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Show to the building of a better community--an opportunity to repay in some measure the opportunities that we as individuals and as businessmen have been given under our system of free enterprise. We have to look beyond ourselves, and beyond our businesses. The good manager in these times takes care of his responsibilities at home--in his firm--first. But he doesn't let those duties act as blinders that stop his vision at the plant gate. Good management sees its business responsibilities through the wide-angle lens of civic enlightenment. Whatever its scope, however small may be its field of influence, management is fast learning that the truest measure of its success is the permanent public value of its work and its community service. Recognition of this fact prompted the President of International Harvester Company last week in addressing an audience composed entirely of members of management, with no members of the press present, to close his remarks with this counsel to his colleagues: "Each of us should ask ourselves 'What have I done for my community today?'" There lies the true labor of management. And there, too, lies my message. But before you get away, all of you know that men 65 and over are tempted to give advice to younger men, but when the opportunity is offered to a man of 41 the temptation is irrestible. And so I offer you this for whatever value it may have: (1) Success is a heady wine, and a little of it goes a long way. A poor man can't handle it well or for long. Characteristic symptoms are a bulging of the waistline and a serious swelling of the ego, a calcification of viewpoint, a restricted ability to look ahead, an exaggerated ability to look backwards, and an inability to look objectively at one's self. So I say to you, whatever your success, don't lose the ability to look at yourself in 11 |