Читать книгу Industrial Progress and Human Economics - James Hartness - Страница 8

Table of Contents

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.