CHAPTER XV

GRAPHIC PRESENTATION

Though accurate data and real facts are valuable, when it comes to getting results the matter of presentation is ordinarily more important than the facts themselves.-WILLARD C. BRINTON.

Information in Usable Form

The executive readily can supply himself with statistical data, it appears evident from what has been said in the preceding chapter; but the effectiveness with which he can use such data in solving business problems depends to a large extent upon the form in which it is presented.

This statement applies especially of course to the men at the head of the organization. Industrial conditions today are dominated by giant corporations, which in the volume and complexity of their problems tax to the utmost the capacity of their managers. The heads of our large corporations, it is safe to say, are the hardest worked men in the world.

But the strain imposed by the complexity of business problems is felt also by men lower down, in charge of departments and divisions. The effect is sometimes to discourage any effort to do more than the literal requirements of one's job.

"If the average business man is able to think sufficiently to keep him abreast his day-to-day job," observes Charles W. Mears, advertising manager of the Winton Company, "he feels that he has done about all that anybody has the right to expect of him."

When men in executive positions slip into the state of

mind thus diagnosed by Mr. Mears it portends trouble for the business. What can prove more serious in the career of a going concern than the entrusting of its operations, in many cases of vast proportions, to men who feel themselves unable to command the complexities of their tasks?

The Mobilization of Business

ness.

The giant corporation at best is somewhat unwieldy but to achieve the greatest success it must be able, as business conditions change, to make the necessary adjustments with prompt"It is always, I presume, a question in every business just how fast it is wise to go," says a noted profit-maker, John D. Rockefeller, in relating some of his early experiences, "and we went pretty rapidly in those days, building and expanding in all directions. We were being confronted with fresh emergencies constantly. A new oil field would be discovered, tanks for storage had to be built almost over night, and this was going on when old fields were being exhausted, so we were therefore often under the double strain of losing the facilities in one place where we were fully equipped, and having to build up a plant for storing and transporting in a new field where we were totally unprepared. These are some of the things which make the whole oil trade a perilous one, but we had with us a group of courageous men who recognized the great principle that a business cannot be a great success that does not fully and efficiently accept and take advantage of its opportunities."

Especial significance attaches to Mr. Rockefeller's concluding statement: "A business cannot be a great success that does not fully and efficiently accept and take advantage of its opportunities."

In order that it may fully and efficiently accept and take advantage of its opportunities, a business must be kept mobilized.

Speeding Up the Judgment

The mobilization of business forces has been vigorously pushed by the new school of scientific managers. Methods have been devised for bringing materials, machinery, men, capital, and even the management itself under close control. When this regulating apparatus has been properly connected with headquarters, it is assumed that the executive, like the dispatcher of trains, will hold the organization in the hollow of his hand.

But how can the executive himself, his problems marshaled before him, pass judgment upon them quickly and accurately? Too often the overworked manager, so intricate are the problems in themselves and so rapidly do they appear upon his desk, is tempted to base his answers upon opinion rather than fact and decide quickly with a hope that his guess is correct. Such sacrifice of accuracy to speed means disaster.

In order to meet this man's needs, therefore, the problemsolving method described in a previous chapter must be accelerated in its operation.

Condensed reports, worked up in the proper form, will usually provide the desired acceleration. They render it possible for the executive to decide both rapidly and accurately.

Much has been accomplished in recent years in devising report forms which can be used as accelerators, placing before the executive the statistical information which he must know in compact shape and with proper emphasis. Some of these "thumbnail reports" seem to have reached the limit of the expressive use of language in the conveyance of facts.

But we need not stop with language. There is a swifter mode of expression—the appeal to the eye, by means of diagrams, charts, and graphic devices of various kinds. Language, especially written language, is comparatively slow. Pictures address the eye, the swiftest of the senses. Diagrams

and charts, provided their proportions are accurate, present essential relationships at a glance.

Graphs in the Great War

These graphic methods of report and record were used with striking success in the Great War, when masses of details, on a scale often enormous, were handled with speed and accuracy. A correspondent thus describes the methods employed by General Berthelot, the French Chief of Staff, during the grim days of October, 1914.

Dunkirk, Oct. 28 (By mail): A man in pajamas (at least he wears them most of the time, being too busy to dress) is running the one thousand and one details of the French army. General Joffre is at the head and he handles the big questions, presses the buttons, so to speak, but General Berthelot, Chief of Staff, does the actual work.

After several trips along the fringe of the war, after meeting thousands of soldiers on the same day, some going north, some going south, in what appeared to be a hopeless tangle, it struck me more forcibly than ever that the modern fighting machine is the most complicated thing on earth.

I tried to imagine myself commanding all this, to grasp how a 200-mile line of this sort could be controlled and how it could possibly be kept from getting tangled up with itself and without interference by an enemy. My curiosity grew, until I decided to find out how all this business is managed by one man.

In General Joffre's headquarters, in a certain long room, hangs a special map, the scale of which is 1-1000. It shows every road, canal, railway, bridle path, pig-trail, bridge, clump of trees, hill, mountain, valley, river, creek, rill, and swamp. This is part of the outfit. Another part is a wonderful collection of wax-headed pins of all colors and sizes. These represent army units of all sizes and all organizations. Into the long room run many wires, both telephone and telegraph. Wireless apparatus is also in this room. The way it works seems wonderfully simple when it is explained. The battle is about to commence. The troops have been distributed all along the 200-mile line. The Germans are facing them. A bell rings: "Hello! Yes! The Germans are attacking General Durand's division? They are in superior

numbers? The General needs 1e-enforcements? All right." The staff officer who has taken this information over the phone hurries to where General Berthelot is sleeping. The General has just dozed off. This is the first sleep he has had in thirty-six hours. But General Berthelot is wide awake in an instant. He jumps to the floor, still wearing his pajamas, the only garment he has worn in several days. The staff officer reports.

In a twinkle, General Berthelot, who knows his map as he does his own face, locates Durand's division. He knows that ten miles back of Durand's command are quartered a number of reserves, under General Blanc, according to the pins. Berthelot also learns from the pins that a number of autobuses are near Blanc's soldiers.

"Order General Blanc," he commands, "to re-enforce Durand at once with 10,000 men, four batteries of 75-millimetre artillery, ten machine guns, and three squadrons of cavalry. Tell Blanc to transport his troops in autobuses." Within two minutes, General Blanc has received the order. Within five more he is executing it, and General Durand is informed that help is coming to him.

Then General Berthelot takes another nap, if the battle will permit. If it does not, he stays awake to direct men who are miles away from him.

Every time a bridge is blown up or a pontoon has been thrown across a stream or a food convoy shifts, General Berthelot gets up and shifts his pins to indicate the change. Nothing happens along the 200-mile battle line but that General Berthelot, still in pajamas, leaps from his bed and changes the pins on the map. The map must be kept up to the minute. General Joffre must be able to look at it any time of the day or night.

As far as possible, through information brought in by spies or aviators, the forces of the enemy are kept track of in the same manner. No detail that is of use is overlooked. The pins indicate even the size of the guns, the kind of ammunition they use, and so on ad infinitum.

Why the Executive Uses Graphs

It was not only the courage and devotion of French soldiers which saved France and civilization at the Marne; it was also the development by the executives in charge of a