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.
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.
This plan of individual progress should not be disturbing to the worker who has come to a standstill. It is the ideal toward which we must work. It can never be wholly attained, but such a policy will make a vast difference with the prospects of all workers and in the success of industrial organizations.
PROTECT THE INDUSTRIAL SPIRIT.
Industries and the workers should be protected from incompetent managers, investigators and impractical theorists.