WHAT MANAGEMENT INVOLVES 1. Difference betzeieen manager and engineer.— Management, therefore, involves not only the forces of production, but careful considerations of the results to be obtained, i. e., the profits. It is the latter which distinguishes the man with managerial ability from the purely technical man. The mechanical en gineer may be able to control and develop the pro ductive forces in a plant. In fact, a specialist of this kind is absolutely necessary. But his point of view is narrowed to the activity of the machine and of the ma chine's tender. He is interested in supplying power and machines for getting out articles according to cer tain dimensions and specifications. The manager must be able not only to judge the mechanical nec essity of this activity, but also to estimate its effect on the commercial end of the business. Commercial ap_ praisal must su e lement technical ' ud_ment. Many illustrations of this difference in abilities might be cited from the experience of shop men who have seen many a fine article, from the engineers' point of view, sent into the factory, only to be torn to pieces and ruthlessly changed by the manager who had to meet commercial conditions.
2. Specialization complicates management.—Spe cialization is both a result and a cause of technical im provements ; therefore, we find the two developing side by side. So far as the modern industrial organization is concerned, it makes little difference whether we speak of it in terms of specialization or in terms of machinery. A study of any industry will soon show how complex its organization has become, thru the number of specialties into which eveiy process is di vided. Generally, each division requires a new ma chine or tool. If we compare the present organiza tion of any industry with the organization of a similar industry of fifty years ago we discover that, altho the number of men necessary to produce a given quantity of product has greatly diminished, the quantity put out under one management has so increased that the number of employes has increased and the number of machines has multiplied accordingly.
The manager has been engulfed in a sea of indus trial specialization. The correlation of all the spe
cial activities has overtaxed the abilities of managers for years—that is, where they have given this element of management the consideration it deserves, and have not simply stumbled along trying to meet every diffi culty by adding a new machine—a method not unlike that of a tired man urging his flagging energies to renewed efforts by taking stimulants. They get him over the present difficulty, yet they leave him not only debilitated, but hindered by the drug itself which clogs his system.
3. S pecialization in management.—Not many years ago it was the custom to defend the advantages of specialization against the virtues of all-round skill —the expert against the all-round man. But there is little argument today. The place of each is well un derstood. In technical work the economic superiority of the expert is too much in evidence to allow any argu ment. The "jack of all trades" has disappeared. The change makes for special dexterity and great sav ing in time and money. Preparatory expenses are greatly reduced and much time in changing from one job to another. is saved. At the same time we have come to recognize that there is a distinct and very im portant place for the all-round man in executive work of the higher order.
Today there is a new form of specialization going on, which, being more difficult to represent in a con crete form, is not so easily understood or so readily ac cepted by the manager. We refer to the specializa tion that is taking place in the field of management it self. Instead of employing one foreman to look after a whole department some firms are breaking up the work into several parts and are putting specialists in charge of each. Thus there may be a gang boss, a speed boss and a disciplinarian where once there was only a foreman. As it is not easy to figure the re sults of management specialization in terms of a ma chine's output—a concrete thing which can be shaped and handled and measured—many executives are backward in recognizing the same economies here that they have so eagerly exploited in the field of technical and mechanical specialization.