"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 withour 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 apeanut 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, butif 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 6½ 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 2½ 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 thebillers' 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. Thatsort 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 andget 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.
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 thehouse 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.
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 elementsthat 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 hisown 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.
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—thatpeople 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 itmaychange 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 otherproblems 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 tofinance 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 ourmanufacturing 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 tonote 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 methodsa 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.