OCR Text |
Show "System" has become a much abused H" word in the common interpretation. It is Pawvini! onc unfunnc things in life that jf a good thing is at once snapped up and SJvstCUl lU overdone- by tho worst exponents of the m idea. When a new idea of genuine worth JtjUSinCSS has been reduced to a fad condition it ia nn ffVii already half strangled and comatose, so JL M. l.k nr ng concerns (hose who might otherwise profit most by it. 4i In thousands of business offices, in tens Uy JOHN A. IIOWLAND. Qf hougaU((J of homeg nml in ,niniong 0f private lives this word "system" has been taken up unwisely to detrimental results. There are businesses whoso stickling for system forms is robbing the businesses busi-nesses themselves of that initiative which alone can make tho system forms worth while. Business without system enough is impossible, but system without business enough is ridiculous. Here lies tho danger in too systematic Bystcm. I know a man who is iu successful business, but who is a victim of this systcmitis in marked degree. de-gree. How much more successful ho might have been had ho escaped tho disease can bo guessed at only. Ilis, working desk 1b a huge- table laid off like a map, and not to find every desk appurtcnanco exactly in its placo I when he reachea for it would disconcert him for a whole day. "I havo sat in this one ofllco for five years," ho said to me. "I can co mo into it on u black night and lay my hands on anything I want as well as if tho room were lighted. I simply couldn't work if anything 'mussed up' this table." Is this business system or is it an expression of a diseased nervous system? Tliia man prides himself that every letter received by him ia answered an-swered on the day he receives it. Ilis business is complicated. Can he an- tiwer intelligently every letter on tho day ho receives it? Is it business judgment to do so? Or is it mere devotion to an idolized system? |