EXECUTIVE ORDERS 1. Orders: the result of planning.—"When at the dead of night," wrote Napoleon, "a good idea flashes thru my brain, the order is given in a quarter of an hour, and in half an hour it is being carried out by the outposts." In civil administration giving orders is so often tied up with red tape that the time lost far outweighs the advantage of having checks to avoid errors. Nor is the curse of red tape confined to older communities. Witness the experience of a postmaster under the Commonwealth of Australia who wanted to have a table made. An official report records the cor respondence as follows: Deputy Postmaster-General to Works Director, date July 26th.
Works Director to Accounts Branch, date July 28th. Accounts Branch to Works Director, date August 6th. Works Director to District Inspector, for action, date August 13th.
"Seven precious weeks to have a. table made," says the report.
If the first step in administration is planning, the second is issuing orders. A decision having been reached, orders must be given. Leaders in war, rulers of nations, and managers of business may spurn collaboration when they are formulating their plans, but they cannot do without assistance when they issue orders. Even Napoleon, who "not only took the initiative in thought, but also attended personally to the details of every piece of business," developed a rudimentary staff, whose business it was to take orders and see that they were delivered. Yet neither Ber thier nor Talleyrand ever gave an order or wrote a dispatch which had not been dictated by Napoleon. If, instead of military commander and emperor, Na poleon had been a railroad magnate, Berthier his chief of 'staff and Talleyrand his secretary of state would have been glorified train dispatchers.
2. Fundamentals in organization.—When one man attempts, as did Napoleon, to shoulder all the respon sibility, we may have an effective business machine so long as his health and energy endure, but organiza tion will be lacking. Especially in execution does organization imply a division of responsibility. It is,
in fact, the cooperation of subordinate chiefs, each with a limited field of action within which he is responsible, which constitutes organization. Under such a sys tem the executive has so classified the essentials of his business that the necessary commands and orders originate at the natural source of supreme or subordi nate authority according to their importance, and are issued by the authority which can supervise them most effectively.
3. Organization of executive work.—The great executive delegates the superintendence of subordi nate activities to others, but he realizes, like Napo leon, that he is "the greatest slave of all mankind, obliged to obey a master who is heartless, the calcula tion of events and the nature of things." To control these events and master the nature of things, the exec utive builds up an organization which will take care of details without his personal intervention, and thus leave him free to work out his larger problems.
The principle may be illustrated in the small detail of office correspondence. This may be so arranged that only the most important matters come to the at tention of the manager, by some such procedure as the following: 1. An office employe sorts the mail.
2. Certain letters need only the manager's atten tion, and are turned over to him for his careful con sideration.
3. Some letters contain only certain sections that need his attention. These are checked, so that he may come to the point without unnecessary reading.
4. Notes are made of other letters that deal with certain points which must come to his attention.
5. Many letters do not need to be considered by him at all. Routine letters thus can go to the proper department at once.
Following similar principles, the executive does not himself issue every order but only certain ones ; he does not run to the files or record books but has them put on his desk ; he does not construct tables of figures from a mass of records before him, but studies the totals of results, charted by someone else for his ready comprehension.