Part 2

Five steps there are: (1) Analyze; (2) Plan; (3) Organize; (4) Handle; (5) Supervise. Tackle any job on this basis and follow through. The chances that success will crown your efforts far outweigh the possibilities of failure. At least, approaching a job from these five successive angles should limit the causes of failure to circumstances quite beyond your control.

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FIVE PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT, then. Their skillful application to a business or to a job is the KNACK OF MANAGING.

To do a real bang-up job of managing, whether carrying a message or directing a million-dollar business, the first step is: Don't make a single move until you've found out exactly what needs to be done.

But our first Do turned out to be a Don't. So let's restate it. Find out exactly what has to be done before you make a single move.

You've heard that before? And it doesn't mean a thing?

Neither did it mean a thing to a bright young man who was taken on as production manager in a shoe factory. The shoes were good. Prices were right. Business was booming. The factory was full of orders.

But somehow or other shoes weren't getting shipped on time--or anything like on time. Three to four weeks late came to be the customary thing. And customers were, needless to say, kicking like steers.

So the bright young man was taken on to get things ironed out.

He pitched in with vim and vigor.

The first morning's mail brought a dozen complaints of slow deliveries. People were practically barefoot out in Kansas and Ohio. They were waiting for those shoes.

"Ha!" said the new production manager, "Nous verrons." Which means, even in English, "Now, for what we are about to see, make us truly thankful." And he went away from there to see why those orders weren't out the door.

He was out to prove something. And Providence--Rhode Island--had supplied him with enough ammunition to shoot a manufacturing organization full of holes.

Each order was traced. One was in the shipping room.

"What's holding this up?" he asked the shipping clerk.

"Haven't had time to ship it. And we got other shoes that have been waiting longer than those. It's a feast or a famine down here. Some days we just can't get 'em out."

"You're working short-handed. Get a couple more packers. You've got to get those shoes out. The customers are hollering like hell. Get 'em out!"

He found another order up in the cutting room. But why report the conversation? It varied only in the number of cusswords used. It was always the old story.

"Can't be done."

"Put more people on then. Will two be enough? Or had we better make it three?"

All down the line it went. More people. Costs went up. And did orders get out? Oh, yes, some did. But they got out at the expense of others. There was more congestion than ever. Complaints increased.

Then the big boss called him in--and down--pointed out the increasing costs and asked how come. So the new production manager went back over his trail demanding retrenchment.

"Put 'em on" was changed to "take 'em off."

The big boss tells the rest of the story.

"He had simply jumped in without finding out what it was he had to do. Maybe it was my fault for giving him too much rope.

"Anyway, he hanged himself--or rather we had to fire him. Then we took on a quiet lad who had served his apprenticeship with a large electrical supply house.

"He didn't know a twelve-iron sole from a three-quarter foxing. But he knew plenty about managing, as it turned out.

"I watched him. Things were in a bad way, you see, and getting no better fast. He did nothing much for several days but read his mail. Sat around his office. Didn't make a move to boss anyone. Stuck his nose in here and there to find out what this clerk or that clerk was up to.