Part 3

The next thing to do is to get an industrial policy that will guide us in our course as individuals, managers, engineers, manufacturers, investors, progressive workers and as citizens. The idea must precede action and the action must precede results. The true idea will bring results of like character, hence the need of the fullest knowledge on which to form the idea.

A simple outline of a desirable industry may be drawn through the following points:

First: An ideal industry is an organization in which the energies of mind and body are most effectively employed.

Second: Since man is something more than a physical body, his work must be one in which he feels an interest and satisfaction.

Third: Since there are various kinds of implements to aid man in his work, a successful organization should use the most effective type.

Fourth: Since man is a creature of habit and functions most effectively when he has acquired skill through experience, each one in the workshop and office should be experienced in his particular branch of the work.

Fifth: Since the high skill of men is attained through repetition of operations, the management must subdivide the work into classes in which each man can become highly proficient.

Sixth: Just as there is an individual skill and ability acquired by the individual, so there must be a group skill built up. The group skill is acquired by the coordination of the energies of all the workers so that the work flows naturally and evenly from worker to worker with the minimum hindrance. This coordination takes place naturally through experience. It only needs common sense supervision and a protection of the workers from the impractical interference of faddists.

HAVE FAITH IN VERMONT.

Travelers through the west, particularly on the coast states bring back the story of optimism that seems to be characteristic of the enterprising people who migrated west in the early days. This spirit of optimism is not found in all parts of our country, and yet it is of high value. In New England for instance, in each state there is a state pride, but perhaps not to the extent that we find in the larger cities and in the west. Here we are more interested in the success of our various branches of activities.

Vermonters have been notably free to go beyond state boundaries in the acquisition of trade or profession and in practice, but optimism, which is the parent of enterprise, has an excellent chance for existing in our state.

The early history of industrial development shows it followed along the avenues of transportation--seaports and lakeports and railways. With the railways the industries spread to other states, notably Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Now there is setting in a readjustment and the time is ripe for Vermonters to use some of their spirit of enterprise within the boundaries of the old state. Goods may be shipped to the best market from the top of our highest mountain at lower cost than it could be shipped from some remote competitors. There is every angle favorable except the full knowledge of the situation and the elements on which industrial success can now be achieved.

The coming and use of machinery has been a most potent force in determining the economic rating of city and state, and it is in this respect that Vermont has now its great opportunity, and it is in the field in which invention, the use of machinery, the right methods of building up an effective group of workers that there is the surest reward for the energy put forth by investors, organizers and workers.

If you have grasped these facts; continue to study the elements of the plan; fit yourself as an experienced worker or executive in some branch of the work; see that the scheme of work is one that can successfully compete with other producers; then put your whole self into the work.

If you wish to get the plan into your own consciousness and action, tell it to others.

Become a practical booster of the plan.

It fits the future.

It fits today.

Be a Booster.

It is right.

It pays.

OUR INDUSTRIAL POLICY.

We must endeavor to establish desirable industries. The most desirable industries are those in which there is an opportunity for development of all the workers and a chance for the greatest number to find the best opportunity to acquire special skill and special ability. In such industries there should be the open door of progress so that those who are qualified for advancement can go forward from position to position with no barrier other than their own mental or physical limitations.

Special ability, skill and team work are only acquired by long specialized practice. These qualities constitute the most valuable assets on which to create a new concern.

Very elaborate systems have been designed for controlling the flow of the work through the plant and the division of the various activities between men and departments, but the real effective coordination must grow out of the actual working conditions of the workers. This natural evolution of the group's effectiveness as a single organization is one of greatest importance. The impractical theorist coming into an old plant will start in at once to rearrange the order of things irrespective of both the group habit-action and the habit-action of each man.

Changes must be most sparingly made, with the full knowledge that anything that interferes with the habit-action of the workers is a serious hindrance. All people concerned, whether as executives in the industry, or as investors, must remember that in a growing industry, individual skill as well as group skill of the whole organization greatly improves with continued action. Under the process of continued action the average man can make a fair showing and with a reasonable degree of moral support will make good, while without it the ablest man will have a hard time and even fail if he is forced to accept changes that disturb continuity of action.

The management must conform to the best world practice in engineering, industrial life, individual welfare and economics. It must have every element of organization kept in best condition. The spirit of the group is of great importance, for the organization goes forward on the congenial nature of each man's profession or work. Each man's energies, both mental and physical, must be employed constructively with the minimum disturbance. His energies must be concentrated on his own particular work. This concentration applies to all workers and executives. This plan is based on the fact that, through continuity of attention and application to a given work, man acquires a special aptitude. It also recognizes that each man on the face of the earth, from the tramp along the railroad to the most highly developed scientist and executive, has a special knowledge and special ability that he has acquired by experience.

It is needless to say that in competition with the whole world there must be alertness every day in the guidance of details of mechanism and business, and that it is not by the gathering together of a group of men at the end of the year or even once a month or once a week that business can be effectively managed; it is a continued application to the work every day and every hour that counts.