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A dictionary holder adjusted to the corner of the desk keeps the book ready for consultation and a revolving bookcase near the desk makes it easy to get at a number of books. However, much depends here upon special needs. Lack of space usually prevents our having within reach everything we might need, so we must give first place

to those we use most. To the business man this means as a usual thing that the revolving bookcase must give way to an extra chair for callers.

Lost Motion in Your Own Office

How much lost motion can you eliminate from your office? Possibly you say none at all, that everything runs smoothly as a clock. That was the way the real estate dealer felt about his office, until he found out.

On a sheet of paper draw a diagram of your present layout. Use cross-ruled paper if you have it at hand, or rule a sheet lightly with pencil on the scale of one or two feet to the half-inch. Block in with heavy lines the various pieces of furniture, each in its relative location. Have someone record your chief movements about the office during several of what may be taken as sample hours. On the diagram represent these by dotted lines. What does this motion study tell you about yourself?

When this question has had its answer, take a second sheet of paper ruled like the first. Block in with heavy lines the outside limits of your office, indicating the walls, door, and windows. Onthe same scale, cut out small paper squares to represent its chief articles of furniture. Now maneuver these paper squares around like pieces on a chess-board, until the best possible layout is discovered. An ideal solution may not be attainable, the lighting in one otherwise perfect plan being poor, while the arrangement which secures 100 per cent lighting entails two extra steps in getting at the files. Under careful manipulation, however, such difficulties can be minimized, though scarcely avoided in their entirety. Standardized conditions in this case mean simply the one best combination, not the ideal location for every unit in that combination.

Very few offices are able to score 100 per cent in this layout test.

CHAPTER V

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

It is hard to get a man to let go of detail-to grow up into control-to think for subordinates who do not think.EDWARD B. BUTLER, President of Butler Brothers.

John D. Rockefeller's Growth as an Executive

The business man needs not merely an expanded capacity for handling detail personally but, as he advances, the sense of proportion as to the relative value of his own effort.

The career of John D. Rockefeller, since it well illustrates this significant, though gradual change with respect to details. merits the close consideration of any business man who, like Mr. Rockefeller, would advance to high position.

The refinery in which he first began the oil business was a small affair. The pushing of the business, the buying and the selling, fell to Mr. Rockefeller, and not a single detail believed to affect either profit or loss escaped his hawklike scrutiny. "He had the frugal man's hatred of waste and disorder, of middleman and unnecessary manipulation," Miss Tarbell in her admirable "History of the Standard Oil Company" points out, "and he began a vigorous elimination of these from his business. The residuum that other refineries let run into the ground he sold. Old iron found its way to the junk shop. He bought his oil directly from the wells. He made his own barrels. He watched and saved and contrived."

The Standard Oil "Trust"

The business under such watchful management expanded, and here again Mr. Rockefeller showed his business acumen

he expanded with it. "The entire business was placed in 1882 in the hands of nine trustees, of whom Mr. Rockefeller was president. These trustees have always acted as if they were nine partners in a business, and the only persons concerned in it. . . . Below them, and sifting things for their eyes, were committees which dealt with the various departments of the business."

It has always been a tenet of Mr. Rockefeller's business faith to select as his associates the "big" men, the ones who had shown that they could succeed. The evolution of his vast business has been parallel with the devolution of much responsibility upon subordinates. Although the methods of organization changed often, this rule remained a law of the Medes and Persians, unalterable and unanswerable.

The Headship of a Big Organization

How did this new policy, gradually introduced as the business expanded, affect Mr. Rockefeller personally? Rockefeller, himself, explains his policy as follows:

"My methods of attending to business matters differed from those of most well-conducted merchants of my time," says Mr. Rockefeller, in his "Random Reminiscences," "and allowed me more freedom. Even after the chief affairs of the Standard Oil Company were moved to New York, I spent most of my summers at our home in Cleveland, and I do still. I would come to New York when my presence seemed necessary, but for the most part I kept in touch with the business through our own telegraph wires, and was left free to attend to many things which interested me-among others, the making of paths, the planting of trees, and the setting out of little forests of seedlings."

At first, Mr. Rockefeller handled details by attending to them personally; afterwards he handled details by delegating them.

The Executive's Chief Business

If men are to advance, they must learn to share tasks) for advancement in business means assuming control of activities too large for the individual to swing unaided. The man at the head of a business, or at the head of a department, becomes necessarily an organizer. He learns to shift the burden of detail upon subordinates and to systematize routine so that everyday results are made automatic.

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Organization is one of the best ways to discipline de

The executive in his desire for maximum accomplishment is thus called outside his private office to study his organization as a whole. If his desk is overcrowded, if he finds that in spite of system and speeding up, the day's routine leaves him no time for constructive effort, his organization is imperfect. (See Figure 12a.) The same personnel, when differently organized, he may handle with effectiveness-and find a little time perhaps in consequence, to cultivate an acquaintance with his golf club. (See Figure 12b.) This is quite as it should be.

"The executive's chief business," says President Ripley of the Santa Fe, "is to organize, deputize, and supervise.

The Utilization of Assistants

Of special importance among the subordinates who free the executive from detail is the private secretary. His position is comparatively new, an outgrowth of large-scale business. Executives found after a time that a variety of minor matters could be delegated to confidential and properly qualified assistants. So excellent upon the whole have been the results attained that it is very common among progressive concerns to find private secretaries whose day's activities are approximately as follows:

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