Trust Executives Then Watch the Numbers

"'How do you want me to handle it?' He was still a new boy after all. 'Would you like a survey by telex or wait till I get back and report to you?' 'You will find half a million available at the bank/ I said. 'If you see anything worth buying, buy it/ This was the way I invariably trusted my executives. I believed they could do most things as well as I could, if not better, and I always avoided the mistake of kidding myself to the contrary. Reverting again to good old my"

"myself, from long experience, reckon invaluable. A man must not only know how to choose his executives, he must know how to delegate authority. Lack of this ability shows not only a lack of trust in the individuals them- selves but a failure to trust and back one's own judge- ment. Many of the business failures I have known about throughout my life have come about through this. A man who cannot delegate to others finds himself without the time or energy to concentrate on essential problems. Nor will he be able to take the kind of decisions that are active,"

"men now felt as if they had come of age. I have always known that other men could run a business as well as I could, perhaps better, so long as the figures and the forecasts came to me. I have never gone about worrying over what someone might be doing to my business, unless I found something that looked wrong, and that always comes out in the figures. Now I was pleased to let Kemsley's executive directors get on with it, while I began to figure what would improve the company and what we should do next. I had time to do some figuring on the backs of envelopes."