Part 16

Plenty of managers make that same mistake. They judge the importance of the task by its physical bigness--or by the amount of money involved--instead of deciding according to the character of the work.

Before work can be safely deputized, then, it must be MORE INTELLIGENTLY CLASSIFIED. And the key to better classification is found by dividing the job or business into two elements.

One is ENTERPRISE. The other is ROUTINE.

Enterprise is an arbitrary term which we shall choose to indicate those factors of work which involve the use of judgment, initiative, experiment or speculation.

Routine we shall apply to those factors which follow settled precedents or rules or come within the range of known ability to perform.

Analyze your own job with these two terms in mind. The various duties you perform will fall readily into one or the other of the two classifications.

The things which come under the head of routine you have a right to deputize if, when you chart both classifications--in as accurate a proportion as possible to the capacities of the "principal" and the "deputies"--you find you are not overloading the business with unproductive management. A simple rule of thumb works here about as well as anything: Base the division of work on how much or how little of the routine the principal can afford to carry.

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You may safely deputize only so long as, by so doing, you leave yourself free for the more important, more profitable decisions.

Don't forget for a moment, then--if you would organize effectively--that there is a tremendous difference between enterprise and routine work. Don't waste energy on the one. DON'T DEPUTIZE THE OTHER--unless you can effectively organize a deputy's capacity for doing it, and then only if it pays.

Don't be like the manager who got a taste of the savings to be made through the application of mechanical handling equipment. He bought conveyors--and more conveyors. He was DEPUTIZING the handling job to machines. So far, so good. But the first thing you know he had a 50-ft. conveyor connecting two points in his shipping room. It took one man to load it, another to unload it. Previously one man with a hand truck had moved the packages very nicely, and had a lot of time left over for other duties. And here he needed an extra man--and owned a costly piece of equipment to boot. Under such circumstances the conveyor became very expensive scenery--not nearly so nice to look at as Yellowstone Park or the Riviera--and the money invested in it would have bought a trip to either.

Thus all savings through deputization don't pay. Many a machine will save time and labor, but the interest on the investment, and upkeep and the depreciation will more than eat up the saving--UNLESS THE TIME AND LABOR SAVED CAN BE PROFITABLY TURNED TO SOMETHING ELSE.

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No attempted exposition of the KNACK OF ORGANIZING can be complete without something more than passing mention of a phase which may be all too easily slid over or completed.

When work is deputized, the responsibility of the manager does not end with the act of deputization. It is the manager's responsibility to see that the work is done in the simplest and most effective manner.

A sales executive had allowed a bunch of call reports to accumulate. There were several hundred of them. So he called in a stenographer whose time was hanging fairly heavily on her hands, and asked her to put them into alphabetical order preparatory to filing.

Fifteen minutes later he happened by and was startled to see that she had covered two desks with the call reports and seemed to be making haste very slowly indeed.

She had made a pile for every last letter in the alphabet. And every time she picked up a report, she had to hunt for the proper pile to put it in.

So he showed her how to sort first in five major piles--A, B, C, D in one pile and so on. And then to sort each pile again into five piles, one for each letter--and finally to sort each individual pile alphabetically.

It sounded like more handling. And perhaps it was. But the job of classification was greatly simplified. There was no more hunting for the missing pile. The work proceeded quickly and accurately.

A rough illustration. He might have gone a step further and deputized part of the girl's task to a machine instead of to the primitive system described. That is to say, he might have seen that she was provided with one of the preliminary filing baskets which file clerks often use. Then the task of sorting alphabetically could have been done in a single handling of each report.

But whatever the method he made available for the girl's use, the illustration still serves to indicate that the manager's responsibility does not end when he turns a job over to a subordinate. It remains his care to see that the job is done by the most effective method--not necessarily the speediest, but the one which gets the best results for the effort involved.

To find this "one best" method, industry has evolved a complete technique of time and motion study. And merely to hint at what may be accomplished by breaking down an operation into its elementary operations and observing the time required to perform them, becomes part of our task in setting down the ways and means of organizing.

First we shall find that any job, simple or complex, may be divided into three parts: make ready, do and put away.

Shaving, for example. First we get everything ready--razor, brush, shaving cream, hot water. Then comes the actual operation of shaving. And last, cleaning up--rinsing the brush, wiping the razor, and putting things back where they belong.

Perhaps you're in the same boat as the old farmer who, approached by the subscription salesman of an agricultural magazine, allowed he wa'nt farmin' now half as good as he knew how.

Or perhaps you already hold speed records at giving your face the once-over. But, you see, the whole point in studying the job is not aimed at faster shaving, but at simplifying the "make ready" and "put away" phases of the operation.

For example, the next time you shave, try picking up the tube of shaving cream with one hand and unscrewing the cap while you're wetting your brush with the other. It will be awkward as the dickens the first time you try it. But try it again and again and again. It won't be long before you'll be an expert at doing the job that way. Finish up that part of the operation by screwing the cap back on while you are lathering your face with the right hand. Does it require a stop watch to point out the saving in time that you've made? Oh, it won't be easy the first few times, but before you know it, you'll have taught yourself good work habits.