Quality service;

              Oualityiii Service
In a professional organization such as
ours, success is built on a reputation for
quality service.
A reputation for quality service is never
fully earned—it is always being earned.
These thoughts are old as the hills
and we are likely to take them for
granted. That would be a mistake. To
each of us they have a vital, continu­ing
significance.
You and I can share a sense of pride
in being part of an organization such
as Haskins & Sells, achieving our ob­jectives
as we do through team efforts.
But we must be careful that our pride
does not lead us to complacency. We
either constantly improve our ability to
render quality service or lose ground
that then is so difficult to regain.
Improvements—in ourselves, and in
technology and business methods —are
not self-generating. They are created
by people. People in our client organi­zations
are creating these improve­ments,
and they are demanding from
us the quality service required to syn­chronize
with their pace. We can meet
that demand only if we have quality
people on our staff who are constantly
alert to opportunities for improving
their competence.
The logical start in maintaining and
improving the quality of our staff is in
the selection of those we invite to come
with us. The selection must be a care­ful
one, and it is important for the
future of those selected and for the
success of the entire organization that
great effort be committed to this task.
Acquiring the best people is only the
start of the job. Much as a manufac­turer
should not acquire quality metals
and leave them in the yard to rust, we
must not employ the best people and
then let them stagnate. It is vital that
raw material be processed; it is vital
that we do everything possible to assist
our people in their development.
I do not mean by this that we must
spoon feed these mature men and wom­en
who come with us. We should, how­ever,
make available to them every rea­sonable
opportunity to develop skills —
broadly and in specialties —that will
serve them and the Finn in the years
to come. The strength of the Firm years
from now will not be found in those
who today are in our top positions. Our
future strength will be found in those
who have come with us recently and
who, with guidance and encourage­ment,
will become our leaders down
the road.
Personal Attributes
Let us consider the kind of individual
whose association with us enables us to
render quality service.
There are so many personal attri­butes
and so many valuable combina­tions
of them that any attempt to define
with exactness the kind of person to
whom I refer would be futile. We can
say, though, that he is a person who
takes full advantage of opportunities
offered and who, especially with en­couragement,
broadens and otherwise
develops himself so that he can be
counted on to take increasing respon­sibility
with each passing year. He ob­tains
a good grasp of the technical as­pects
of our work and has the inherent
ability to perform effectively. He is a
dependable, conscientious person, hav­ing
a strong loyalty to the Firm, and he
applies his ability in what we might
describe as pure hard work. He is inter­ested
in the affairs of the Firm, its cli­ents,
and his community and, impor­tantly,
is impelled to use his education
and experience to help others develop
themselves too.
One Essential Characteristic
Among these personal characteristics
mentioned —and they are not intended
to be all-inclusive — there is one that I
cannot resist discussing. It is the one
labeled "pure hard work."
Pure hard work means getting in and
digging. It means keeping your mind
constantly moving over the significance
of your assignment, making endless de­mands
on your judgment, investigating
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