Familiarity Can Breed Content

Some years ago, a company in which I held a substantial interest was about to embark on an extensive plant-modernization and expansion program. A key portion of the program called for a very large investment in a particular type of production machinery.

Machinery manufacturers had been contacted. They had submitted information and specifications on all their available models. Appropriate executives, engineers and technical experts of the company had made the customary studies and comparisons and had determined which was the best among the models offered. Orders for the equipment finally selected were about to be placed.

Luckily for the company, one of its executives--a young man I shall call Howard Tracy--took it upon himself to voice objections at the last moment. Somewhat timorously--for he was a very junior executive--Tracy went to his superiors and told them he'd learned of an obscure machine-manufacturing firm that had developed, and was even then testing, a vastly improved model, one that was many years ahead of all existing types.

Howard Tracy reasonably argued that if the equipment under test by the manufacturer proved out, it would make all comparable machinery--including that which the company was about to order--woefully obsolete and inadequate.

Tracy's superiors listened but were rather skeptical. They'd never heard of the manufacturer in question and found it difficult to believe the apparently extravagant claims being made for the machinery. Nonetheless, they finally agreed to postpone ordering new equipment until they made the necessary inquiries and investigations of the machine-manufacturing firm.

In the end, the new model did, indeed, live up to all the claims that had been made for it and proved far superior to anything of its kind on the market. Naturally, company plans were immediately revised. The radically improved model--rather than the type previously contemplated for purchase--was ordered, eventually received and placed into highly profitable operation.

Thanks to Howard Tracy's last-minute entry onto the scene, the company was prevented from making a large capital outlay for machinery that would have been soon rendered obsolete. Instead, the company obtained the very latest and finest equipment well ahead of its competitors and was able to greatly increase output even while lowering production costs and, consequently, prices.

Now, as good an example as this is of an individual executive's alertness and enterprise, it is not yet the full story. You see, Howard Tracy was not a technical expert or an engineer. He was not even a production-side executive. Odd as it may sound, he was actually employed in the company's marketing division. His duties were concerned with sales, not with production.

When the incidents I've just described were brought to my attention, I determined to find out more about Howard Tracy. I learned that he did his own work extremely well--even brilliantly. He had a fine record with the company and was already marked as a "comer." I made arrangements to have lunch with him one day.

"You've probably saved the company quite a bit of money--and you've certainly been instrumental in placing it in an excellent position productionwise," I told him when we met. Then I asked: "But how is it that you know so much about machinery?"

"I actually know very little about it," the young man confessed amiably. "You see, I was present at several meetings where the plant-modernization program was discussed. I figured it would be a good idea to familiarize myself with the production end and did some reading up on the subject. That's how I ran across the item about the new machinery."

In the course of his "reading up," Tracy had come across a small machine-manufacturers' trade journal that had a very limited circulation. It was from a story in this publication that he first learned about the newly developed equipment. Realizing its potentials and implications, he'd done some additional research on his own time--and had then gone to his superiors with the information he had gathered.

Further conversation with young Tracy demonstrated that he had a keen interest in the company and just about everything that could affect it, its operations or its future. He was not just another marketing-department executive. He obviously had a remarkably clear understanding of all phases of the company's activities and was eager to increase his knowledge wherever possible.

I recognized that this was no narrowly limited specialist with a strait-jacketed imagination. He was not burdened with any built-in blinders that prevented him from seeing anything but the comparatively restricted horizons of his own particular job and department.

Before our luncheon meeting was over, I knew that Howard Tracy was an exceptional young executive and felt that he was very probably headed for the top. My judgment was fully borne out in the next few years, during which time Tracy moved with remarkable rapidity into the uppermost echelons of corporate management. Since 1962, he has been the head of a large and steadily growing company--and he has not yet reached his 36th birthday.

Granted that Howard Tracy had all the basic equipment to make him an intelligent and able executive. However, I'm inclined to believe that his spectacular rise can be attributed in no small degree to his drive to acquaint himself with all aspects of the business in which he chose to make his career. His desire to be familiar with the requirements, operations and problems of departments other than his own, of the company and the industry as a whole, did much to help boost him to the top of the heap.

There is an old adage that holds that "familiarity breeds contempt." I'll agree that this is true in some instances and under certain conditions--when the word "familiarity" is used to connote undue intimacy.

But the word has other meanings as well. It is also defined as meaning a close or full acquaintance with something. When used in this sense, it can be postulated that familiarity is quite likely to breed content rather than contempt.

Nowhere is this more evident or valid than in business and among businessmen.

All else being equal, the company whose executives are most familiar with the multitudinous facets of its operation is the company most likely to survive and thrive, even in the face of the heaviest competition and under the most trying economic conditions.

Again assuming other considerations to be equal, the executive who most thoroughly familiarizes himself with the diverse factors that could involve or affect the company for which he works is the executive most likely to achieve success in his business career.

The ideal businessman, the one with the 100-percent-plus assurance of attaining success, would, of course, be the man who was completely familiar with everything that had even the remotest conceivable connection with or influence on his business. Needless to say, there can be no such ideal businessman, for the complexity of modern business precludes any mortal from grasping and following every detail of the constantly changing present-day business picture.

Nevertheless, the man who hopes to rise above the lower-middle echelons of business management must be familiar with countless facets of his company's operation, the field or industry in which it is engaged and general economic trends and conditions.

It is by no means enough for the executive to know his own job thoroughly. If that is all he knows, the job he holds is the only one for which he is at all suited. And, even then, unless the position is one that requires no imagination or enterprise, he will not be able to perform the job well. A man with narrowly limited perspectives cannot move beyond those limits, and the course of his career is charted for him--to a dead end.

What, then, are the matters with which an able and ambitious executive should familiarize himself?

Precise answers to this question are difficult to provide, for they would necessarily differ greatly from one instance to the next. Nonetheless, there are certain basics, certain areas with which every executive should be familiar if he aspires to reach the top brackets.

I have listed some of these basics below. While their relative importance will vary with each individual case, they are all valid and, to a greater or lesser extent, all universally applicable.

1. One's own self. The business executive must be able to honestly appraise his own capabilities and limitations. He should form the habit of periodically making an objective inventory of himself--doing it, if necessary, literally, using pencil and paper. The debits and credits should be noted and taken into account. Traits, qualities and characteristics on the plus side should be exploited to the full, while every effort should be made to correct those that appear on the minus side of the real or imaginary ledger.

One extremely successful businessman I know tells me that he has been rating himself every six months for the past 20 years. His method is simple: He uses a standard personnel evaluation sheet--and grades himself in the same manner as he would a subordinate employee. He claims this private system of self-evaluation has enabled him to recognize and capitalize on his strong points and to identify and thus try to correct his deficiencies. He declares the system has worked wonders and has contributed in no small degree to his success.

Whether or not an executive actually writes his personal inventory down on paper isn't important. It is important only that he know himself well enough to be able to plan a logical and attainable program for his own development. The plan may be flexible; it can be revised as the individual re-evaluates his potential in the light of additional knowledge or experience he has gained. But he must have a plan that charts his course. If he does not have one, if the executive is not totally familiar with his own strengths and weaknesses, his capabilities and shortcomings, he is very likely to flounder aimlessly and his career will be mediocre, because it has no direction or ordered, rational basis.

2. Job. It hardly need be said that an executive must know his own job thoroughly. But it is not sufficient for him to know his own duties and responsibilities. He must be familiar with their significance in relation to the company's over-all policies and operations. Furthermore, there should be nothing passive about his familiarity with his job. He must never be satisfied with things as they are, but must be constantly alert and seeking ways by which he can do his work more efficiently.

3. Department or section. What holds for the executive's own job also holds for the section or department in which he is employed. He must be familiar with the operations of his department and understand clearly how they function within the company and in relation to other departments and to suppliers and customers.

4. The company. It is difficult--and not infrequently impossible--to make an integral part of a complicated machine function properly unless one is familiar with the workings of the entire machine. I doubt seriously if an automobile mechanic could do a very good job of tuning a carburetor unless he was acquainted with the principles of the internal-combustion engine.

And so it is with the business executive. The business firm, the company, is a complex functioning apparatus made up of many interdependent and interacting parts. In order to perform his duties properly, the executive must be completely familiar with the company as a whole--with its history, organization, policies and operations. The more he knows about these things, the better he will be equipped to accept increased responsibility and to direct larger segments of the whole--and, eventually, the whole itself.

5. Personnel. In a sense, every executive is a personnel manager. He must deal constantly with personnel on three separate levels--his subordinates, individuals who are his equals on the organization chart and, finally, his superiors.

The good executive makes it his business to be conversant with the responsibilities and problems of those under him. He will even take a personal interest in the welfare of his subordinates. Nothing builds employee morale faster than a boss who remembers that the janitor's wife had a baby a week ago and takes the trouble to ask the proud father how mother and child are coming along. Such (concluded on page 212)Familiarity(continued from page 110) things may seem small on the surface. but they can achieve more results in improving morale and increasing efficiency than the most elaborate and costly employee-relations programs.

The executive must be acquainted with his equals. He must know them and get along with them. He should be familiar with their attitudes and outlooks, their personalities and peculiarities, in order that his relations with them may be as free of friction or misunderstanding as possible. There will, naturally, be some disagreement among equals, but familiarity in the sense of close acquaintance and understanding will make for generally cooperative relationships.

An executive must also know his superiors in order to facilitate their work and his. There should be no bootlicking, but things move much more smoothly it an executive is familiar with the personalities and characteristics, the customs and policies, the likes and dislikes of his superiors.

For instance, one boss might prefer to have plans or problems presented to him in a terse, skeletonized outline, while another might insist on being given all the details the' first time around. Or, as a more extreme example, the boss may be a little hard of hearing and, people being what they are, might well be reluctant to admit it. Knowing this, a subordinate can pretend to be ignorant of this and simply speak a little louder in his presence. Such things do not constitute bootlicking: they are simple human courtesies.

Dealing with people, with personnel--be they subordinates, equals or superiors--is not always easy. Sometimes it can be exceedingly difficult. The ability to deal with them, to know and understand them, is one of the key qualities that separates the man-sized executive timber from the boy-sized chips who will never make the grade into the upper echelous of management.

6. Industry or field. The higher a man sets his sights, the more he must know and understand about the field or industry in which he and his company are engaged. An executive in the XYZ Doorknob Company is well advised to remain abreast of all developments in the doorknob industry. He should know as much as possible about what competing firms are doing--and familiarize himself with what's going on among the company's suppliers and customers. Only thus can he be alert to opportunities that present themselves--and be forewarned about problems that might develop.

7. Over-all business and economic trends and conditions. Today, the successful businessman must be something of a business analyst and economist. Few, indeed, are the companies that are completely independent of or impervious to the influences of general trends and conditions. A forthcoming strike in the steel industry can have ramifications that seriously influence the operations of a diaper manufacturer. An economic crisis in Ruritania could conceivably cause repercussions that would affect the raw-material supplies--or even the sales--of a toy manufacturer in Hackensack. A sudden change in U. S. Government policy or a partisan tussle in Congress can--and often does--set off a chain reaction that leaves its mark on the profit-and-loss statement of a thousand and one business firms across the nation.

Any executive who seriously wants to reach the top must broaden his range of interests and familiarize himself with business and economic matters far beyond the realm of his own immediate field. He cannot begin to do this too soon. Even the most junior of executives can find no better way to invest his spare time than by boning up on general business and economic subjects and by closely following all current developments.

The successful businessman is the one who can, in an appreciable percentage of instances, correctly foresee developments, promptly take advantage of emerging opportunities and effectively forestall problems. No businessman can have a perfect batting average--but it is the man with the highest prediction-and-prevention record who reaches the top most quickly and remains there most securely.

These are some of the more important things with which an executive should be familiar if he wants to achieve success in the business world. I certainly do not suggest that it is easy to gain the necessary knowledge and attain the necessary degree of familiarity with the matters I have listed. Quite to the contrary, I would be the first to warn that much hard work is needed--hard and extra work that often has to be done on the individual's own time and at the expense of other, more pleasurable pursuits.

However. I maintain that the game is well worth the candle that may have to be burned far into the night. The rewards more than justify the effort.

The able and ambitious executive who is familiar with the varied aspects of business will advance rapidly. His familiarity will breed the kind of content that comes with the attainment of one's goals. Nothing succeeds like success--and there is no content like that which a man feels when he has achieved it.