossible for them to obtain credit anywhere.

Notwithstanding the countless advantages of habitual promptness, there are those who form the habit of being late regardless of the consequences. It is perversity, laziness and lack of foresight that cause an individual to form the habit of being tardy--just as it is these same factors that cause most people to form most of the habits that harm them and their business careers.

Thrift is another habit that can be formed--and that very often adds a deciding ingredient to any business success formula. Common sense should prove to any person that it is sound policy to economize wherever it is reasonably practicable to do so.

This holds true from the bottom up. Assume that a man wants to start in business for himself. In order to do this, he must have at least some capital, no matter what the business may be.

In most cases, there are only three avenues open to him for obtaining that capital. He can provide it from his own savings, get it by taking in a partner or partners, or borrow it.

If the money is his own from the start, the business, too, will be his own. If, however, he has to take in partners, he will own only part of the business and will have to share its profits. And, if he borrows money, the loan must be repaid--almost invariably with interest, which reduces the profits.

Once he has started a business, an individual who is naturally thrifty will have an infinitely greater chance for success than another of equal ability who does not possess this quality. The (continued on page 168) Force Of Habit (continued from page 100) habitually thrifty person will be able to immediately recognize opportunities for lowering overhead and production costs--and in present-day, highly competitive markets even minor savings can mean a great deal and even represent the difference between a net profit and a net loss.

Beyond this, the person who has formed thrifty habits will always have a fluid reserve to meet contingencies, carry him through slack periods or make it possible for him to expand or make improvements without resorting to borrowing. Here again, the saving of interest charges represents an important factor.

The astute individual realizes that such habits as promptness and thrift can greatly help him achieve his goals. He practices promptness and thrift until they become second nature to him--and he reaps rewards from the beneficial force these habits exert on his career.

But these are by no means the only positive habits that can--and do--provide a powerful propellent to send a man to the top of the success ladder.

One of the most valuable habits any tyro businessman or executive can form is that of taking a last-minute pause to rapidly review his reasoning before he makes a decision. This final check-out may require only a few minutes or even a few seconds, but it pays large dividends. It provides the individual with one final--and priceless--opportunity to arrange his thoughts in logical order and to refresh his memory as to why and how he arrived at his decision.

This simple procedure greatly increases the individual's ability to instantly and convincingly counter any objections that may arise. It is, in a way, analogous to the habit formed by many of the world's finest actors who, although they may know their part in a play thoroughly, will nonetheless give the script or at least their lines a quick skimming over before the curtain goes up for a performance.

One of the most successful salesmen I have ever known--he is now a top sales executive in a giant corporation--maintains that he owes much of his success to having formed this habit early in his career.

"I even developed a sort of personal gimmick to form the habit," he told me. "When calling on an account, I invariably stopped off first to have a cup of coffee, get a shoeshine or do something of the sort. This gave me a final chance to mentally review my presentation before actually setting foot in the customer's office. It worked wonders. I sold much more effectively and was always prepared to answer any questions or objections that arose."

There is no doubt about it--at least not in my mind. Whether or not one needs a gimmick to do so, it is an excellent idea to form the habit of taking a last-minute mental breathing spell to organize one's thoughts before making decisions.

Another--albeit much less simple--habit that should be acquired by any man who wants to get ahead rapidly in business is the habit of being relaxed. The successful businessman is usually the one who is always relaxed--even in the face of adversity. Now, I hardly intend to imply that he is apathetic, indolent and lethargic. What I mean is that he keeps his mind receptive and responsive--always ready to grasp and exploit new opportunities and to understand and cope with new problems. He is poised, but never rigid and unyielding, in the face of changing situations.

The seasoned businessman is relaxed in the same sense that a crack football player is relaxed. The football player who intercepts a pass does not freeze or panic because the ball has unexpectedly fallen into his hands. The new situation that has suddenly developed does not leave him immobile. His reactions are flexible enough to grasp and cope--and he takes a firm grip on the ball and runs with it, still alert and yet relaxed enough to shift direction and avoid opposing tacklers.

A few--a very few--fledgling businessmen have an innate ability to assume this sort of relaxed attitude even under great stress. But the vast majority of men in business form the habit through years of experience.

"Always think of yourself as a man who has just fallen overboard in the middle of a lake," a veteran oilman advised me early in my business career. "If you keep your wits about you, you can always swim to shore or at least dog-paddle or float until someone fishes you out. But if you lose your head--if you panic --you're finished!"

I suppose that a man starting out in the business world is, in a way, like one who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a lake. If he remains calm, his chances of survival are high. If he doesn't, he'll most probably drown.

The tyro businessman and young executive should constantly bear this analogy in mind. It will do much to help them form the habit of being relaxed and thus able to handle themselves in any situation.

Obviously, it would be impossible to list every habit that is good or bad for every man in business. Far too much depends on the individual, his nature and personality, the particular field or type of business in which he is engaged and many other variable factors.

However, any individual--whether he is in business or not--can determine which habits are beneficial to him and which are harmful.

Habits that help an individual live and work better and achieve his goals are, of course, good ones--habits that the individual should try to acquire or form. Those that harm or hinder, interfere or obstruct, serve no practical purpose or offer no positive results should be avoided or, if already formed, should be broken as quickly as possible.

Executives and businessmen would do well to periodically make a careful inventory of the things they do in connection with their work with sufficient regularity for them to assume the character of habits. It is a good idea to list these on a piece of paper. Then it is up to the individual to make his own evaluations of the habits he has listed. If he is honest with himself, he will readily recognize some of them as being bad. These he will do his energetic best to discard with a minimum of delay.

Next, there will be some habits drat appear to fall into the "indifferent" or "undecided" category. These must be considered objectively to determine if they can be modified in order to make them positive.

For example, one executive I know had formed the habit of holding weekly staff meetings with all the employees in his department. Although the idea was basically sound, the meetings had been held for several months without producing any notably useful results.

The executive was almost convinced that he should discontinue the practice. Then, making a habit inventory, he gave considerable thought to the problem of why the meetings had been failures. Analyzing the matter, he finally hit upon the answer. He had been holding the staff meetings at 4:15 every Friday afternoon.

Human nature being what it is, the minds of the employees at that time each Friday were on going home for the weekend. They had little interest or en-thusiasm for discussions of office matters 45 minutes before quitting time. The executive changed the time and the day of the week--and his habit of holding weekly office-staff meetings moved up into the good-habit category almost immediately. The meetings were thereafter productive of many ideas that improved output and efficiency and raised employee morale to a new high. But an indifferent habit that cannot be raised to the "good" category should be discarded, for if it is continued, it can only slide down into the "bad" classification.

As for those of his business habits that are clearly good, the astute businessman will strive to make them even more useful, advantageous and productive. For instance, if he can lay claim to being habitually thrifty, to being constantly on the alert for ways to cut costs and effect savings, he should determine to redouble his efforts--to find more ways of reducing expenses and thus increasing the company's profits.

It should be evident to every businessman and executive that there are many habits that are well worth forming. By the same token, they should also be able to recognize those habits that ought to be given a wide berth--and those that they already have and should discard.

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit--and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him--and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.