THE SCIENCE OF BUSINESS.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14611, 16 January 1918, Page 5

THE SCIENCE OF BUSINESS.

AN INSTRUCTIVE ADDRESS,

A lecture on "The Science of Busi- , ness" was delivered by Air Andrew i Deer, of Sydney, governing director of ■ the Sheldon Institute of Business Sci- : ence of Australasia, in the City Council . Chambers last night. ' The gathering was under the auspices of the Chamberi| of Commerce and the Employers' Association, and there was a. large attend- . ': ance of representative citizens, both men and women. Mr T. A. H. Field, M.P., who occu- , pied the chair, said that, after a very i , cursory glance at a little book which ; some of them might have seen, entitled . "Natural Law in the Business World," i lie looked forward to spending a very profitable and a very instructive evening in listening to Mr Deer. He notic- , ed that the book dealt with the subject! of business from a very commonsense : point of view, and therefore he expect-; ; ed to hear a very interesting lecture. :■ At present efficiency was in the ail1.; : They heard about Efficiency Boards and i [Efficiency Committees, and now, if he j , gathered the subject of the lecture' ■ aright, they were to hear something 1 aboiit efficiency or the increasing of efficiency in their various business ser- : vices. The audience, he was pleased to notice, was very representative indeed of those connected with business in this j city. I Mr Deer gave his audience much food for thought. His survey of the field of business is evidently complete, and his lecture lost nothing in interest because a pleasing portion qf it was but a scientific confirmation of the experiences common to the life of every successful man, whether that man be in the professions or in any of the hundred and one lines of business which go to make up the world of commerce. Tho lecturer, whose style is rather that of the well-informed conversationalist than of the orator, prefaced his remarks by asking the audience how they interpreted the words used in the title of the lecture. Science, in tho words of Herbert Spencer, was "organised knowledge." He preferred tho term "classified commonsense." And whal was business? "Well, all too'many mer thought of business as that thing'exemplified by the verse —

"Business is business," the little manl€ ' said, s A battle where "everything" goes, * ■Where the only gospel is got ahead, i And never spare friend or foes. ' 1 'Slay, or be slain," is the slogan cold; 3 •»■ ,? n ust struggte and slash and tear, 1 *or Business is business," a fight for : gold. Where all that you do is fair. . If that was the way his hearers considered business then they had better quit the meeting for they would not hear anything which wouTd • coincide +L i6Uch a view > and woul{f often find the lecturer treading on their corns in painful fashion. He felt that tte only view of business they could afford to consider was in accord with another verse from the same pen :— "Business is business." the bis; man said, A battle to make of earth, .a place to yield us more meat and, bread, More pleasure and joy and mirth, .there are still some bandits and bucca-

neers, Jungle-bred beasts of trade, But then- number dwindles with passing years, And dead is the code they made. .

It would suit the purposes of the 1 evening to replace the "i" in business ; wrch y a '-v," making the word "busyness. His purpose in coming to JNielson was to interest citizens in a movement that had for its object, which it was notably achieving the study of the ciassmed commonsense. of "busyness," really the "philosophy of. service," wliiclrwas none the less but rather more P because it is also the philosophy ot proht-makmg. Two things went Jiancl in hand. Service is cause, and fh }> «Or pi? fit is effect- If Jon increase xne are ot service you correspondingly increase the warmth of profit, and the ctnllmg atmosphere of penury passes automatically away and nil are iiappier because they have 'a better t tie to existence. He had no desire to wigges t that there was any fanciful I means for bringing about this much-to- i be-desired end. Increased efficiency Avas not something with which a man might Ijp vaccinated. There was no necessity for a surgical operation, .unless <\ ™ jT* e°" tlle minds Of that ever" «wmdlmg class of men who -were, as the

Yankee said, so "sot in their ways" *that learning-was impossible for them. The laws of growth had to be observed. Scientific agriculture was continuously accomplishing wonders. Science was improving out of sight the products which man handled. Now the lecturer proposed the~~application of scienco to the man himself. Before, we could classify knowledge we had to have a basis lor the classification. He would like his hearers to tell him what were the factors present in every commercial transaction. The answer was a simple one. The factors to be considered in all commercial transactions, : indeed, in i every one of ■•'life's relationships, were the party of the first part (one's self), the party of the second part (one's customer, patient 4 or client), the thing concerning which the two' parties communicated (one's business or profession), and the meeting of the minds of ttese | two parties in common agreement (persuasion). 'Further, analysis revealed the fact that all men who would be more efficient must analyse themselves. For I the purpose of the evening he would 'consider the body and mind or man. What was there to it P Did not man know, . feel, and will with his mind? At this point the lecturer. digressed for a moment to tell of the genesis of the movement which, he represented. The founder, Arthur Frederick Sheldon, studied law in the University of Michigan, earning his fees by selling books in vacation time. He studied the ■science of law organised 'by the great ! Blackstone, of England. The fascination of selling took hold of him as a result of his vacation experiences. His mind trained in. the science of Jaw, now sought a science of selling. They*l was nothing in the way of organised knowledge to be had—business was still done by, the rule of thumb. The doctor used science, as did the lawyer, the electrician, the farmer, the miner, and the mariner, but the business man —well, a man just put on an apron and went behind the counter or took a sample caso and went on the road, and he I was a business man. Sheldon 'had I changed all that. .Now, the business man could have the advantage of the classified experiences of other men to add to his own. As showing the way some of the world's greatest concerns and leading business men had contributed to the science which was now being introduced to Mr Deer told of an interesting visit paid by his chief in iiis research work. He was going through one of the great houses in Chicago (whose turnover in 1913 was £18,- ---; 000,000) and questioning the general ; manager concerning the building-up of 1 such an efficient staff. This man told (him that they had an absolute standj ard b^y which they measured all men and women m their employ. The value of the individual was determined by the amount of supervision required. The less supervision, the greater the value; the more supervision, the less the value. Supervision was necessary because of two things—errors of omission, and errors of commission. The law of doubles throughout nature, as evidenced in light the positive and darkness the negative, heat and cold, etc., governed man also. Develop the positives of the knowing powers, judgment, observation, memory, imagination, etc., and crowd out the negatives, and one got an able man. The feelings developed positively would result in reliability, which the lecturer held was the greatest factor in building up success. A man .needed to be more than honest: he must develop desire to serve, hope, faith, courage, loyalty, justice, etc., and crowd out selfishness, despair, fear, doubt, disloyalty, etc.. The body must be de veloped for health instead of sickness

for strength instead of weakness, thus endowing a man with endurance, that power of sustained effort born of health. Then the will needed care. Decision much crowd out indecision, activity take the place of inactivity. This could be done by giving the right kind of nourishment and use to the body and the mind. Nature demanded that a man do more than even this, or, to be more correct, the completeness of ability required that the knowing powers be directed not only inwardly for self-under-standing and development, but outward.ly man rrmst learn liow to analyse commercial matters, whether relating to the abstract or to the concrete. He must also obey the law which said, "Man, you must not only know yourself and your business; you must linow the way the mind moves in .relation to trade and ■success in 'business, find you must know how to road the great book of human nature as it is written in tho faces, forms, actions, and colours of mankind/ The lecturer, in emphasising this phase of Business Science Circle studies, made excellent uso of the blackboard and with phrenological diagrams showed some of what he termed the letters in the language of character. He predicted that, because of the. possibilities inherent in tie movement, eventually the secondary schools and colleges at least would be equipped with men able to determine the range of work in which the students would have a chance of achieving success, in the course of his remarks, Mr Deer mentioned that, had it not been that he was invited to visit Dunedin, he would not have opened New Zealand until after the war. An explanation was given of the Sheldon Institute's system of instruction, in which uso is made of test-books and questions upon them. The cost of the instruction was stated to be partly, in time and partly in effort. If a circle were formed in Nelson, there would be lectures here once a month by a specialist whom the institute would provide. In connection with other circles there might also be intermediate meetings. The course; could be got through for the first time in five months but the study was one to "which ~.a lifetime could be devoted. As to the cost in money, there were two plans. Either it was £15 15s cash, or £4 4s down and £2 2s a month, with an additional £.1 Is, making £16 16s. The institute would want at least • fifteen members to warrant it in sending a lecturer here. It fixed that minimum only because it knew that later on it would get other members. When the lecturer sat down he was warmly applauded. On the motion of Mi* Thomas' JNeale, seconded by Mr O. R. Fell, s, hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Mr Deer by acclamation. Both speakers expressed the hope that the ideas and schemes put forward by the lecturer would not bo.'lost sight of in Nelson. In replying, Mr Deer took up a reference by Mr Fell to after-war questions. "What is going to happen after the war?" asked the lecturer. If it were true that there was going to be considerable trade competition, what was to be the answer to it? With what tools should they build so that they might build' wisely? Should they wait till to-morrow came before they brought about their self-development, or should they start now? He counselled immediate action. They were not limited to any particular means, concluded Mr Deer, but time was a tremendous element. '