Now for the last lap. Our journey has run four-fifths of its course. We
have passed through the successive stages of analysis, planning,
organization and handling the "help." They have all been child's play
compared with the most important part of the manager's work--the task of
GUARDING THE WELFARE OF A BUSINESS OR A JOB. All other managerial cares
fade into insignificance before the necessity of conserving the general
good of the business.
A business rises. A business falls. Its life must be protected. And, as
has been said so often, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall."
A certain concern in New York State had been enjoying prosperity for lo!
these many years. Established 'way back in the "Roaring Forties," it
had passed through three generations of the same family.
Each morning at nine the president was at his desk opening the mail into
three piles--taking great care that no checks fell into the waste
basket--as might easily have happened had the task been delegated to the
office manager or to his assistant.
It was unfortunate, of course, that no orders reached the stockroom
until ten o'clock. But a president must earn his salt. Besides, is there
a better way to keep one's finger on the pulse of the business than to
know what's in the mail?
Let's take a look at those three piles, though. Here is the daily
"take"--a fat pile of checks--with the big one from San Francisco laid
carefully aside so that it can be admired a couple of extra times before
being placed on the top of the heap.
Reverently the president carries the receipts to his head bookkeeper.
With slow and majestic tread, almost.
And over here are the orders.
It's a fat pile, too.
The president casts one last lingering glance at the 1/2 doz. of
something or other ordered by a famous name--and, secure in the
knowledge that Fifth Avenue shoppers are still clamoring for his
product, hands the sheaf to his office manager who has been pretty
fidgety for the past hour and a half because he knows the stock
department is going to have a heck of a time making the afternoon
express.
Ho, hum! It's a busy life, this being the president of a successful
concern doing over a million a year. Why, when grandfather started in,
he didn't have a----
But that's another story, and there's that third pile.
A slim little pile scarcely demanding a president's attention--or a
sales manager's. A few complaints. A retailer out in Butte. That San
Antonio jobber Winchester had such a hard time landing. What's this?
Didn't get the buttons he ordered? Stuff and nonsense--well, Henry will
write nice, consoling letters and those will be those.
Now Henry is a good kid. Just out of school. Learning the business.
Writes a bang-up letter.
But the San Antonio jobber doesn't want nice, consoling letters. He
wants to know how come his pants came without the special buttons he
ordered. And those special buttons are so important in his life that he
has written to the head of the firm--whom he'd met at the Atlantic City
convention--and he expects the head of the firm to tell him what he
wants to know.
"Come, come," the president would have said to him, had he walked into
the inner sanctum, "you know I can't give my time to such petty
details--I've got department heads who attend to such matters. When you
want an extra thirty days--or want to talk over handling our goods
exclusively in the Southwest--why, those are the things for you and me
to spend our time on."
But the San Antonio jobber, had he been there, and had he been asked,
would have rejoined:
"I, too, have my department heads. I, too, leave many of the trivial
details to them. But if a customer came to me with a complaint, I
wouldn't care a rap what it was about. It wouldn't be that particular
complaint which would interest me. It would be the mere fact that he had
a complaint at all. A dissatisfied customer is a dissatisfied customer,
and there isn't anything in my business that would get quicker and more
personal attention from me."
Well, well, businesses come and businesses go. Our imaginary
conversation will never take place between the president and the San
Antonio jobber. The San Antonio jobber took his business elsewhere some
five years ago. The president still comes in at nine and opens the mail.
He never drops a check in the wastebasket. There are still three piles
in front of him. Three slim piles. Even the pile of complaints is slim.
There isn't enough business left to produce many complaints.
Henry? Oh, he got to writing letters to an heiress who was wintering on
the Riviera. And when her daddy died, he wrote such a nice, consoling
letter----
But we wander far afield. We're out in the rough somewhere, and it's
going to take a real recovery to get us back on the fairway if we don't
watch out.
For one thing and for instance: _Is_ the customer always right?
A one-time shoe salesman reports the following incident in a Chicago
department store. He was talking with the head buyer in the middle of
the sales floor when up marched a thoroughly angry woman with the shoe
adjuster tagging on behind.
"These shoes," she pointed to a pair of satin pumps in the adjuster's
hands, "are too small."
"And she wants a new pair after having worn them half a dozen times,"
added the adjuster.
"Who sold them?" asked the buyer.
"Jones."
"Go get him."
Came Jones. "But, madam," he protested, "don't you remember I warned you
that you needed a 5-1/2? And don't you remember that I also suggested an
A instead of a double A? And when you felt certain you wanted the 5AA,
didn't I suggest that you try them again at home before having the
cut-steel buckles sewn on?"
Well, yes, that was all quite true. But it didn't offset the fact that
the shoes were too small and she couldn't wear them.
Two guesses as to what she got. And if each guess is a satin pump you
may step quickly and quietly to the head of the class. She got a new
pair of shoes.
"Well," sighed the buyer, when peace and quiet had been once more
restored, "they tell me upstairs the customer is always right. Certainly
it's true that one dissatisfied woman has more effect on our business
than four or five satisfied customers. Oh, no, she won't go and tell
her friends about the fair treatment she got here, but oh, man, if we'd
let her get away! What a story that would have been--in spite of
admitting she was wrong!"
Innumerable examples of that sort of thing might be introduced. There is
the story of the North Shore matron who had an expensive rug sent out,
kept it three months and then decided she didn't like the color. In its
place she wanted a certain oriental, but oh, dear, it was just a bit too
big for her purpose.
Of course the rug was cut to fit. And when she decided a week later that
it, too, wouldn't do and went and bought another rug somewhere else, the
management thanked her kindly and credited her account with the full
amount. It knew that the life of the business had to be protected, and
every now and then found it distinctly worth while to take time out to
LOOK AFTER THE WELFARE OF THE ENTERPRISE.
And here we face another question: "Must the manager occupy his time
with every minor complaint, just because it happens to be one which
comes from a good customer?"
To answer it, we must go back to our New York State manufacturer and
strip the scenery from his particular enterprise.
His is a business of few customers. Except for a half-dozen famous
retailers whose accounts cost more than they earn, but to whose stores
he may point the finger of gesticulating pride as being among his
outlets (it would be better for him if they were among his souvenirs),
his business is handled through thirty or forty jobbers. Naturally each
of his customers is a very important unit in the business.
The loss of one account is serious.
So a customer to him is an outlet for business greater than the trade a
big department store gets from a hundred good customers. One customer to
him is as a score of customers to the manufacturer who sells to the
retail trade.
To him, then, a complaint from a San Antonio jobber that the buttons on
his pants aren't right has all the importance that the same complaint,
echoed by a hundred different customers, would have to the retail
merchant. Looked at in this light, is it not logical that any
complaint--no matter how trifling its nature--should have his prompt,
personal attention? Had he but known it, the letters he turned over to
Henry were danger signals. They warned of the need for GUARDING THE
WELFARE OF THE BUSINESS--LOOKING AFTER ITS GENERAL GOOD HEALTH.
And that task, as we have said, overshadows in importance every other
task which the successful manager, in his daily business of managing,
may have to perform.
The maintenance foreman in a New England mill walked into the agent's
office one day--why the manager of a mill is called an agent is just
one of those things--and said:
"Something's got to be done about that freight elevator over in Building
C, Mr. Dearle. I've monkeyed with it and monkeyed with it. It's just
worn out, and one of these fine days, it's going to drop a couple of
floors and pile up in the basement."
And one fine day it did. You see, the manager was all tied up in a labor
controversy. Labor squabbles aren't any fun. And presumably their speedy
settlement is far more important to the business than the matter of what
to do about a tired freight elevator which has seen far better days.
So Frank the maintenance man had to run along and sell his papers. And
the elevator kept on working.
The day it quit, Henry Fitts was aboard. And when the elevator man
picked himself up off the cellar floor, Henry couldn't.
But why go into that? Henry's broken leg and Henry's lost time cost the
company more than a new elevator. And Henry was one of the company's
best technical men. Lots of bum sheets and pillow cases got made and
shipped and returned while Henry was laid up. The damage done by that
falling elevator could hardly be measured in dollars.
Now, then, settling the differences of capital and labor was a big job
to the mill agent. Saying "No" to Frank was merely postponing a trifling
detail. Yet what a heap of difference a "Yes" would have made. That
defective elevator, because it endangered lives, overshadowed all else
in importance, had the agent viewed his job from the standpoint of
CARING FOR THE BUSINESS. THE KNACK OF SAFEGUARDING ITS WELFARE lies not
merely in doing tasks that preserve the safety of the business or job,
but also in the ability to discern when such tasks are really mere
trifles, and when, because of their potential effect, they are details
vital to the life of the business.
How is a manager to know when he shall devote his entire attention to
settling wage rates, and when listen to the maintenance man's song? How
can the president of a million-dollar concern tell when it is good
business to drop a tremendously important managerial task and listen to
a customer's tale of woe about pants buttons--and personally set the
complaint right?
How, on the other hand, are you to know when to lay off such tasks?
Some few men--seventh sons of seventh sons--may be born with that
instinct or knowledge. The rest of us must cultivate a true knack of
conserving the business--a knack which carries with it the finest sense
of discrimination and the best of business judgment.
And not until we have acquired this important knack and added to it all
the other knacks we've been talking about, can we consider ourselves
successful managers. Not until then shall we have acquired THE TRUE
KNACK OF MANAGING.
* * * * *
"I've learned how to pick out the tasks that are vital to the business
and make them my own special responsibilities," a successful newspaper
publisher once said, "by setting up a sort of yardstick to judge every
job that comes along.
"My paper was in the 'red' when I bought it. It was a weak sister. It
carried the least advertising, had the least circulation and exercised
the least influence. Today its lineage is nearly one-third more than its
nearest competitor's--and circulation has more than doubled in four
years, so now it tops all the rest.
"I analyzed my job something like this: I bought the paper because I
thought I could make money with it. To make money, I must carry a large
volume of advertising. To get advertising, I must show results to
advertisers. To show results, I must make my paper a real "home"
paper--a paper really read and appreciated--not merely a paper with
which people are only satisfied. To get that kind of circulation, I must
put into the paper what people who read a paper at home wouldn't 'miss
for anything.'
"What did this analysis show me? Simply this: That while more
advertising and more circulation meant more profits, the attitude of
_my_ readers toward _their_ paper meant even more--it meant business
life or death.
"So my yardstick is never to let anything get by me that might change
our standing with our readers. The toughest business problem is shoved
aside when something comes up that means loss of respect among our
public.
"I made it my first business to get to know our type of reader. Never
was a good hand at guessing. So had to learn about human nature.
"After a lot of hiring and firing, picking and sorting, coaching and
drilling, I got me four women who could go out and get exactly the kind
of information I had to have.
"Each of the four took a section of the city. Each section represented a
distinct type of home-dweller--and it takes all kinds of people to run a
world, you know--or to buy a newspaper.
"Every week those four women canvassed close to a thousand homes between
them. Their method was to tell the housewife that we were going to
deliver our paper free for a week--and hoped they'd take it in and read
it. A week later they went back over the same ground, soliciting
subscriptions, of course, but also gathering information for me.
"More important than getting a subscription was finding out why a woman
subscribed--or why she wouldn't subscribe. They asked what the women
thought about certain special features.
"I got a lot of good pointers. For instance, I'd been a bitter opponent
of the 'funnies.' But I put them back when I learned that people really
wanted them. You see, I was getting a good cross section of the likes
and dislikes of all my customers and my prospects.
"After the 'funnies' were in--and after various other changes had been
made--I sent my four scouts back once more to tell of the improvements.
Then we checked the new reports with the old ones. There was plenty of
deadwood. I knew there would be. But there was enough good live stuff to
furnish food for thought.
"Some needed changes couldn't be made right away. Many people preferred
a competing paper because it carried more department store ads. Well, I
couldn't do anything about that for the moment. But I could and did
improve the sports page, put in more home-stuff for the women, more
society news, funnier 'funnies' and so on. Those were things our readers
wanted which I could gradually give them.
"Then it was time to tackle the advertising problem. I had my
ammunition. Carried a bunch of reports around with me. Told the
merchants frankly what I was up to. Showed them the reports from women
who said they'd subscribe if we had more advertising as well as the
reports from those who did subscribe for certain good reasons.
"And I quoted a rate on what we were worth at the time, not on what I
knew we could do in the future. I didn't begrudge a full day spent in
one small store, if that small store advertised the stuff I felt was
wanted by the people I wanted for readers.
"Well, they came 'round one by one--the stores and the people. And I
think the results prove that I was keeping busy on the right tasks--the
tasks on which the welfare of my business depends--and not on the tasks
that mean only increased _volume_.
"How does it affect my readers? That is my yardstick for measuring
everything about my business. That is my guide to whether or not I
should worry. If a little error in last night's paper has the power to
affect my readers' opinion of the paper, then it's my job to run it down
to earth, find out how it happened--and see that it never happens again.
But if there's a big advertising contract in the offing which won't
affect the permanent standing of the paper in any way whatsoever--except
to increase the number of dollars that come clinking into the coffers--I
don't give thirty seconds of my time to it. I hire a sales manager to do
that. That's his job. The other's mine.
"I'll spend a week with my managing editor trying to figure out a way to
get our afternoon editions on the street a few minutes earlier. It may
involve some minor change in the pressroom running into only a few
hundred dollars--but it does affect our permanent place in the sun. On
the other hand, the managing editor can go ahead and spend $5000 of my
good money on something that has nothing to do with our readers'
interest, and all I'll do is okay the expenditure. He'll do the worrying
this time."
* * * * *
You and I aren't interested in the way this publisher went about
building up his newspaper. That is to say, we don't care anything about
his female quartette who went around and sang the paper's praises. His
methods were sound, of course, and merit attention. But our interest
right now is in his division between the tasks he watched personally and
the tasks he left his business manager or his managing editor to work
out for themselves.
Strip off the publishing scenery--just as a moment ago we stripped off
the individual characteristics of a totally different business--and you
find that HIS DIVISION IS APPLICABLE NOT ONLY TO ANY BUSINESS, BUT TO
ANY SINGLE JOB. Which means once more that that's the way the successful
manager of a steel mill or of a peanut stand will divide the tasks
which confront him from nine to five every day.
Who are your "readers"?
Every business, every job has its "readers"--some element which, once
injured or neglected, affects the welfare, the health, the profits, or
the ultimate success of the business or job.
A file clerk may acquire tremendous speed in putting letters away in
drawers, but if she can't get you the correspondence you need at a
moment's notice, what good is all her speed? Your stenographer may keep
up with you in your best and fastest moments of dictation, but if her
finished letters don't say what you said, her facility isn't worth the
proverbial thin dime. An accountant may work out a cost system that
reflects conditions like a mirror, but what of it if his reports come
out so late that they're ancient history by the time the plant manager
gets them? A miller may produce a flour that contains more vitamins than
any other flour on the market, but if the dough won't rise properly, it
isn't much use. A small-town banker may have splendid reserves and a
strong cash position, but he's going to lose your business if he asks
6-1/2 per cent interest and 3 per cent commission to extend your
mortgage when the big-city bank offers you the same loan at 6 per cent
interest and 2-1/2 per cent commission. That messenger boy of ours--no
chapter is complete without him--may run all the way from the Tribune
Tower to State and Madison, but what if in his haste he loses the
message?
There is, then, in every business or job a VITAL ELEMENT. And no one can
do a good job of managing unless he finds out definitely what that
element is, and then proceeds to guard it through all the hustle and
bustle of cost cutting, labor saving and so on.
One manager put it pretty plainly to his billing clerk. The latter tried
out some short cuts. They were splendid from the billers' point of
view. Saved time and money. But the customers weren't used to any of
this new-fangled stuff and kicked like steers. They couldn't check the
invoices. Or wouldn't.
"They just won't use their heads. It's all as simple as ABC," protested
the billing clerk when the manager called him in on the carpet. "All
they've got to do is check the numbers on the cartons against the
numbers on the invoices. There's no need of all the description we've
been giving them."
"Right you are, Johnson," replied the manager. "But sometimes you bump
up against a stone wall when you try to educate the trade. Oftentimes
life's too short. Your system saves us money. It's good up to a certain
point. That point is where your labor saving and cost cutting begin to
have an adverse effect on sales or sales satisfaction.
"I've seen you playing bridge at noon," he went on. "You score honors
above the line, don't you? Below the line you keep your game score. If
you hold 80 or 90 honors in your hand, it affects your play. But you
can't give your entire attention to scoring above the line, for after
all it's the score below which determines who wins games and rubbers.
"You can score your job in pretty much the same way. All this work
you're doing along cost-cutting lines is fine. Those things determine
the size of your department's profits. Sketch them out on a card and
check them over and add to them. But below the line put down the main
object of your work--to have your invoices correct and to have them so
plain that no customer can fail to understand them. Keep plugging away
above the line. Don't let me discourage any effort that will reduce
costs. They're all-important. But at the same time keep your eye below
the line and make sure your game score is piling up. That sort of
thinking and playing wins in business just as it does in bridge."
* * * * *
It's a long time since we've drawn any charts. Let's study the newspaper
publisher's policy and see if he wasn't doing mentally just what the
manager recommended that his billing clerk do on paper.
You remember he made it his business to find out all about the error in
last night's paper and to prevent its occurring again. That was
something which, to his way of thinking, affected the permanent standing
of his paper. When the department store stood ready to start a big
institutional campaign which meant nothing more to his business than a
big increase in volume, he left the job of closing the contract to his
hired help. But when, in another newspaper, the same department store
advertised a new type of radio which he thought his readers ought to
know about, once more he made it his own business to go out and get a
few lines for his own paper and his own readers.
Then, if we keep tally--and consider whether they "score" above the line
as increased profits, or below the line as permanent success, our card
will look something like the chart on this page.
[Illustration]
The handling of the error in last night's paper is something that will
score down where the success of the business lies--and to lose on it
means losing a vital point. In short, it affects the permanent standing
of the business enterprise. So does the securing of the radio
advertisement. It's business news and something his readers must know
about. So after it he goes. On the other hand, the institutional
advertising will add only to the revenue of the newspaper. Don't mistake
the point. He wants that contract, too. It will add materially to his
profits. But getting it or not getting it will in no way affect the
standing of the paper with its customers. School will keep just the
same. So that particular job is on the other side of the line. That's
why he has a sales manager.
To illustrate once more, let's attempt to "score" the work of a credit
man. What is the "vital element" in his work? What determines whether
his work is worth doing, or whether it's worthless? Offhand, you might
say: "Preventing losses on bad debts." But is it that? Surely not, when
we analyze the job. The final objective of the credit department is to
enable the house to sell more goods by extending credit wherever it is
justified. On that basis it is easy to see that the "vital element" in
the credit man's job is "to not lose a good sale"--and we know we're
splitting an infinitive to say it. If it weren't, why have a credit man
at all? It would be far simpler not to extend credit to anyone who could
not prove his worth.
[Illustration]
Now look at the credit man's score card. Such a chart might not help an
old, experienced hand, but would it not help a beginner to get a grip
on what his job is all about? Would it not enable him to see his job
from the angle of CONSERVING THE BUSINESS?
Hold on, though. Lining up the various jobs according to whether they
score "above or below the line"--that is, whether they affect the
essential well-being of the business or simply swell its profit--does
not mean that he shall neglect all tasks above the line any more than
give his constant attention to those that score below the line. The
chief value of such an outline of your job or business is to KEEP
ACTIVELY IN MIND A SENSE OF THE VITAL SPOTS TO GUARD--the spots to keep
an eye on--the tasks for which you are always ready to plunge in and
defend, once they are threatened.
Wherever you find a successful manager, whether running a big business
or just handling a small job, you will see that he has a clear
understanding of the elements that mean the life of his work. And
further observation will show that he is always protecting them.
* * * * *
The head miller in a small flour mill was smart and aggressive--a bit on
the "go-getter" order, to be sure, but very, very competent none the
less. It seems he had worked out some method of increasing the nutritive
value of the mill's best grade of flour by adding something or other--it
doesn't matter what.
Naturally he was enthusiastic.
Why not? He had persuaded the manager to have this new product analyzed
by experts--and the analyses had proved extremely favorable.
He wanted to go ahead.
But the manager moved slowly. "It may make a good flour and the bread
made from it may be good for the digestion," said he, "but will the
bread taste as good?"
Finally, after trying out the flour in his own home, he refused to go
ahead with the project. The miller, knowing how good the bread would be
for people, fired up his job, went into business for himself and put his
trick flour on the market.
[Illustration]
It never sold.
The bread baked from it didn't taste good.
The mill owner, you see, had kept his eye on what the miller had
neglected--the big, vital element of the business--that people bought
flour to make bread, and that anything affecting the quality and taste
of the bread must therefore be handled very carefully.
What the miller needed, to take the place of the boss's years of
experience, was a chart like the one on the opposite page--a graphic
outline in skeleton form of his work's vital element.
What a different aspect could be put on many an employee's work if the
employer, instead of depending on the man's own-farsightedness in seeing
the main items of value in his work, would graphically put them before
him by some such chart as this one!
Right here, however, we must guard against one important characteristic
of this vital element.
It CHANGES--or at least it _may_ change as the business develops.
Ask the manager of the circularizing department of a certain mail-order
house. He will tell you it's VOLUME. All his other problems have been
stabilized except the single job of getting out enough circulars every
day to keep the required volume of orders flowing in. Again, go to the
circularizing room of an Eastern financial house and the manager will
tell you that the vital element in his work is QUALITY--quality
addressing, quality folding and so on. Here the whole success of the
department depends upon reflecting the dignity and prestige of the
house. The danger point with this manager is therefore touched by
anything that might affect the quality of the work.
Many a manufacturer starts with limited capital. For the first year or
two the vital element in his business is finance. He may have to
sacrifice attention to production and sales problems in order to guard
the slender balance in the bank. Sometimes he may have to pay higher
prices for materials because he must buy in small quantities; he may
even have to check sales because he hasn't the capital with which to
finance them. Later, though, as a reserve is built up, or when better
credit is established, he will find the vital element has shifted to
manufacturing, buying, or maybe sales.
A certain shoe manufacturer--we seem to gravitate toward shoes every so
often--found manufacturing the vital element of his business a scant
dozen years ago. His big job was to see that shoes went out the door. He
doubled the size of his plant. In the short space of three years his
problem had shifted to one of sales--he was no longer getting enough
volume to fill his plants. And today his greatest concern is his
shrinking bank balance.
The same tendency toward change will be found in individual jobs.
The traffic manager of an electrical supply house deposes that the vital
element in his department's work changed completely in less than two
years.
"When I first came here," he declares, "the business had grown faster
than our manufacturing facilities. We were always working close up to
the contract date for delivery. I was hired simply because I had a
reputation for being able to speed up shipping, pick the shortest routes
and rush things through at the last minute.
"Later on, we got in better shape in the factory. The goods began to
come through to us further in advance of the promised delivery dates. I
noticed this and changed my methods. Where I had previously watched
after speed alone, slapping things into any old case to get them packed,
hustling them out by any route which would save a day, regardless of
rates, I now began to pack more carefully, to sort mixed shipments in
order to get the lowest classification in freight rates, to pick the
cheapest routes, and so on.
"One day the chief called me in and gave me a raise.
"'Warren,' said he, 'I thought I'd have to fire you when we got past the
rush stage. I had you down as just a speed demon. But you have been
wise enough to change your methods as conditions changed. And I want you
to know we appreciate it.'"
A similar shift is noted by the managing editor of a well-known business
paper.
"When I took hold five years ago, it was a constant fight against time.
We never had quite enough material on hand. There was always a mad
scramble at the last moment to put the book to bed. Night after night I
stuck around writing fillers--a column here, half a column there.
"Today it's quite a different story. We have a carefully selected
inventory from which we make up our schedules at least 60 days ahead of
publication. We have figured out close production dates--and we stick to
'em. There's no longer the problem of digging up enough eleventh-hour
material to get out an issue. The job is one of selection. My biggest
care is to find room for all the things I know our readers are
interested in."
A constant check is the safest way to note in time the conditions that
govern the conservation of the welfare of your job or business. Check
the POINTS ABOVE THE LINE and watch the POINTS BELOW THE LINE.
That constant effort to measure the importance of all the things that
come up before him by their effects above and below THE DANGER LINE will
do much to keep a manager practical. For summed up, the "practical" man
is the one who combines with his progressiveness and vision the knack of
never letting his progressive ideas puncture the vital element of his
business and bleed it to death.
* * * * *
Make your score in any form that fits your needs or your tastes, but
MAKE IT--WATCH IT--ACT ON IT. Some men can do the scoring in their
heads. Most of us, even in so simple a procedure as keeping our golf
scores, find it's better to carry it on paper.
On paper? Can a man with real work to do, spend his time plotting curves
and making pie charts? Does the Knack of Managing depend upon a man's
ability to draw pictures?
Not at all. If that's the impression you have gained from reading this
little book, go back to the beginning and start all over again.
If, from time to time, charts and diagrams have been suggested, it is
only because the successful manager has somehow or other to go through
precisely those same motions. His job--if he is to understand it and
manage it successfully--must be analyzed somehow, sometime. We have
merely suggested ways in which the ANALYSIS can be made more easily and
intelligently by means of charts.
His operations must be planned--in his head or on paper--if he is to
perform them with the least lost motion, lost time and lost money. The
Knack of Managing has simply gathered from other men's methods a form
of chart by which PLANNING can be done more accurately.
Again, his work must be organized--if it is to be done in the simplest
and best way. An attempt, then, has been made to sift the organization
methods of successful managers and firms to develop a chart which at
least indicates how to go about ORGANIZING THE WORK.
"HELP" MUST BE HANDLED. So, from the experiences of shrewd managers, we
have dug out the gist of their ideas and put it in the form of a chart
that gives a basis on which to work.
Above all, a business or job must be CONSERVED AND CARED FOR. The
charting method suggested is but the method used by every successful
manager--though he does not take the time to reduce his plans to paper.
And last, in our search to acquire THE KNACK OF MANAGING, have we not
learned that the fundamental principles of management are universally
applicable?
More than anything else we have seen why the manager who has made a
success in one business can step right into another and make the same
brilliant record. His business, after all, is not ships or shoes or
sewing machines. It's MANAGING. And that job, in its fundamental
principles, is the same, whether it's running the U. S. Steel
Corporation or operating a peanut stand.
That's our story--and we'll stick to it.