Sir William Black
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S I crossed Berkeley Square to that sedate house where Sir William Black guides the destinies of some of the most significant enterprises in the British timonwealth, I was conscious of some misgiving. eady a composite popular picture of top tycoons was inning to inhibit the flow of questions by means of ch I was hoping to explore the special and delicately inced mental, physical and spiritual equipment which . brief 20 years takes a youngster from an apprenticeship iickers' Barrow yards to the general manager's desk at ymanns Motor Bodies, Ltd.
uch a man, I reflected, would have little time for fools; time, indeed, for anything but what was strictly the When with a sigh of relief the staff turns from the Is of the week to the pleasures of the week-end, the top ion is stuffing documents into bulky brief cases. These to be studied in his quiet library in the stately country e he owns, but has no time to enjoy.
ir William Black's welcoming smile and warm handce were the first corrective to such misapprehensions. second was the face of Lord Brabazon gazing urbanely n a portrait above Sir William's desk. " Brab " has known to take time off. He plays golf, too—with Sir jam. So right from the beginning of the interview a fortable, relaxed atmosphere pervaded that elegant celey Square room, Sir William is easy to talk to. A ;ft man, obviously; but one whose mind swiftly grasps inwardness of a subject and who is prepared to discuss flectively, logically and courteously.
bout the week-end work: "A man cannot keep on ig up homework," he told me. "There must be respite ,rdening, for example, or golf."
I asked him whether he thought an apprenticeship was the best way of starting a career today. What about Universities, management courses, those complicated aptitude tests that are so fashionable? Do these things give a man a better chance of getting to the top than if he started as an apprentice?
He has no dogmatic views on the subject. There are so many factors to be considered. Native ability, of course; character, certainly; technical knowledge; and luck. These are some of the ingredients of success which helped him to become a general manager 20 years after his apprenticeship, a director five years after that and now chairman of A.C.V. Sales, Ltd., chairman of A.E.C., Ltd., managing director of Associated Commercial Vehicles, Ltd., director of other companies and a leader in many other bodies—the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, for instance, and the National Research and Development Corporation.
Sir William has much to say about luck. He believes in it. Good or bad, luck can make all the difference to a career. Top management is always on the look-out for talent, but talent may be obscured by a crafty departmental manager who is reluctant to lose one of his clever young men. Good luck may reveal the talented one just at the right time. Bad luck may impel him to make what he believes to be an adroit sidestep—but at just the wrong moment, Sir William sees all this as complicated and imponderable. Technical knowledge he puts high among the desiderata.
He himself studied hard in his spare time, even though he worked a 53-hour week. Pride in the job he puts at the very top. Without it, he is convinced, there can be no ultimate success.