Andrew Carnegie easily dominated the steel business during his active connection with that industry, for the reason that he took advantage of the principle of organized, cooperative effort by surrounding himself with highly specialized financial men, buyers of raw materials, transportation experts, and others whose services were essential to that industry. He organized this group of “co-operators” into what he called a “Master Mind.”
Nearly twenty years ago I interviewed Mr. [Andrew] Carnegie for the purpose of writing a story about him. During the interview I asked him to what he attributed his success. With a merry little twinkle in his eyes he said:
“Young man, before I answer your question will you please define your term ‘success’?”
After waiting until he saw that I was somewhat embarrassed by his request he continued: “By success you have reference to my money, have you not?” I assured him that money was the term by which most people measured success, and he then said:
“Oh, well—if you wish to know how I got my money—if that is what you call success—Iwill answer your question by saying that we have a master mind here in our business, and that mind is made up of more than a score of people who constitute my personal staff of superintendents and managers and accountants and chemists and other necessary types. No one person in this group is the master mind of which I speak, but the sum total of the minds in the group, coordinated, organized and directed to a definite end in a spirit of harmonious cooperation is the power that got my money for me.
No two minds in the group are exactly alike, but each person in the group does the thing that he is supposed to do and he does it better than any other person in the world could do it.”