Part 10

While I think you're too young to really appreciate the pride one feels in the successes of their own children, you can take it from me it's some feeling and I don't know anything in this world that's so closely akin to it as the satisfaction and genuine pleasure one derives in watching the successes of those men whom you have personally coached in their earlier successes.

Think it over Boy! The duty you owe to your company, or the world at large, isn't at all performed when you have merely achieved personal success--why bless your heart, one graduate from Red's school is worth more to the company than a single sale of the entire output of their largest cannery.

Fate has entrusted to your keeping as likely looking a bunch of youngsters as I've seen in many a day. What are YOU going to do with 'em old Red Top? Are you going to be satisfied with just making good salesmen out of them--are you short-sighted enough to think that's all that's expected of you?

Mother and I were discussing these things the other night and she gradually led me out over my head in the argument. She always goes way back before my time and she did when she said that God made the first man out of a bunch of clay. The only comeback I could think of was, “Gee, what an inspiration that ought to be to Red, considering how much better material he has to work with.”

Your loving, “DAD.”

Hal Is District Manager Now--His Problem Is Winning the Respect of Men

Dear Hal:

Jim Baker came by the house a few minutes ago and showed me a copy of last week's bulletin in which was the announcement of your promotion to the position of District Manager. Your letter of a few days ago didn't say anything about it, although you must have known at the time. Guess you wanted to surprise your old Dad, eh--what? But you didn't surprise me much after all, for I've been expecting something like that to happen to you for a long time.

Well--Boy--Howdy! I know you're proud of the promotion and I'm sure proud too, but I'm not going to do much back slapping for two reasons. In the first place, it makes your arm tired and the second place, it will not help you a bit to fill a District Manager's shoes. The very fact that you didn't wire me right after the job was given you is a good sign. I'm giving you credit at least for inherited modesty and if I am right in my diagnosis, I'm more proud still for I never knew a big man in my life who wasn't personally modest and I'm happier than I can tell you to think that at the outset you are exhibiting the ear marks of the man I'm hoping you are.

No doubt you are full of plans of what you are going to do in the new work and probably don't need any advice from me, but I know that by this time you realize that it's the old man's prerogative to make a few comments in each letter, so I'm not worrying a bit about whether you want them or not.

The position of District Manager is a big one--a whole lot bigger than some think. It's one of those jobs that a fellow can make just about as big as he wants to and, on the other hand, it furnishes an opportunity for a fellow to make about as big a jackass of himself as the proverbial Missouri mule, if you don't watch your step.

In the first place, I hope you haven't acquired the idea that the place was given you because you were the best branch house manager on the force; the seventh son of a seventh son or because they thought you were too big for a branch house manager. Of course, I don't know how they arrived at their conclusion, but if I were you I think I'd figure that probably they were pretty short of District Manager material and just decided to try you out on the job for a few months to see how you'd work out.

Don't get the idea that I'm trying to make light of your ability--far from it. The only reason I'm advising you that way is, I believe that thought on your part would make for a more healthy condition and provide more of an incentive. At any rate, the officials of your company, to all practical purposes, are “from Missouri” and you'll do well not to kid yourself into thinking you have been especially ordained a modern Moses to lead the children of Israel out of the wilderness.

Of course, I know you don't think so, but I want to impress upon you that your new job is no sinecure. Unless you have a perverted sense of what is expected of you, you'll find that your previous positions were child's play in comparison. You have taken upon yourself a world of responsibility that must not be discounted. While you may believe yourself to be popular with the organization under your jurisdiction, it's a hundred-to-one shot that--especially at first--you'll be about as popular as the village drunkard at a Sunday School Picnic. Your managers might have liked you as a brother manager, but it's only natural that they'll accept you only on suspicion until you've demonstrated to them that you're a rudder on the boat instead of a barnacle.

That's your first and biggest job, old Red Top, and if you're smart you'll realize that although the title may carry some prestige, the most important commodity you have to sell at first is--Red. Be sure to differentiate between the class of men you have been directing and those now under your jurisdiction. Although your managers were once salesmen--they're managers now. Big, broad, clear-thinking, hard-hitting business men. You cannot succeed without their respect and you haven't got that to start with, because you've yet to demonstrate. You cannot buy respect of these men with fancy dinners, too much dignity, funny stories or “old maid” tactics. Your authority of title or position don't mean anything to them. You must be first a “he-man,” the happy medium between a “yes-ser” and a chronic debater, an exponent and amplifier of your company's policies, a happy mixture of hard work, tolerance, constructive suggestion and leadership.

Don't hold that respect to be attained lightly--worry about it! If there's a single manager that will not co-operate and the others do, it would look as though it were his fault--not yours, but if six out of the ten are luke-warm after you've been on the job a while, that's a condition and looks like your fault and is plenty big enough to worry about. After you've burned the midnight oil long enough on either of the two cases, you'll probably come to the conclusion that you will sell yourself to that one man, or get rid of him, because a balky manager--a man not in step with the aims of the company--the fellow who doesn't believe in the policies and methods one hundred per cent, is like a rotten apple in a barrel of good ones--if you leave it there long enough, it will have the whole barrel on the garbage wagon. But in the case of the six out of ten who are not working right, it should be obvious that it's another case of “they were all out of step but Jim” so you'd better take yourself off to one side, hold a few star chamber sessions and operate on Red. You're the point of contact, Boy, between the officers and directors and the sales organization.

During the war you heard a lot about morale, and morale is nothing more-or-less than mental attitude--point of view. Yet, morale has overthrown dynasties, won battles and brought success out of failure. The sales battle of your company will not be won unless it is ever-apparent in the salesmen--the salesmen cannot be expected to have it unless their managers believe, with an infinite faith, in the aims, policies and personnel of your institution and those managers cannot be expected to have it unless their point of contact with the dynamos in the power house are capable of carrying the proper voltage with an unbroken current, rather than be merely a broken live-wire that can only sputter, fuss and shock those with whom it comes in contact.

Boy, this has been a rambling letter and I hope the things I've told you will prove entirely unnecessary, but you're just now embarking on an uncharted sea. You'll no doubt run into breakers, squalls and stormy weather, yet, there is bound to be clear sailing ahead of you if you'll be ever alert to stay off the rocks of conceit, leisure and intolerance.

Your loving, “DAD.”

P.S.--Am sending you that hat you won on the election bet. You'll note that it's the same size as the last one I bought you.

Dad Drops in on a Branch Manager and Finds the Spirit of the Time

Dear Hal:

I've been reading a great deal recently in the newspapers and magazines, particularly in articles relating to sales problems, about the new order of things with respect to this year rewarding only fighters. In addition to what you say in your letters about your own company's activities, the bulletins and circular letters you have sent me, it seems that every sales talk I listen to, or read, bears down particularly on that very apparent change that has come about in all business in recognizing changed conditions and cutting your expense-cloth according to your result-pattern.

You know, you sent me a copy of a letter not long ago written by the Big Boss himself, in which he said that they did not contemplate reducing their man power, but he said he expected you to do away with all incompetents; have one good man do the work of two mediocre ones and he intimated in no uncertain terms that your company had no use for drones around its bee-hive.

I have been just a little mite curious to get around and see just how literally your organization was taking the instructions so I welcomed the chance that presented itself last week when some business took me out of town for a few days. I happened in a town, Red, in which your company had a branch house (not in your territory, Boy, although I wished it were). This was what might be called a baby-branch, in that it has been in operation only a few months. Not having much to do, I dropped around to chat with the manager. The thing that first impressed me was that although it was before eight A. M. they were on the job and working. The next thing I noticed was that they didn't have any surplus office furniture to loll around in. In fact, after I introduced myself and indicated that I was going to stay a few minutes anyway, they had quite a time finding something for me to sit on.

A funny coincidence was, the manager was red-headed and sitting across the desk from him was a red-headed youngster who reminded me a good deal of you when you were his age. As I sat there chatting with the manager, I just couldn't keep my eyes off that boy. Evidently he was office manager, voucher clerk, cashier, chief clerk and everything in the office except the stenographer. The stenographer, by-the-way, was a young man about the same age as the red-head who wasn't bothered about having to powder his nose, fix his back hair, or go to the rest room every twenty minutes like some female stenographers I've heard of.

Both of these chaps were neatly dressed and a credit in appearance to the office. About nine o'clock Red (I'll just have to call him that) said to the stenographer “Come on, Boy, let's go” and both of them got up from their desks and went out the door. I didn't think much of that until a few minutes later I heard the clanking of chains and squeaking of pulleys and looking out I saw Red and the stenographer--now dressed in overalls and jumpers--out bringing stock down from the third floor to the shipping floor by means of a chain and pulley.

I questioned the manager and he said their business there so far was small and his entire force was himself and those two boys. It was, of course, obvious that had he a combination warehouseman and shipping clerk he couldn't be kept busy but about half the time, so the work must therefore be done by his present force. I watched those fellows while they brought down some hundred or more cases, stenciled them, piled them neatly on the sidewalk in front awaiting the transfer wagons. When finished they came back in the office, picked up their office work where they left off and went to it. I was so interested in that combination that I made it convenient to stay around there all day--I was afraid there was a joker in it some place and I wanted to see. When the transfer man came Red went out and helped load the goods onto the wagon. He wasn't very big physically--just a boy I tell you--but you should see him get a toe-hold on those pickle barrels. Why, Strangler Lewis never had a thing on him in his palmiest days--and smile--Red--why doggone it he was actually happy in that job and took just as much interest in his work as if he owned the place.