© WILL-POWER IN BUSINESS
There is still another cause of our inertia
and our lack of will-power. It is the delusion
that system is efficiency. Every nation that has
a long-established industrialism, is in danger of
accepting this delusion. Britain is the oldest of
industrial countries, and, consequently, suffers
most from this delusion.
System means regularity. Often, it means
getting in a rut. It may mean doing the wrong
thing persistently. If a man drinks ten whiskies
a day, that is his system. But is not a good one.
A company can go down into bankruptcy
systematically. It can lose 10 per cent. a year
till its reserves are gone and its overdraft
wrecks it.
System and efficiency are like instinct and
reason. Instinct means doing a thing always
the same way, by means of a racial memory,
while reason means thinking about what we
do. At least once a year, every large firm
should study its system and improve it. Other-
wise it tends to become less and less efficient.
The Civil Service is all system and no
efficiency. A one-man business, on the other
hand, is often all efficiency and no system.
System is necessary in order to lighten the
burden of the men at the top, and to have work
done without supervision. But every system

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