Publix Opinion (Jun 13, 1930)

CHARACTER IS ESSENTIAL IN PUBLIX ‘(Continued from Page Four) anywhere. They need development; they need understanding; and they need a willingness on the part of you managers and you executives to spend the necessary amount of time in bringing up in your young people the best that is in them. There are certain fundamen© tals that of course are most important to us. stant knowledge on the part of each manager that he is Mr. Publix Corporation in the community in which his theatres are, and that his obligation to his community is a great ‘one; a knowledge that nothing will wreck Publix faster than the . lack of appreciation of the obli gation we owe to the communi ties in which we operate. Therefore your character comes No. 1, as far as we are concerned. I don’t get nervous or panicky about whether a town is in red or black. We want them in black, of course, but if our men are right and they are made up of the right. . stuff, and they will tend to their jobs, I am not worried about that town, irrespective of its present condition. The population is there; and the tools are there, and it is a matter of time; but if our men are wrong, all theatres and tools will be of no consequence. I have only one fear, and it is a natural one at times. When I go home at night my wonder _ is, do the men really appreciate, and are they willing to understand our obligation? Do they have the fullest significance of what a catastrophe carelessness could be to us? Do they have a full appreciation of what their wrong personal conduct will do to us? Do they realize we are | a highly spot-lighted business and our actions are observed through a microscope, as compared to other businesses? When I can feel satisfied that the boys do have that in front of them, I am not worried _ about how the dollars and cents will follow. We like to think of ourselves in the Home Office as a humane lot of people. We have a slogan in — the Home Office, and it is something I like to see applicable to every remote operation. That is:) the only boss anybody has in Publix, is his own conscience. I am emphasizing that a little, because this is my first meeting with so many of you. I always felt it a bit unnecessary to go into that in the last few years with those associated with us, because they have seen by actual performance more than words can tell. i | A Word. of Assurance Those of you who have made this business your future in life, I can assure of what I have just said to you. As I look about the room, you are entitled to that assurance from me, because most of you are of an age now when you cannot afford to have made any mistake in either the business you have chosen or the company you are with. We could all afford to make mistakes in our 20’s and try again, but as we begin to cross the 30’s, we had better get anchored somewhere. I hope you managers will remember what I just said about _ that phase of the business, because our entire future finally depends on the material you bring through, Lis i RUIREPSS ROSE ELESSARSTSOULREROEELE HEEL iit his ‘| job. One is the con| own conscience. i UCMTCTUTTTTCTTT TO OTOOOKOMARHNOHMEOMTONOKKAOMNMOoMKTOMMeMNeKHMN AOAKHUNMAMNKCHMMOHMKMMKMONHCHNhonoHOHHHeKuuKHKHOKHMKuHNOHHAMuHKHHuuNnANNHMnHNHOKMnKiMMNHOOMKOOKN é HUTEESECSOSORDIEDDS, PUBLIX OPINION, WEEK OF JUNE 13ru, 1930 and if you will bring them through as I know your District Managers and Division Managers are trying to bring you through, I repeat what I said before, I will have no apprehension about talking to our Board of Directors for additional commitments for millions and millions of dollars for this future expansion that I have referred to. Being a theatre manager is, of course, a very, very interesting I cannot tell you how many times I regret that I have now become the head bookkeeper of the firm and I cannot stand at the door and rub elbows with the customers, as I used to do. I went through the school of passing out my dodgers all over the district, and writing my own slides, and thinking they were wonders, and sitting in the audience trying to get the reaction to this advertising material, and whether I was going to get that next day’s receipts above $29. I miss it a lot now, when my contacts come through letters and figures. Thrill of Contact | I don’t care what job you ever rise to, nothing will ever give you the thrill again in your life, that those managers get who rub elbows with their customers, and have the personal satisfaction of knowing that by their intimate effort, A, B, C, D, or E has resulted. So a manager’s job, as I say, you will appreciate sometime when you are out of your present assignment more than you can possibly realize now. The manager’s job is a fine thing. It lays the ground work for the fellow who really wants to take it; it equips him for the future in an extraordinary fashion, because almost every type of experience and emotion should be encountered by the diligent manager. When I say “the diligent manager’’ I mean about this: the first and greatest hurdle we have to jump, is our ability to properly appraise ourselves, to have a real honest debit and credit sheet of ourselves. A fellow begins to move faster who learns each day and each night to take stock of himself. When he learns to take stock of himself, he begins in more orderly fashion to direct his activities for the following day and I like to use this illustration for that: | Organization Necessary When we were at grade school, in the primary classes, we were all taught reading to the exclusion of everything else at that moment. We passed on to writing, arithmetic, and as we got through with them, we got other subjects, but each was given to us in and of itself. Now the purpose of that is to attempt to shape in the child’s mind orderly procedure, to attempt to develop in that child the power of concentration, to the exclusion of everything else. The human being has a tremendous reservoir of power and strength, if only utilized properly, and if I would attempt to characterize the so-called successful men I have met, the so-called industrial successes, and try to analyze how they are there, I would conclude by saying he is the fellow that after getting out of grade or high school, didn’t get on a merrygo around. -He did not confuse everything with everything else. He adhered to that early teaching he got and he gave to each subject as it came along, that full measure of power he has, and then. dove-tailed them to make his ensemble of movement. I have listened to them and I didn’t get any sparks of genius ae them. 999 What Did Mr. Katz Say About YOU? Every one of these speeches is honeycombed with individual commendatory references. They include Publix showmen of all ranks, from theatre manager to Division Directors Executives... and Home Office Are YOU among them? Even if you are not, he is talking about YOU! Read Every Word Of These Speeches! I am conscious of the: breaks that must come when stepping up the ladder, but fundamentally, I find these successful men are not necessarily orators, but talk to you in a co-ordinated manner. In your intimate talks with them, that is about the outstanding characteristic I find in these men. | An Example Now let’s reduce that to the theatre manager, and what do you find? I know if a given manager in a given town would break up his day properly and would say from 9 to 10 in the morning, “I will think about nothing but advertising,—copy,—and I am going to look at copy for one solid hour each and every day, and on the second day see if I cannot change one adjective to avoid repetition,”’ called big job that we have. Therefore, those of you who have been in the Home Office, while you found the fellows busy, yet I am sure you have not found them on a merry-go-round. And therefore I repeat again that the most important message I have for you managers is to learn to honestly appraise yourself first. Be on the level with yourself, and if you find in yourself a lack of development, whether it be advertising, housekeeping, exploitation or something else, remember this, there is nothing wrong in that; it means you need further development, and. the prime function and the ' only reason these men are here, and other district managers are here, is to give to you just that which you need to make you better qualified to step up the I know that copy would be better |. copy than that done on the spur of the moment with 17 fellows bothering you and the telephone ringing. I know if you set between 10 and 11—that one hour for another purpose: ‘“I am going to devote this hour to supervision of the house; I will start at the booth and follow to the lower floors and look under the carpets and do the multiple things a manager does.”’ If he so organizes his day, the point I want to make is this: that instead of the manager becoming a mechanical personality, quite the contrary takes place. He gets so he can give each and every subject such power that when he puts them together, he is ready to lick the world. That is best illustrated when you get along in life and your duties begin to multiply. ' | 3 Orderly Conduct I think I am posted as well as any man in the company. I read every bit of literature, every manager’s letter coming from your district. I read every bit of inter-office correspondence, and yet I have time to see a great many people, to sit in on almost all policy discussions, and I know why that is. I know it is nothing more or less than my willingness to conduct myself in orderly fashion. Further, I have no fear and I have ‘{no sleepless nights about this so This organization which is here now and which will be embellished from time to time, fails» completely in its function if it does not do that for you men. As anxious as I am to get dollars into the company, and of course we must have a certain number of them to pay our dividends and create a surplus, I assure you I am very much more anxious about you men, as men, than I am about the dollars you send from your theatre, because when and as each fellow grows up to his size, dollars will follow, and there is no great rush whether it is reached next week, next month or next year. I say that advisedly, because your circuit is so large, and we have so fine a head start in these operations, that whether this or some other division is not yet grown up to a return on its capital is not the most serious thing in our lives. You who have known me in New York, know I have talked to the boys about this since I have been with the company, and no one has been sent away in a rage because’ they didn’t get. their quota. I would rage if, I felt Bob, George, Greenblatt and Monteil were not doing their job in the'| field. I mean the right job by the manager and in return I would feel badly if I know that im each and every theatre the manager is not keeping his eye on some kid ] PUM sain eA AEITONESRENIAEIDED IBS “We have a slogan in the Home Office. It is something I like to see applicable to every remote operation. That Slogan is: ‘The only boss anybody has in Publix, is 5 i : usher whom he is getting ready to groom as an assistant Manager or looks likely for the school. 'As I said in the beginning, you will find your officials and all of the boys in the Home Office, I think, a very human lot of fellows; very patient, and possibly the main reason for my trip is to try to impart that to you, so you . in turn will impart that to the field. \ A Great Change | I came here from Atlantic City, where we held the first convention of the new Paramount Publix Corporation, and it was most interesting. Some of the boys who were there—Dureau was there— can testify to the great change that is going over the company, It was very difficult to tell if you were in a distributors’ convention or exhibitors’, and that speaks well for the company. There has — been a complete and full realization of the theatre problems of this company on the part of all of its executives. And when Mr. Lasky spoke, while he described the product and eulogized his boys in the production department, yet about every third sentence was about our theatres, and that was fine for this reason: Next year’s product of Paramount, whether good, bad or indifferent, is not the product of the production department, but the exhibiting, producing and distributing ends. Our own boys, Chatkin, Saal, sat in on every picture Paramount has listed in its book, discussed the type of pictures we wanted, and irrespective of how enthusiastic Mr. Lasky was over a picture, if Chatkin said that was not what fits our theatres, out went that subject: I am increasingly optimistic about the production department giving us even a better line of product for the coming year than we have had in the past. | Theatres And Product | I think we will all agree that Paramount had by far the most consistent line of product last year, and while we fell down on a couple of our big numbers, yet there were very few pictures that were not qualified to play the best theatres and the best time, and it was not accidental, either. The theatre department began to get in on the product about last December, and in the change of product that took place this spring, taking out and replacing were done at the solicitation of the boys in the theatre department. The company this year, because of its great group of theatres, will have an entirely different selling plan to outside distributors. We will go on an exclusive perecentage plan. Take our changes on our product, and we are listing at this time, only those pictures which are pretty well finished. Of the 65 or 70 pictures the company will make, there are about 25 of them here, and the balance of the time is being kept open so the company. can avail itself of the subject most popular at the moment. With the speed of pictures it would be hardly feasible to tell | the kind of pictures Clara Bow should play in nine or ten months from now, and we are simply selling playing time and not selling names of pictures. iy | Millions Spent | That, as I say, was brought about by realization of the hundreds of millions of dollars the company has wrapped up in its theatres and what had pictures (Continued on page Six) ie Aisi stab cht poe at nas sass entUN foun Ree aan cory eae OS PRE Ny BARES IN FS ip ai i es cl pa Dae PES ELE EPEC EE CLE rs 7 ‘e