We must endeavor to establish desirable industries. The most
desirable industries are those in which there is an opportunity
for development of all the workers and a chance for the greatest
number to find the best opportunity to acquire special skill and
special ability. In such industries there should be the open door
of progress so that those who are qualified for advancement can go
forward from position to position with no barrier other than their
own mental or physical limitations.
Special ability, skill and team work are only acquired by long
specialized practice. These qualities constitute the most valuable
assets on which to create a new concern.
Very elaborate systems have been designed for controlling the flow
of the work through the plant and the division of the various
activities between men and departments, but the real effective
coordination must grow out of the actual working conditions of the
workers. This natural evolution of the group's effectiveness as a
single organization is one of greatest importance. The impractical
theorist coming into an old plant will start in at once to
rearrange the order of things irrespective of both the group
habit-action and the habit-action of each man.
Changes must be most sparingly made, with the full knowledge that
anything that interferes with the habit-action of the workers is a
serious hindrance. All people concerned, whether as executives in
the industry, or as investors, must remember that in a growing
industry, individual skill as well as group skill of the whole
organization greatly improves with continued action. Under the
process of continued action the average man can make a fair
showing and with a reasonable degree of moral support will make
good, while without it the ablest man will have a hard time and
even fail if he is forced to accept changes that disturb
continuity of action.
The management must conform to the best world practice in
engineering, industrial life, individual welfare and economics. It
must have every element of organization kept in best condition.
The spirit of the group is of great importance, for the
organization goes forward on the congenial nature of each man's
profession or work. Each man's energies, both mental and physical,
must be employed constructively with the minimum disturbance. His
energies must be concentrated on his own particular work. This
concentration applies to all workers and executives. This plan is
based on the fact that, through continuity of attention and
application to a given work, man acquires a special aptitude. It
also recognizes that each man on the face of the earth, from the
tramp along the railroad to the most highly developed scientist
and executive, has a special knowledge and special ability that he
has acquired by experience.
It is needless to say that in competition with the whole world
there must be alertness every day in the guidance of details of
mechanism and business, and that it is not by the gathering
together of a group of men at the end of the year or even once a
month or once a week that business can be effectively managed; it
is a continued application to the work every day and every hour
that counts.
There should be no absentee management. The men who manage must be
in close touch with the work and the workers--not merely through
written or oral reports, but by actual observation.
Travel, study and observation of other connections and work are
necessary, but the home must be with the industrial plant and that
must be the prime interest.