Herbert N. Casson: Efficiency

“As yet the efficiency of selling goods has not been worked out. Most salesmen believe it cannot be done. They claim that there are too many variables in the problem. Perhaps there are, but nobody knows until the experiment has been thoroughly tried. In every case the victories of Efficiency have been won in spite of the most stubborn opposition from the men who were being helped. And one fact is sure - that the first Advertisers and Sales Managers who try out Efficiency and succeed will find themselves in a gold mine. They will have found a better way to enter a market that handles, in an average year, thirty thousand million dollars worth of goods.”

Herbert N. Casson

Source: 1910s, Ads and Sales (1911), p. 7

Men , Way , Problem , Victory

“According to Taylor, the principles of Efficiency are:
(1) Science, not rule of thumb.
(2) Harmony, not discord.
(3) Cooperation, not competition.
(4) Maximum output, not restricted output.
(5) The development of each man to his greatest efficiency and prosperity.”

Herbert N. Casson

Source: 1910s, Ads and Sales (1911), p. 8

Science

“There are always obstacles and competitors. There is never an open road, except the wide road that leads to failure. Every great success has always been achieved by fight. Every winner has scars. The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”

Herbert N. Casson

Herbert N. Casson in: National Printer Journalist Vol 51 (1933), Nr. 7-12. p. 28; Cited in Arthur Tremain (1951) Successful Retailing: A Handbook for Store Owners and Managers p. xi
1920s-1940s

Men , Failure , Success , Fight

“The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”

Herbert N. Casson

Herbert N. Casson cited in: Supervisory Management. Vol. 1 (1955). p. 60
1950s and later

Men

“It is not size that counts in business. Some companies with $500,000 capital net more profits than other companies with $5 million. Size is a handicap unless efficiency goes with it.”

Herbert N. Casson

Herbert N. Casson cited in: Alfred Armand Montapert (1964) Distilled Wisdom. p. 68
1950s and later

Business

“The principles of Efficiency were first applied to war by Moltke. Result - the conquest of France in seven weeks.
Second, they were applied to manufacturing by Taylor, Emerson, and others. Result - lower costs, higher profits, higher wages, and nearly twice the output.
Third, they were applied to the Ordnance Department of the U. S. Government. Result - the official approval of the Government. (See report by Brigadier General William Crozier, Nov. 2, 1911.)”

Herbert N. Casson

Herbert N. Casson Ads and Sales: A Study of Advertising and Selling, from the Standpoint of new principles of scientific management. Published 1911. p. 3
1910s, Ads and Sales (1911)

War

“Herbert Casson was a highly prolific writer on management, with a career as a management guru spanning some four decades. A skilled writer who was also a successful entrepreneur, he used his own experiences and acute observations of the world around him to develop a philosophy of management based on the concept of ‘efficiency’. He published more than seventy books, which by the time of his death had sold more than half a million copies around the world. Something of a maverick, he was never really accepted by the business academic community in either Britain or America. His books were popular and populist, highly entertaining and full of penetrating insight.”

Herbert N. Casson

Morgen Witzel (2003), Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 42

Death , Books , World , Communication