WHY OUR BUSINESS LEADERS FAIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19784, 7 March 1927, Page 8

WHY OUR BUSINESS LEADERS FAIL

LACK OF TRAINING SYSTEM. Professor J. H. Jones, of Leeds University, lecturing last month at a meeting of the Insurance Institute of London at the London Institution, Finsbury Circus, said inspired leadership in industry and commerce was never so urgently needed as to-day. It was, ho said, extremely difficult to discover the true economic position and prospects of this country, but he feared the position was more serious than was generally assumed and that for the next ton year* the intellectual and moral resources of our loaders would be taxed to the uttermost. Neither the universities of this country nor the business community had yet faced the problem of training for business leadership. The universities concentrated attention either upon the more standardised professions and the Civil Service or upon purely technical occupations and subjects, such as engineering, metallurgy and mining. In the latter case they followed the example of business men and conceived the training too narrowly. Thus, for example, a typical engineering firm always appointed a highly skilled but narrowly trained engineer or manager, though there were men as well as machines in the shop and his final problem was to manage men and thereby secure balanced development and good team work. He knew one very large establishment which during the war had a low efficiency ratio merely because the technical manager, who knew a great deal about mechanical engineering, knew nothing else.

Professor Jones urged the appointment of a strong committee to investigate the problem. It might cither be a committee formed by the leaders of industry and commerce or a departmental committee appointed by the Government which had already conveyed its disapproval of the present method of training and appointing mine managers by enacting a measure enabling people trained in other ways to enter industry. The problem of training for business leadership was peculiarly difficult. Students were now encouraged to think that if they passed their examinations they would be doing all that was necessary for early success. Such was not the case. Their real education for business leadership was only beginning when that stage was reached, but the opportunities available for further education were almost non-existent. Professor Jones urged that the universities should open their doors in the evening and provide training which had hitherto been attempted only on a very limited scale by one or two institutions.