Like an army, the department-store of modern America is designed to move constantly forward. The "big-chief" scans his balance sheets, the rise and fall of the curves of his outgo and income averages, the tremendously meaningful jagged red lines of his graphic charts, quite as carefully as the army general keeps track of the movement of his forces upon the maps which his topographists send him. He gathers his officers roundabout him and plans the strategy of business with the same shrewd foresight that must be observed by the successful military leader. He must be a promoter of morale throughout his forces, even down to the newest and the lowest-paid clerk. There must be constant liaison between the general and the private in the ranks.
In considerable detail this parallel can be carried out. Soon, however, it must come to an end. That is, it ends in so far as Macy's is concerned. For the army at Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street is neither an army of offense nor of defense. Its sole position always is upon the front line of service.
At the head of the organization there are the three brother partners who inherited their original interest in the great business from their father, the late Isidor Straus, who, with their mother, lost his life in the supreme catastrophe of the sinking of the Titanic. In 1914 they acquired Nathan Straus' interest by purchase. These men, Jesse Isidor, the president, Percy S., the vice-president, and Herbert N., the secretary and treasurer, are its triple head and front. While each has trained himself to be a merchandise specialist of the highest order, there is none that knows the details of Macy's better than his brothers—they share equally in the supreme authority that directs the business. Directly responsible to them, in turn, is its general manager, its merchandise council and its advertising and financial departments.
As I write these paragraphs, the great chart of the Macy organization lies upon my desk. It is a vast and fascinating thing. With the lines extending upon it here and there and everywhere from the box which holds the triple-head, branching and rebranching here and there and again, it looks not unlike a giant map; a chart, if you prefer to have it so. And so it is, a chart upon which the steersmen of so vast and so responsible an enterprise safely pick their course upon a seemingly unending journey.
"Government by draughting-board," sniffed an old-time business man to me once, when I was trying to explain to him in some detail how a great steel manufacturing plant of the Middle West attempted to accomplish its huge job, economically and efficiently, by the use of graphic charts. And he added: "I'd like to see myself held down by blue-print authority."
To which, after all this while, I should like to reply:
"I should like to see a concern, as big and as successful as Macy's, operated without a careful charting of its always difficult path."
Yet, as a matter of hard fact, Macy's, any more than any other big and well-planned business organism of today, never binds itself to go blindly and unthinkingly upon the lines of the charts—and nowhere else. The real trick of executive direction seems to be to know when to follow these lines and when more or less to completely disregard them. Rule-of-thumb can never again overcome the rules of averages, of percentages or of economic laws. But the rule of wit and of human understanding can ofttimes be used to temper this first group and sometimes with astonishingly successful results.
A glance or two at this imposing organization chart lying before me begins to show the many, many ramifications of the huge Macy business tree. It shows, for instance, how, under the direction of the merchandise council, are four large branches of store activity more or less inter-related: the handling of Macy's own merchandise (meaning particularly that which is either made in the store's own factories or at least made under its direct supervision); the work of the large force of buyers; the comparison department (an important phase of the business to which we shall come in our own good time); and the foreign offices.
In the financial department, the controller is the quite logical chief. His general duties are fairly obvious. To help him in them, he has, under his direction, the chief cashier, the salary office, the auditing department, the depositors' account department—this last a most distinctive Macy feature—and a statistical department.