My Advice To Young Men Starting In Business.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18959, 4 January 1930, Page 8

My Advice To Young Men Starting In Business.

TO-DAY’S SIGNED ARTICLE

Written for the “Star” by HENRY FORD (American Motor-car Magnate).

Does it imply that because a man is an employee, his ambition is there fore stinted and his initiative lost? If it implies that, then it is wrong at the start. Up to a few years ago a man got into business for himself because, as a general rule, it was difficult for him to carve a career in any other way. That is not true to-day. Employment is now offering men a career. That is an element students of the problem have been inclined to over look. Employment offers a young man a wider opportunity for creation than he can usually make for himself. The larger the industry the greater the scope for creative action, and the greater the need for it because only through crea tion and service can such organisations succeed. Without considering the personal element that may enter, look at business and see of what it consists: Private business. Large business. Private business is largely competitive; large business is a matter of cooperation. The spirit of large business is one of common interest in the job—the unified thought and energy of many men. This being true, the man employed by a large business is better situated to give of his energies: in a private business these energies are divided. Opportunities to acquire position and a competence are greater in employment than in private business. This is natural. There are more places to be filled, and the rewards are greater. Business lives by the vigour and brains of the men it produces. Every big business needs more, and bigger men than many small businesses could possiblv need. Naturally, with a larger need comes larger opportunity. As a matter of fact the case stands about this way; employment has become a competitor with private business for the services of the best men Independence and opportunity are no longer the rewards of private business alone—they are found in both and, mostly, in employment. We Work for Others. The idea that industry narrows a man's vision has never occurred to anyone in industry. There are all sorts of opportunities for men to get ahead by working for others. That is all we do anyway—just work for others. The road down which industry travels is very wide and inclusive, and there is penty of room for the man who travels faster than stage coach speed. Something else: employment is at hand. The need for starting a private business, or the means to do it are not always at hand. If a man is starting a private business the one thing he must have is capital. That does not mean capital in the form of dollars. An idea is capital. Experience is capital. Naturally, some money is needed because money is a commodity of trade. But, more important than money is an idea; more important than money is experience. So, now we come to experience. Can a man best get experience in his own business or can he best get it in the employment of another man who has a surplus of experience and has erected the means of getting more experience? One learns by doing. If a man wants to get into business for himself he must, if he expects to make a success of that business, ence—or. he must get it as he goes along. This is sometimes a costly process to his business. There is a way to get it at less cost to himself and to the public. That is by working for another man—watching how things are done, knowing why they are done and using his own initiative to improve on methods and systems. It doesn’t make any difference whether a man starts in business for himself, or begins working for someone else, one thing is true of both methods

—he must begin to work and he must learn his job. Most economic problems come in industry, because men, running businesses, do not know their jobs. Which means if you want to turn it around, that most “economic" problems in industry would be solved if the industries were managed by men who know industry. Must Know One’s Job. A surgeon is selected to perform an operation because he knows from experience what he is doing—or, trying to do. The choice of a manager of a business has to be made in the same way, if the business is to survive. A man has to know his job if he is to run any business. There is only one reason for the existence of industry. To make things people can use. How can men whose knowledge is confined to balance-sheets and whose interest is in dividends run a factory? Industry isn’t managed that way. When any business exists for the mere matter of making profits then that business isn’t going to be with us long. To emphasise the real purpose of industry is to make things people can use. If that is done well enough profits will take care of themselves. If that is the purpose of industry the natural thought is that men must understand it, if they expect to manage it successfully. They cannot understand it and go into offices, take jobs keeping books, striking cash balances while other men create things, make them and furnish the practical knowledge. Only One Door. There is but one door to industry. That is the workshop door. A man running a business has got to know how things are made, and he can best acquire that knowledge by making them. As has been said before, we learn best by doing. Any man who has never worked at the basic operations in his business is at a tremen dous disadvantage. Other people are telling him how to run his affairs when he should know himself. If he doesn’t know, how can he properly judge the reports that come to him? Where there are groups of men there are bound to be conflicting statements, and the manager is in the position of weighing these and judging which is right. He knows the right reports if he has worked—and learned The man who goes into the workshop, and learns, will serve an appren ticeship that will be invaluable to him later on. If he goes to work for some one else he will, if he keeps his eyes and ears open, learn from the mistakes of his employers. From those mistakes—and they will not cost him anything out of his own pocket—he will learn what not to do w*hen becoming an employer himself. I recommend that a man start in by working for someone else, even though he does intend to manage his own business later on. Just Starting Work. He will be more capable of managing his own business when he gets into, it. I have been twenty-five years building up this business so as to be able to start to work. I am just starting to work now. How much better for a young man that he come with a big organisation, where he has all the background of the problem, all the tools to work with, and all the incentives for work, than to begin in the small way he has to begin if he owns his own business? By the time he builds his own preparations, he will find he has used up a good deal of time. As I say, it has taken me twenty-five years to get in shape to do what I have to do. Any business has to be built. It just isn t planted there as a big business right at the start. It has to grow Grow naturally. The growth of what I vou have—if the people want what you make—will build a business, will build

it steadily and soundly enough. Any business should grow out of the service it renders. The advantage of letting it do this is that you learn and are able to make improvements as you go along By starting big the whole apparatus and organisation are cast into the mould of making one commodity. The best way to stunt the growth of a business through its lifetime is to start it out big. Men—and particularly young men—are prone to become impatient with time. They shouldn’t be. Time is one of the elemental forces which ripens what we plant. (Anglo-American N.ST. Copyright)