THE DANGER OF SPECIALIZING TOO EARLY
A great many young men think they have found a quick and easy road to
success by concentrating their minds wholly on the jobs they happen to
hold.
It is perfectly true that a business man must not underestimate the
importance of details.
But it is also true that large success is always built upon a clear
understanding of basic principles.
The common fallacy that it is best for a man--especially a young man--to
confine his thought and studies to his own specialty has in many instances
proved ruinous. It is easily possible to specialize so much as to lose all
sense of the importance of a broad, well-balanced business training.
We all know the lawyer who is wrapped up in his quibbles; the accountant
who sees nothing in business but a maze of figures; the advertising man
who is so fascinated by "cleverness" that he forgets to try to sell
goods; and the technical man who knows nothing about the commercial phases
of his engineering problems.
Such men cannot take their places among the higher executives because they
know little or nothing of business outside their own specialty, and they
cannot know even that thoroughly while their general outlook remains so
narrow.
Only half ready
Some years ago two young men of unusual promise graduated from a prominent
School of Mines and went to work for a big copper company as full-fledged
mining engineers. They were located at an isolated camp, remote from
civilization, and were given every chance to make good the prediction made
for them at the time of graduation.
These men soon proved that they knew a great deal about the mining of
copper. Their advancement was rapid, and within a comparatively short time
one of them was appointed General Manager and the other Chief Engineer. To
all intents and purposes they were in complete charge of the company's
interests in that locality.
It was not long before the problems put up to these two mining experts
ceased to be confined to the technical end of the business. The handling
of a large number of men, the disposition of big sums of money, the
necessity of using both men and money economically, the accounting and
statistics of their operations, and a hundred other problems no less
"practical" demanded the exercise of judgment on their part and a
knowledge of business principles that neither their technical training nor
their previous experience had supplied.
Unfortunately, these two--the General Manager and the Chief Engineer--had
their heads turned by their rapid advancement. They did not recognize the
fact that a thorough business training would have made them well-nigh
failure-proof, and they even expressed contempt for scientific study of
such subjects as accounting, banking, organization, cost finding, selling
and finance.
In course of time the operations of the company made necessary the
extension of its mining facilities, involving the erection of a
concentrator and smelter at an expenditure of a little over $2,000,000.
These men were in charge of selecting and arranging for the sites and
erection of the plants. The work had gone forward to a considerable extent
when one of the executive officers of the company from the East came to
inspect the properties and the progress of the new work. He was so
disappointed at the lack of business judgment displayed in the selection
of the sites, the drawing of contracts and other matters, that he
dismissed the Chief Engineer on the spot, and curtailed the authority of
the General Manager.
He stated that thereafter he would select men who had some business as
well as technical training.
These men missed success because they lacked certain essential tools with
which to build it. Equipped with an elaborate professional kit gathered
through years of painstaking study, they still lacked that knowledge of
business principles which was necessary to enable them to turn their
technical knowledge into results.
Every one who holds, or expects ever to hold, a position of business
responsibility should be familiar with the whole field of modern business.
The reasons for this are apparent to any one who has to do with the
handling of large problems. It is necessary always to take into account
_all_ the important factors in such problems. No matter how ably a
marketing or an accounting difficulty may be met, the solution is worse
than useless if it affects unfavorably any other phase of the business.
A business executive cannot afford to make many serious mistakes. To guard
against mistakes, he must be fortified with an all-round knowledge of
business practice--not merely a partial or one-sided knowledge.
The principles of Production, Marketing, Financing and Accounting are
fundamental and apply to all lines of business. The man who says they do
not apply because his business is "different" is simply exposing his
failure to get down to rock bottom in his thinking. Every business has its
points of difference, just as every man has an individuality of his own.
But we know that human nature, broadly speaking, is much the same in all.
In a like sense all business moves along similar lines. It all consists of
producing, marketing, financing and accounting.
The broad principles of modern business science, therefore, govern all
business. They are related to _your_ problems, no matter how "different"
your business may appear to be on the surface.