Industrial Progress and Human EconomicsHartness, James
General
Industrial Progress and Human Economics
Hartness, James
Industrial efficiency; Personnel management
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.
There should be no absentee management. The men who manage must be
in close touch with the work and the workers--not merely through
written or oral reports, but by actual observation.
Travel, study and observation of other connections and work are
necessary, but the home must be with the industrial plant and that
must be the prime interest.
LIMITATIONS OF MAN'S PROGRESS.
It is not contemplated that all men will become managers or
office men. Such positions are not of a kind that is satisfactory
to many of our ablest men. Some are happiest in work in which they
acquire great skill. They are disturbed and made uncomfortable
when required to solve mental problems. Some of the greatest
achievements have been wrought by such men, who have been highly
honored in the past and such men will have more recognition as
time goes on, for we are coming to understand the fact that we
must depend on such men for special ability in the form of skill,
whether it is in the surgery, mechanics, art or any other branch
or division of work or the professions. Such men are not talkers
and do not force themselves into spectacular positions. To say
that there is no progress for the surgeon if he cannot become
manager of the hospital, nor for the skilled worker if he cannot
become manager of the industrial plant, would not be in keeping
with facts for we know that such men have made the greatest
contribution to the world's welfare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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