administrative planning collaboration is as new as are controlling accounts in bookkeeping. In both cases the necessity of keeping check on numberless details at long range has raised the newer methods almost to a par with the principles of planning and of bookkeeping. War, politics and business have undergone great changes, and conditions of adminfs tration have been much altered.
The conditions which confronted Napoleon in his administrative labors precluded collaboration. They called for a centralized control. In recognizing this he planned the maneuver which won the day at Jena and Austerlitz--only by one mind could such master pieces of achievement be planned and carried to fruition.
Centralized control and personal leadership were the principles of scientific management which Napo leon introduced into the administration of his day. His adversaries followed traditidnal methods, and their controversy in the councils of war killed origin ality of thought, retarded decisions, led to comprom ises, postponed solutions, and deferred the grasping of opportunities until it was too late to use them. Busi ness men who are disposed to jump at such new ideas as committee systems of management and the like, but who have neither a planning system, nor an en vironment in which such ideas will bring forth fruit, would do well to study the "committee system" in war, as applied in the councils of Napoleon's adver saries.
The life and methods of Napoleon show the heights to which centralized control and personal authority may go, but they also mark their limitations.
6. Lesson, of these analogies.—Only so far as these illustrations are paralleled in business affairs are they of importance here. In 1800, big business meant an investment of a few hundred thousand dollars, at the most, and the employment perhaps of a few hun dred workers. Such conditions might well call for a centralized administration, or as Napoleon put it, "being personally present during the whole day in that corner of the battlefield where it is presumed that the decisive blow will be given." But today's business enterprises compete on battle lines which reach around the world. An American department store may operate carpet mills in Persia, lace works in Brussels, and sell by mail order in Russia and Aus tralia. Modern corporations operate under one con trol, mines, railways, steamship lines, stores and fac tories spread over a continent. No one man, without
collaboration, could control such vast enterprises. The staff of experts has become as necessary in busi ness as in military administration.
Machiavelli said that only one should command in war ; that several minds weaken an army, but this maxim is of doubtful application to the huge enter prises of today in war or business. Millions of men are engaged in warfare. In commerce even so simple a matter as selling groceries is often conducted in chain stores extending across a continent. These con ditions have brought about a new leadership in which the decisions and. orders of the leaders are the result of conferences among a number of experts. This was exemplified in the great organization guided by Moltke in the Franco-Prussian War and has received illustration in a different field in the conduct, since 1900, of the German chemical industry.
7. Newer methods make slow progress.—That any form of collaboration in determining policies and di recting the activities of a business has advantages is an idea which makes slow progress toward recogni tion. Labor leaders and many conservative execu tives look askance at any such plan. They are at a loss to understand how business can succeed without a dominating personal leader in whom the members of the organization implicitly relied, and whom they would follow with zeal and,enthusiasm.
Newer methods appear to lack force. The substi tution of an executive committee for a personal leader has often weakened the energies of office, shop or sell ing forces. While it would be idle to minimize what the personality of the leader has accomplished, there are requirements of modern administration which per sonal leadership alone cannot fill.
In passing to newer methods it is highly desirable that a concern make the transition in such a way that, while the collaboration principle involved in the staff conference is adopted, the advantages which come from the personal work of the leader be not lost. The expert staff depends for its efficiency on the applica tion of the principle of division of labor, on the de velopment of initiative and on a wide diffusion ,of knowledge and democracy among all employes. The personal leader relies upon concentrated power, un ceasing activity and the ability to awaken and sustain feelings of loyalty, duty and self-sacrifice among his men.