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THE
KNACK OF
MANAGING
BY
LEWIS K. URQUHART
AND
HERBERT WATSON
Published by
FACTORY MANAGEMENT AND MAINTENANCE
330 West 42nd Street
New York City, N. Y.
330 West 42nd Street
New York City, N. Y.
I
Analysis
Someone once said—probably it wasMr. Schwab—that given the right organizationit was no harder to manage theU. S. Steel Corporation than to operate apeanut stand.
And Mr. Schwab ought to know, althoughno life-sized portrait of him all dressed uplike a peanut vendor has ever been broughtto our attention.
However that may be, his statement isinteresting—especially interesting becausehis appraisal of the job of managing verynearly approaches ours. In "The Knack ofManaging," you see, much of the emphasiswill be on the fact that the fundamentalPRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT applyto every business alike. And if we maystart out with the premise that managing[2]Mr. Schwab's Bethlehem Steel Companyis not such a far cry from operating apretzel plant or a furniture factory, ourbattle is already half won.
THE PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENTvary not at all, however differentmay be the MECHANICS OF APPLICATION.
How often the editor, how often theequipment salesman, listens to that time-worntale of woe: "My business is different.So-and-so can do that sort of thing. ButI make gadgets—and your conveyors, yourair conditioners or whatever it is you writeabout or sell, won't do me a bit of good."
Of course his business is different—differentin its individual characteristics, itsfinancial, sales, production, labor problems.But they are only the CLOTHES the businesswears. They may differ from theclothes of another enterprise as widely asthe frilly importation from the Rue de laPaix differs from the sleazy issue of theEast Side sweat shop. But underneath the[3]clothes the artist knows there is the humanbody—and a study of anatomy is necessarybefore he can paint the picture. Beneaththe "clothes" of the business are the principlesof management—The ANATOMYOF MANAGEMENT—the frameworkupon which the completed structure is built.
Doesn't it all boil down to something likethe Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady?One, presumably, wore a brief peignoir witha Paris label; the other, a substantialbungalow apron from a department storebasement. But weren't they "sisters underthe skin"?
Stripped of all the furbelows—the detailsof operation, of tools, of materials—theobjectives of our steel master, ourpeanut vendor, our pretzel maker, our furnituremanufacturer, are one and the samething. Their every-day job, in short, is toget something well done with maximum dispatchand at minimum expense.
That's management's job. It goes forevery type of enterprise; whether it in[4]volvesthe use of a million dollars' capital,or only ten cents' carfare—or a few minutesof a man's time. The "clothes" matter notat all. Beneath them the fundamentalsteps in managing are identical. The basicKNACK OF MANAGING is the same.
Consider one of the simpl