Planning for Others As an executive, your success is measured not by what you do but by what you get done, which is merely another way of saying that you should plan work for your subordinates. Shops working under scientific management do not rest content with designing and drafting departments, which show what is to be done; they install planning departments, which direct how it is to be done and when it is to be done. Fruitful opportunities to plan work face every executive every day. Are shop conferences and salesmen's conferences in your organization mere rambling discussions, the consensus of opinion being "We don't get anywhere"? Do your assistants waste time after they have finished one task, awaiting your directions as to what to do next? If you are obliged to be gone for a few days, do things practically come to a stand-still? Planning will remedy these evils. Planning in Daily Life Planning will also bring order and system into the details of life. house and car, repeatedly peering about here and there to see that everything is in readiness, only to discover later on that you are without the tire repair kit, the rain curtain, and the carbide? The next time you make a trip, draw a sheet of note paper from your pocket, jot down a list of the things to do, check this list before you start. When your wife asks you to make four purchases for her in the city, do you lose dollars in valuable time in walking back and forth from store to store, finally coming home elated with two supposedly satisfactory articles and the other two entirely forgotten? QUESTIONS Do I push my work or does it push me?... When is the most feasible time for me to plan? Do I get the benefits which come from the writing of plans?... Are my various tasks taken up in their proper sequence?... Is each task allowed How far ahead should Are my daily plans Are these plans suited to my own personality?..... Test Chart 7. Planning My Work It would be much easier and quicker to obtain specific directions to start with, and call upon the stores in order, checking each article as purchased. Carrying the analysis a step farther, it may be that your wife should have planned for all these purchases weeks ago herself. In short, opportunities for planning are practically identical with things to do; they face you at every turn. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute: What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. This very excellent sentiment you will put into specific terms by filling out Test Chart 7 now; theory and practice go hand in hand. CHAPTER VIII DOING THE DAY'S WORK Every one of us is conscious of a satisfaction in doing his work handily and well, in seeing the product grow under his own hands.-FRANK W. TAUSSIG, Harvard University. Putting the Plan Through A genius for dispatching work, for getting through it in the shortest time possible, is essential in any great executive. It does not suffice that he plan; he must also carry out his plans. The plan stands behind the power of dispatch as its indispensable foundation, but from the pyramid builders of Egypt to the corporation officials of today, the doers of the world's work are measured by the amount accomplished; results constitute their real test. The executive, his plans matured, must put them through. Concentration, decision, dispatch! These are the watchwords of modern business. Marvelous System of Dispatching The highest order of dispatching has been attained by the railroads, whose methods are thus described by Harrington Emerson: In railroad operation marvelous dispatching has been attained, more accurate than the seasons, more reliable than the tides, almost equal to the star time on which it is based. Lines of track nearly a thousand miles long stretch between New York and Chicago. Every switch, every grade, every curve, is known; the line is studded with signal towers and punctuated with stations. In the round house is a locomotive with a boiler capable of carrying 225-pounds steam pressure, which through the On the basis of these conditions a schedule is made out, a The dispatchers issue orders to the conductor and to the block-signal men, thus controlling the train from both ends. While under the orders of the conductor, while physically under the control of the engineer, it is the dispatcher who from start to finish holds it in the hollow of his hand. The task here is one of accomplishment, carrying out the official plan, getting the train through on schedule whatever happens, every day in the year. It is not enough that schedule and arrangements have been made out with minutest. care; the dispatchers must see that the thousands of pieces of their huge machine function exactly every day-cars, engines, and track, and men. Human Traits of the Long Ago Nevertheless, the dispatching efficiency even of railroads, according to Mr. Emerson's estimate, is not over forty per cent and most organizations in this respect fall far short of the railroads. The prompt and accurate co-operation which an organization seeks from the members of its staff is not always forthcoming. The average executive fails oftener than he likes to think of to get his own daily program through on schedule time-especially if he makes the needed stops for "passengers." Why is this? A traveler in Australia once engaged three natives to |