The immediate end, this time, is to rearrange the pieces so that the job to be done can be done in the most effective way—the way that saves the most effort, the most time, the most money—the way which, in your business—and in yours and YOURS—leads to NET PROFITS.
Again it should be emphasized that NET PROFIT, in any job of managing, is the ultimate goal.
Our danger, then, is that we may find ourselves down on the floor surrounded by our blocks—and with never a trace of a PLAN for rebuilding the house, and rebuilding it in the simplest, most economical way.
In short, we must be sure we are taking things to pieces, not for the sake of taking them to pieces, but purely and simply to find out what has to be done.
Like the golfer who played golf so much in order to keep fit for golf, we have here a good old-fashioned beneficent circle. ANALYSIS without a PLAN isn't worth a whoop in Hades. It's time kissed goodbye. Wasted effort. And, in like manner, a PLAN without an ANALYSIS isn't worth the paper it's typed on.
Psmith in your office is a great "planner". He always has something on the fire. But somehow or other he never quite puts things over. His plans don't get across. Why not? Oh, just because he doesn't bother to analyze his problem—because he sets out to do what has to be done even before he knows what has to be done. He doesn't base his plan upon an actual need.
Pbrown, on the other hand, is a keen analytical thinker. A student. He's a shark at taking things to pieces and finding out what has to be done. But when he's done that, he's all done. He lacks the initiative that starts things moving. He hasn't that divine spark of something or other that gets things done. A stick of dynamite wouldn't do a bit of good. He simply hasn't the knack of building a plan. He knows what has to be done. He doesn't know how to do it.
Psmith and Pbrown—or Pbrown and Psmith—would make a fast team. But Psmith without Pbrown's analytical ability, or Pbrown without Psmith's capacity for planning how to get things done, isn't worth his weight in gold to any business enterprise.
A manufacturer friend tells an amusing yarn about a Pbrown he hired as sales manager.
"He went around analyzing everything from soup to nuts—the gadgets in our line, our markets, our competition, our salesmen.